If there is one word to describe most of the Indiana Jones films, it would be “nostalgic.” The series was originally conceived to recall the adventure serials of the 1930s and ‘40s with their swashbuckling epics and cliffhanger endings. Over the years, this nostalgia for the past has only become more powerful, to the point where 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny seemed nostalgic for Indy himself. However, one installment has always remained an outlier. Released 40 years ago on May 23, 1984, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom rejected nostalgia for something darker, and in the process it not only changed the franchise but the course of Hollywood history as well.
