Movie · 2023 · Adventure, Action · 2h 35m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 1.8/10 (786.9K ratings)
A legend will face his destiny.
Overview
Finding himself in a new era, and approaching retirement, Indy wrestles with fitting into a world that seems to have outgrown him. But as the tentacles of an all-too-familiar evil return in the form of an old rival, Indy must don his hat and pick up his whip once more to make sure an ancient and powerful artifact doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.8/10
IMDb: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 2.90/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 71%
Metacritic: 58
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
James Mangold
Production
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Cast
Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Olivier Richters, Ethann Isidore, Toby Jones, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Martin McDougall, Alaa Safi, Francis Chapman, Alfonso Rosario Mandia, Chase Brown, Nasser Memarzia, Amedeo Bianchimano, Anna Francolini
Where to watch
Disney Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A polished, sometimes wistful adventure that benefits from Harrison Ford’s commitment and a few lively set pieces, but it lacks the spark, visual invention, and emotional inevitability of the best Indiana Jones films. It works more as a farewell than as a must-see sequel.
Best for
fans of legacy sequels and franchise sendoffs
viewers who want old-school adventure with a melancholy edge
audiences who enjoy Harrison Ford’s late-career gravitas
people open to a decent but not essential blockbuster
Skip if
you want the original trilogy’s peak Spielberg energy
you’re tired of nostalgia-driven franchise epilogues
you need a tightly paced, consistently thrilling adventure
you dislike films that lean on sentiment and continuity
Overview
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a movie about time in more ways than one. It gives Harrison Ford one last pass at the character with enough bruised charm to make the farewell feel earned, and it occasionally finds a nice rhythm in its chase scenes and globe-trotting detours. The opening stretch and a few later action beats remind you why this series mattered in the first place.
Worth noting
But the film also feels burdened by the job of justifying its own existence. The plot is busy, the villains are functional rather than memorable, and the movie rarely achieves the nimble, playful confidence that made the classics so durable. It’s competent where the originals were electric.
Bottom line
Still, there’s a genuine melancholy running underneath the spectacle, and that gives the film more personality than a lot of modern franchise fare. If you come for closure rather than exhilaration, it lands better than its reputation suggests. If you come hoping for a true return to form, it will probably feel like a respectable imitation of a much greater adventure.
Top Letterboxd reviews
James (Schaffrillas) (1.5★) · 6689 likes
A near-inconceivable trainwreck. I went in morbidly curious if it was slightly better or worse than Crystal Skull, and instead I got something whose closest kin is Rise of Skywalker, undoing nearly everything from its controversial predecessor but forgetting to fill the gaping hole at its center with anything meaningful or worthwhile.
Boring sidekicks, buffoonish villains who teleport to wherever the plot needs them to be, a complete lack of visual style, trite dialogue outside of a single good one-liner… more
Karsten (2.5★) · 5628 likes
harrison ford is one of the oldest guys
Matt Singer (3★) · 5321 likes
I really liked how this movie used Shia LaBeouf’s character.
Ella Kemp (3.5★) · 4658 likes
Mads on Hitler: "I could fix him 🥺"
Patrick Willems (2.5★) · 4170 likes
I didn’t have a bad time but I will also probably never watch this again and forget everything about it by the end of the week
2022 · Action, Adventure, Comedy · 1h 52m · PG-13 · Curator 1.5/10 (530.1K ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Netflix Standard with Ads
A contemporary, knowingly comic adventure that mixes romance, action, and treasure-hunt chaos.