Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford)’s Timeline and Summary
- Indy arrives in deepest, darkest Peru to claim an ancient idol worshiped by local natives.
- He evades a half-dozen seriously dangerous traps to get the idol, only to find arch-rival Belloq and a crowd of angry natives waiting for him.
- He heads back to his day job: teaching archaeology to a classroom full of besotted girls.
- A pair of Army Intelligence agents approaches him about finding the Ark of the Covenant before the most evil human beings in the history of the universe get their goose-stepping hands on it.
- He heads off to Nepal to find the girl he once emotionally crushed and the medallion she carries that can lead the way to the Ark.
- Indy and Marion head to Cairo, where they recruit his old buddy, Sallah, to help them against the Nazis.
- Disguising himself as an Arab (and giving him a chance to change out of clothes that he seems to have been wearing for weeks), Indy makes his way to the Germans' dig, where the map room of Tanis can be found.
- He pops the medallion on the staff of Ra and watches the sunlight show him exactly where he needs to go.
- On the way out, he bumps into Marion—now a prisoner of the Nazis—but decides to leave her there so they won't get suspicious. In other news, Indiana Jones can seriously be a jerk sometimes.
- Later that night, they uncover the Well of Souls, full of poisonous snakes and one very ominous religious artifact.
- Sallah climbs back up first, then Indy watches while the rope slips down. Belloq and the Germans are here, ready to take the Ark and bury Indy and Marion alive.
- Nevertheless, they find a way out by knocking a giant statue through a nearby wall and fighting off some seriously manky mummies to climb back into the sun again.
- Indy keeps chasing the Ark as a Nazi convoy carries it away. Because he has more daring than sense, apparently.
- Being Indy, he somehow commandeers the truck and brings the Ark to a ship for transport.
- The Nazis intercept the ship on the high seas and nab Marion and the Ark. Indy hides in a porthole to avoid being seen.
- He swims to the Nazi U-boat and hangs onto the side as the ship arrives at a mysterious Nazi base.
- He follows the Nazis up a canyon, where they plan to open the Ark, then threatens to blow it up with a rocket launcher.
- Belloq calls his bluff, and Indy ends up tied up next to Marion while the Nazis open the Ark.
- God steps in for the save, blasting the Nazis to atoms while Indy and Marion shut their eyes tightly.
- Indy takes the Ark back to Washington, but is seriously cranky when the government won't tell him where they put it.
- He consoles himself by letting Marion buy him a drink. Their friendship—and maybe a little more—has been repaired.