Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:47
Fresh:44
Rotten:3
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: Featuring bravura set pieces, sly humor, and white-knuckle action, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most consummately entertaining adventure pictures of all time.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: Action-packed and adventure-filled, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is director Steven Spielberg's loving homage to the Saturday matinee cliffhanger serials of his childhood. When the Allies discover the... [More]
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey
Director: Steven Spielberg
Reviews for Raiders of the Lost Ark
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
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The thrills are fully consumed while you’re seeing this movie, and it’s totally over when it’s over. It’s a workout. You feel as if you’d been to the desert digs: at the end your mind is blank, yet you’re parched, you’re puffing hard -- you want relief. Full Review |
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 3.5/4 |
Justifiably one of the most indelible adventure films in cinematic history... Full Review |
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3/4 |
It's the perfect vacation-time movie: not a serious moment in its whole two hours but so crammed with laughter, thrills and cinematic sleight of hand that audiences will be sorry when it's over. Full Review |
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4/4 |
Lost Ark holds up for many reasons, not least of which is because of Spielberg's consummate skill as a visual storyteller and his ability to draw charged performances from his actors. Full Review |
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4/4 |
The postmodern heir to North By Northwest...Like any deathless classic, Raiders is a perfect marriage of star and material. Full Review |
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10/10 |
...despite the fast pace, the movie is never frenetic or tiring, just pure, unadulterated fun throughout. Full Review |
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5/5 |
The most purely fun movie ever made. Full Review |
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4/4 |
...lets us indulge in childish thrills without feeling silly about it. Full Review |
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A- |
Vastly entertaining, Spielberg's adventure herladed a new breed of Hollywood blockbuster (and event film), a tale that combines classic Hollywood story-telling, playful postmodern sensibility and spectacular stunts presented in rapid-fire pacing. Full Review |
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Splendid. Full Review |
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4/4 |
perhaps the greatest adventure movie of all time Full Review |
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...a crackerjack fantasy-adventure that shapes its pulp sensibilities and cliff-hanging serial origins into an exhilarating escapist entertainment that will have broad-cased summer audiences in the palm of its hand. Full Review |
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One would think that a collaboration between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas would produce something better than this giggly pastiche of a Republic serial... Full Review |
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3/4 |
New Hollywood moguls Spielberg and Lucas teamed up to create the first -- and best -- of their extremely popular plunderings of old adventure serials ... In retrospect, it also appears as a precise pop-culture inauguration of Reagan-era retro Americanism. Full Review |
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Whether you swallow it or not, see it for a handful of totally unexpected visual jokes, worth the price of admission alone. Full Review |
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A+ |
Classic action set pieces, Harrison Ford at his swashbuckling best, Old Testament spirituality, and a satiric jab at Nazi anti-Semitism. Full Review |
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4/4 |
This is the kind of movie that, even today, audiences immediately fall in love with. It has all the right ingredients: a smart script, a likable hero, a dash of romance, more than a touch of comedy, and a lot of fast-paced action. Full Review |
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4/4 |
Throughout the film, Spielberg evokes the kind of armchair-clutching action sequences that remind us why they're called motion pictures. Full Review |
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5/5 |
You'd have to be a heathen to argue with the fact that Raiders of the Lost Ark stands as the best action-adventure movie ever made. Full Review |
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5/5 |
No review available.
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