SCENEIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Title Card
FILM FORMAT35mm
YEAR1984
CERTIFICATE IDNFV-000001460
Film RecordPublic record
Directed by
Steven Spielberg
Studio
Paramount Pictures · Lucasfilm · 116 min
Box office
$333.1M worldwide on a $28M budget
Honors
Academy Awards — 1 win, 2 nominationsAll 1 wins · 2 nominations on record
Academy Awards: Best Visual Effects
Scholarship
Named in the title of 3 peer-reviewed works
Examples
9. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: anything goes — Columbia University Press eBooks, 2007
Masculinidades en Indiana Jones and the temple of doom (Spielberg 1984) — Revista de Ciencias de la Comunicación e Información, 2007
The Adventures of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — Sight & sound/Sight and sound, 2004
Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex · Library of Congress. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom arrived in 1984 from Paramount Pictures and Lucasfilm, the second installment in the series Steven Spielberg and George Lucas built around adventure serials of decades past. Directed by Spielberg, it pushed the franchise into darker territory, contributing to the creation of the PG-13 rating in the United States. Its box office success and place within the broader Indiana Jones mythology keep it central to discussions of 1980s studio filmmaking and the collaboration between two of Hollywood's most influential figures.
This cell preserves the opening title card, the frame where audience and film first meet before the story unfolds. Such a card carries the weight of introduction, the moment a viewer's attention settles into the world about to be shown. Collectors seek these pieces for their position at the very threshold of the picture, a fragment untouched by plot yet inseparable from it. As a 35mm artifact, it represents the physical beginning of the reel itself, the first image projected in any theatrical run.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge; spacing appears even and the punched holes appear cleanly cut with no visible tearing.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the bottom edge beside the perforations, appearing as two bilateral variable-area lines.
Edge print
Bottom edge reads, mirrored: 'p p L' — likely a key-number or lab code sequence; no manufacturer name or SAFETY FILM text is legible in this capture.
Base & colour
Base shows a warm golden-amber tint consistent with an acetate safety base; the dye image reads with strong orange-red saturation and no visible fading.
Projection history
No visible scratches, splice marks, or cue marks are seen.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to be the same title-card frame rather than consecutive action frames, and the title matches Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Era check
The bilateral variable-area optical soundtrack and warm acetate base are consistent with a 1984-era theatrical release print, before digital soundtrack formats were introduced.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063304
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
