Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action–adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise and a prequel to the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Ford reprising his role as the title character. After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practising child slavery, black magic and ritualistic human sacrifice in honour of the goddess Kali.

Executive producer and co-writer George Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains again. After three rejected plot devices, Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the film’s final storyline. Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas’ collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned down the offer to write the script, and Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were hired as his replacements, with the screenplay partly based upon the 1939 film Gunga Din.

The film was released to financial success but initial reviews were mixed, criticizing its dark tone. However, critical opinion has improved since 1984, citing the film’s intensity and imagination. In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about Gremlins, Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system, which it did within two months of the film’s release, creating a new PG-13 rating.

Released to the cinemas in the USA on May 23, 1984, the film was followed by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989.