The Indiana Jones villains range from mildly menacing to diabolical, and each one is as memorable as the ancient artifact they're trying to get their hands on. Globe-trotting archaeologist Professor Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) has faced being hunted by Nazis and survived violent cults, and even though he's occasionally found himself coming up against the spectral and the supernatural, it's always been the human antagonists that have given him the most trouble. Greed and avarice rather than knowledge and compassion drive them, whether they want fame and notoriety like René Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark or immortality like Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
The most popular and well-received film in the Indiana Jones movie franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark follows Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones in a race against Nazi forces to recover the famed Ark of the Covenant. Aided by his former lover, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy must work to keep the Nazis, led by Dr. Rene Belloq, from obtaining the Ark and thus becoming recipients of its power. The film is widely regarded as one of the all-time greatest movies ever made.
While most of Indy's rogue gallery has a desire for power, some of the villains he encounters just want to get paid for their services. The minor villains he faces may not have impressive motivations but neither do they have delusions of grandeur, and often prove that in the end, it boils down to what Indy tells Short Round - everyone's in it for fortune and glory. After everything we know about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny as it closes out the franchise, it's the perfect time to look back on all the singular adversaries Indy has faced over the years.
12 Satipo
In one of his earliest roles, Alfred Molina plays Satipo, Indy's guide into the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors. Satipo lured adventurers just like Indy into the jungles of Peru and Columbia with the intent of later killing them for their valuables, and he thought he'd hit the jackpot after Indy successfully retrieved the Fertility Idol, but he got his comeuppance with poison spikes after leaving Jones to fall into a chasm. Though a minor antagonist, Molina's nefarious performance remains highly memorable - Adios, señor.
11 Antonin Dovchenko
While he was regarded as a national hero to the Soviet Special Forces he commanded, Antonin Dovchenko (Igor Jijikine) was just another greedy man in a uniform to Indy. Serving under Colonel Irina Spalko, he led a team to find the Crystal Skull of Akator in order to use its psychic powers to brainwash the American military during the Cold War and proceed to victory. Indy fought Dovchenko in Nevada and then again in South America, where he had the distinction of suffering one of the most gruesome deaths in the Indiana Jones franchise when he was eaten by siafu "fire" ants.
10 Chattar Lal
Veteran character actor Roshan Seth played the Prime Minister of Pankot in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, an obsequious man with the Maharaja's ear who later became a villain. Little did Indy know upon arrival in the palace that Lal was secretly a member of the Thuggee cult, and helped facilitate human sacrifice to Kali Ma by drugging the young Maharaja and diverting suspicion. Urbane and charming, he was a different sort of Right Hand than other secondary antagonists in the franchise, and had Indy not been searching for the Sankara Stones, he might have never been caught (though Indy never kills the main villains in his films).
9 Lao Che
A powerful crime lord in Shanghai and the owner of the luxurious Club Obi Wan, Lao Che (Roy Chiao) rubbed elbows with Shanghai's wealthy elite. Che commissioned Indy to secure the ashes of Nurhachi, the first emperor of the Manchu Dynasty, in exchange for the highly valuable Eye of the Peacock diamond. Che had backup plans for his backup plans, and when he failed to poison Indy and walk away from their deal with both the urn of royal ashes and the diamond, he had another ace of his sleeve; Indy escaped China aboard a Lao Che Air Freight plane, flown by one of Che's pilots.
8 Colonel Dietrich
Colonel Herman Dietrich (Wolf Kahler) was the commanding officer in charge of the Nazi expedition to find the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He didn't share René Belloq's sentimentality about the artifact, merely wanting to succeed in his mission to bring it to Adolf Hitler, which was constantly interrupted by the efforts of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood. When he and Belloq finally did manage to retrieve the Ark and gaze upon its contents for themselves, Colonel Dietrich was terrified by the Angel of Death before his head exploded from the Ark's powers, a poetic punishment for his blind arrogance and conceit.
7 Ernst Vogel
Ernst Vogel (Michael Byrne) was a Colonel in the SS-Leibstandarte who conspired with Elsa Schneider to acquire the Holy Grail for Adolf Hitler. Vogel succeeded in retrieving the Grail diary from Henry Jones Sr. and used it to find the Temple of the Sun where the Templar Knights guarded the famed chalice. Ruthless and conniving, Vogel is a Nazi officer through and through, but his flair for the dramatic as well as the comical, is what set him apart from other similar villains, particularly during the interrogation scene at Castle Brunwald.
6 Walter Donovan
Originally Indy's client in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Walter Donovan became his ultimate nemesis when he double-crossed the archaeologist to find the Cup of Christ. Portrayed as a gentlemanly lover of rare antiquities by Julian Glover, Donovan's polite manners belied his inner wickedness, giving him an almost reptilian charm that he used to completely catch Indy and his father by surprise. In many ways, he represented the dark side of Indy's business and of humanity, ironically dressed all in white.
5 Elsa Schneider
One of the most devious villains to ever cross paths with Indiana Jones, Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) wormed her way into his heart with her intelligence and beauty. She played a convincing femme fatale when her room was ransacked in Venice, and a damsel in distress in Germany when Ernst Vogel threatened to kill her, all the while secretly scheming with Walter Donovan to get her hands on the Holy Grail for its promise of immortality. Like Donovan, her greed and lust for power proved to be her undoing.
4 Irina Spalko
Obsessed with using psychic powers to discern her enemy's secrets and reinterpret history for the Soviet Union, Doctor Irina Spalko pursued the Crystal Skull of Akator to the ends of the earth. Tasked by Joseph Stalin himself with finding the artifact for psychic warfare, she would stop at nothing to beat Indiana Jones to its location and learn its secrets. Cate Blanchett portrayed the Soviet Agent with elegant deadliness and set herself apart from other villains by her pursuit of the intellectual and the mystical, rather than simply money and fame.
3 Major Arnold Toht
One of the most memorably abhorrent antagonists Indy ever faced, Major Arnold Toht worked alongside Colonel Deitrich and René Belloq to find the Ark of the Covenant for Adolf Hitler in Raiders of the Lost Ark. A Nazi Gestapo agent specializing in torture, he was used to inflicting his victims with considerable pain, which is perhaps why he could withstand so much himself. Ronald Lacey imbued Toht with both charisma and repugnance, making him one of the most recognizable faces of villainy in the franchise, which was so justifiably melted off.
2 Mola Ram
The high priest of the revived Thuggee Cult, Mola Ram devoted his life to Kali Ma beneath the Pankot Palace. Having learned about the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma from his father, also a high priest in the Thuggee cult before the British tried to exterminate it, Mola Ram sought the Sankara Stones in an effort to make Kali Ma corporeal on earth and destroy all who opposed her reign. Mola Ram was one of the few villains to suggest that magic existed in the Indiana Jones franchise, and when portrayed by the eccentric Amrish Puri, made a true believer out of fans.
1 René Belloq
While many of the villains Indy faces are terrifying physically or spiritually, René Belloq represents the other side of the archaeologist himself, making him the most formidable foe Jones has ever gone up against. Played with relish by Paul Freeman in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he's Indy if he didn't have any morals or qualms and thought nothing of selling any artifact he found to the highest bidder rather than give it to a museum. Like Professor Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes, Belloq is Jones' intellectual and physical equal, with a different perspective on the pursuit of archeology, but the same love of adventure.