The Ten Commandments(1956)/Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Somewhat obvious choice. They're about the same MacGuffin.
Ten Commandments becomes essentially a 3-hour Sunday school refresher. Its the back-story/elaboration of the quick dialogue scene with the military intelligence agents in Raiders.
Raiders even references DeMille's movie in the opening of the Well of Souls scene as it has the clouds backdrop effect.
Alt. Title: Lawrence Of Arabia as Spielberg has stated at times it's his favorite movie and you can see the influence on Raiders particularly in the desert scenes.
The African Queen/Temple Of Doom
Could've picked two other Bogart movies to double feature with an Indy movie. But those would've been too obvious, as would have
Gunga Din which some have accused TOD of plagiarizing. The African Queen is set in the Jungle, thus it would fit well with Temple than the desert-set Indy movies. And given The African Queen is primarily a romance, it also would fit Doom I feel as for as loved as Marion is, Indy has much more screen time with Willie than he does Marion, even if Katherine Hepburn is clearly more a Marion Ravenwood than a Willie Scott. Plus both movies have the Disneyland connection, watching them back to back would be an "Adventureland experience"!
Monty Python And The Holy Grail/Last Crusade
Same MacGuffin of course, and being Last Crusade is funnier/sillier than the two previous movies, lumping it would a comedy makes sense, even if Last Crusade ultimately is more dramatic and emotional in comparison to Monty Python which is 100% farce.
Alt Title: Maybe a Sean Connery movie? The Man Who Would Be King perhaps?
Kingdom of The Crystal Skull/The Fabelmans
As I explained in my
The Fabelmans post, the first half of Crystal Skull is a precursor to Spielberg's acclaimed biography, as all the 50s set pieces are essentially Spielberg nostalgizing his childhood. This passion is perhaps why it's a popular consensus that the first half of
Crystal Skull is stronger than the 2nd half. The cafe is even called "Arnie's Cafe" a reference to both of Spielberg's parents(named after his father, while his mother ran a restaurant at one point). One can even understand why Spielberg was so adamant/enthusiastic about casting Shia LaBeouf as ultimately he almost certainly reminded The Bearded One of himself as a young adolescent.
Alt Title: Any number of B sci-fi movies from the 50s or adventure films the decade. Maybe
The Naked Jungle? George Pal's The War Of The Worlds?
Dial Of Destiny/Constantine
I've actually never have seen Constantine, but a buddy of mine informed me that the object of that movie is The Lance of Longinus, which makes it a good double feature as any I suppose.
Honestly I have a hard time thinking of a good double feature title to go with Dial of Destiny, as it's fairly unique among action blockbusters to star a 79-year-old lead. There's time travel, but not until the very end, putting it with a time travel movie like Back to the Future or Time After Time would feel wrong. Logan if a film many compare Dial Of Destiny to, but DoD is nowhere near as dour or depressing(thank god for that). Tone of both together might be off.
Maybe for a James Mangold pic, Oliver & Company. They're both Disney films with Mangold's involvement with eerily similar NYC subway chases scenes.
