When you close your eyes and imagine an adventure movie...
What do you see? (We see you on our adventures…but we will get to that later!)
We do one of those movie-worthy “backward leans” into our chairs and get that 1000-yard stare off into the distance. You know the type, the kind where you’re in such deep thought that you almost see yourself being way too serious from the outside in. Haha! And then it hit us. The Goonies. Our first exposure to the idea of treasure hunting was steeped in the EPIC and glorious cinematic adventure titled, The Goonies. What can we say. If you have seen the movie, could you possibly disagree with us? A group of friends finds an old pirate treasure map, go underground while being chased by “the bad guys”, and ultimately find a pirate ship and treasure. That is the axiom of treasure hunting! So as children we soaked that in and never let go. We look at the world as if it is a treasure hunt 23/7/365. But did anyone else wonder why they let the ship sail off at the end, and nobody followed it? Come on people, there were millions of dollars in treasure on that ship! DID YOU KNOW: that was an actual real wooden pirate ship and after filming, it was offered to anyone who wanted it for free and NOBODY TOOK IT so it was SCRAPPED! Ughhhhhhhhh!
There are few things that have managed to stay relevant over all time and eternity more than TREASURE HUNTING. Searching for mystical, magical, and historical items of intrinsic and monetary value have been the basis for almost every single major moment in history. Wars, religion, power, control; all have been influenced by the search for treasure.
The Templar Knights traveled from land to land searching for treasure, which we believe ultimately ended up in the secret tunnels underneath Washington DC. Haha! We have personally been in those tunnels but to be honest, we didn’t see any treasure. (Obviously they wouldn’t let us see that!) But it is the mere glimpse of excitement you just felt imagining those tunnels exist that fuels our adventurous excitement. Imagining all that treasure is still missing to this day, and all it would take is your luck of finding it on a TREASURE HUNT. That excitement and ambition is inherent in every one of us. Generally, we look to Hollywood to satisfy our longing for travels and adventure and treasure. We created a list of movies that has motivated us to create The Secret Tours. Each member of our team has watched every one of these movies several times each. When people ask to join our merry band of adventurers, we tell them they are required to watch ALL of these films first too. Scan through the list. Pause at the end of the list. Ponder if you FEEL the need to be a part of your own adventure.
The Secret Tours TOP 33 Treasure Hunt Movies of All Time:
How many TOP 33 lists are there (HAHA!)? They are in order from oldest to newest.
Each title can be clicked to scroll down to it faster.
- Treasure Island (1950)
- King Solomon’s Mines (1950)
- Treasure Island (1972)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
- Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom (1984)
- Romancing the Stone (1984)
- The Jewel of the Nile (1985)
- King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
- The Goonies (1985)
- Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
- Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
- The Mummy (1999)
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life (2003)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
- National Treasure 1 (2004)
- Without a Paddle (2004)
- Sahara (2005)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
- National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)
- Fool’s Gold (2008)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
- Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls (2008)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
- Treasure Island (2012)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Did you imagine it? Could you see yourself starting your travels, searching for your treasure, and the epic moment when you found it? We can too. Like we said, it is just inherent in all of us. Sometimes it just need to be awoke from deep inside us.
#1
Treasure Island (1950)
#2
King Solomon's Mines (1950)
#3
Treasure Island (1972)
#4
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
#5
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
And then Harrison Ford came along and the Indiana Jones Legacy began…who knew it would be the adventure series of a lifetime!
#6
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
#7
Romancing the Stone (1984)
Okay Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner…we see you breaking into the game…
#8
The Jewel of the Nile (1985)
#9
King Solomon's Mines (1985)
This was Sharon Stone’s 5th movie out of 65 movies she would star in over her career. You might have heard of a few of them…Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Action Jackson, Casino, Antz, and Catwoman. She also starred in 22 television shows…any of these ring a bell: Silver Spoons, Remington Steele, Magnum PI, Roseanne, and Will and Grace. We feel that these adventure movies are what made her so well known back in the beginning, even though it scored her a “Worst Actress” Award!
#10
The Goonies (1985)
Three adventure movies were released in 1985….but NO MOVIE EVER-EVER-EVER can compare with The Goonies. This one gets two trailers because it deserves to be loved and revered and appreciated! HAHA!
#11
Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
There is the ever cute Sharon Stone…and yes, this is another movie where she earned a “Worst Actress” award.
#12
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
We never pass this one up if we see it playing on TV. There is something about imagining all of these events actually taking place in the middle of everything else that was happening in the world.
#13
The Mummy (1999)
WOW! We went 10 years without a solid adventure movie??? Enter Brendan Fraser into the Adventure Movie Mix…
#14
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Angelina Jolie took the world by storm…literally exploding onto the scene as Lara Croft…wielding two HUGE Pistols and taking adventure movies to a whole new level.
#15
The Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Lord of the Rings is by far the most glorious book trilogy to ever have existed… and the movies were pretty spot on in their interpretation of that J.R. Tolkien would have wanted to see on the big screen. This is another one we don’t pass up when it is on TV.
#16
The Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers (2002)
A whole year was a LONG-LONG-LONG time to wait for the next movie to come out!
#17
The Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King (2003)
Same here…way too long to wait for the conclusion of the trilogy. Can you imagine if J.R. Tolkien had released his books with years in between?
#18
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
Angelina absolutely killing it again in the Adventure Game…
#19
Pirates of the Caribbean:
The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Johnny Depp…and so it began! The insane blow-up HIT that took the world by storm. The Pirates of the Caribbean anthology has been stellar from movie #1. The music has been hummed by 8-trillion people worldwide!
#20 EPIC
National Treasure (2004)
And then this happened and changed the game completely. This is our ultimate, number 1, complete, top adventure movie of all time. Of course people have all kinds of gripes about the movie and Nicolas C. We don’t care. This hits all of the checkboxes! Traveling through the history of the United States and all of the awesome secrets is always a winner. We have been in the secret tunnels underneath the Monuments so we can tell you from experience…there are TONS of secrets out there! (Gripes are problems)
#21
Without a Paddle (2004)
More of a comedy than a treasure hunt…we figured we would give them some love since it was a flop. HAHA!
#22
Sahara (2005)
It’s almost like they read our mind and brought in the “RIGHT” people to make a new adventure movie. All right all right all right. Matthew McConoughey is perfect in every single thing he has ever been in…arguably…but for sure in Sahara!
#23
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
#24
pirates of the Caribbean
At World's End (2007)
#25
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (2007)
This is another one of our all-time favorites. We will agree…it was NOT better than National Treasure (2004).
We saw this on The You-T and about freaked out…and then saw fan-made and our bubble burst…our balloon deflated…our sunrise turned into sunset. Let’s start up a petition to get National Treasure 3 in the works!!! Maybe we can collaborate here in the comments and make up a storyline together and pitch it to Jerry Bruckheimer himself. We do NOT appreciate Fan-Made Trailers killing our buzz, but this one was awesome! HAHA!
#26
Fool's Gold (2008)
Like we said earlier, anything with Matthew McConaughey and we are SOLD. But you add in Kate Hudson and we are handing over our life-savings. These two are MAGIC on the screen and they were awesome together in this Treasure Hunting Adventure!
#27
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
We were “eh” about this one…of course it is an Indiana Jones movie so it’s an instant EPIC classic, but going down the aliens path was a departure from the treasure hunting movies that preceded it. They tried to bring over Shia LeBeouf to carry the torch, but it seems like that fizzled out?
#28
Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls (2008)
Trying to release a movie with “Skulls” in it the same year as Indiana Jones and The Temple of the Crystal Skulls was their first mistake. Their second mistake? This trailer. You have to watch this trailer just to learn how COMPLETELY AWFUL a trailer can be. This trailer actually makes ZERO SENSE! We are so serious. Watch it and see!
#29
Pirates of the Caribbean: On stranger Tides (2011)
This is WAY better than the real trailer…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
#30
Treasure Island (2012)
Pirates always have a LOT of eyeliner…yeah?
#31
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The absolute pinnacle of adventure… The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will never be eclipsed for what they are! Absolute perfection!
#32
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
They always make us wait a year…
#33
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
It’s been four years since our last adventure movie! What the heck were we doing during those four years? How did we survive?
That's a wrap...
We hope you liked our TOP 10 GUIDE of the best adventure movies of all time. Add comments below to let us know what you think and to ask us to add new movies to the list. We are sure this is an organic list that will grow over time and when you, our Secret Tours Crew, share more adventure movies with us. If we agree with you, we will clearly share your name and social media info in the description of the new movies! Into the Blue? The Librarian? We will let you hit us with your best shot and earn your spot on our Top 10 Guide!
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Are you ready for an adventure of a lifetime in Joshua Tree, Californ a? Take a look at our Real-Life and Virtual Tours We offer a self-guided, app-based, self-paced touring system where we turn YOU into the expert tour guide. If you are just going to visit Joshua Tree and wing it, take a look at our TOP 10 GUIDE of places to stay while you visit and our TOP 10 GUIDE to the most photo-worthy locations INSIDE THE PARK and OUTSIDE THE PARK Yes, those are two separate TOP 10 GUIDES. And you absolutely, 1-million percent, MUST use our COMPLETE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK We show you every single possible stop inside the Park so you can plan your day and make sure you see what YOU choose to see! And of course, 1-zillion percent, you need our FREE Spotify JOSHUA TREE MUSIC PLAYLIST to listen to as you drive in and around the desert!
