20 Best Movies Like National Treasure

Through all of Disney's attempts at using mid-budget, live-action films to capture the same all-ages audience their animated films had achieved, none are quite as memorable as the "National Treasure" duology. Beginning with the first film in 2004, the plot of this treasure hunting family thriller was so out there that even star Nicolas Cage had to scratch his head. About 15 years later, his serious, steely proclamation that he has to steal the Declaration of Independence has gone down as one of the most iconic moments of his career.

It's startling to realize that fans who originally saw the film in theaters are now old enough to potentially have kids of their own, creating a new generation of Cage-heads one national incident at a time. Since we're probably never getting that third film in the series, we've compiled a list of our favorite films like "National Treasure" to help fans young and old keep the adventure going as long as possible.

For at least one of the films he made earlier in his career, "National Treasure" probably wouldn't exist without Steven Spielberg. But before we can go all the way back to the '80s to "recommend" a culturally ubiquitous, undisputed classic readers have almost definitely seen at least once in their lives, we'd like to point your attention toward one of his more underrated films.

Produced with "Lord of the Rings" godfather Peter Jackson and future Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, "The Adventures of Tintin" is a majestic animated adventure that nourishes the soul and imagination as one. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis bring the stars of the French comic book series to life, taking them on an adventure to find the gargantuan treasure of a lost sea vessel.

Using cutting-edge motion capture technology, the filmmakers were able to create a bright cinematic world unrestrained by real-world physics yet populated fully embodied human performances. There isn't another movie that feels like it — and there may never be, given that it wasn't seen by enough people to warrant a sequel.

No other film is as close of a match to the tone, setting, and plot of the "National Treasure" films as "The Da Vinci Code." Based on Dan Brown's bestselling novel of the same name, the 2006 Ron Howard film stars Tom Hanks as Professor Robert Langdon, the world's preeminent religious symbologist who finds himself implicated in the murder of a Louvre museum curator connected to a secret organization. To prove his innocence and unmask the true killer, he must use his knowledge of symbols, history, and Leonardo Da Vinci to track down the lost Holy Grail of Christ's last supper.

The film is a true love or hate affair, with Hanks himself all but disowning the trilogy as fun, necessary commercial filmmaking that had little historical substance to offer viewers. Nevertheless, it simply is the adult "National Treasure" some readers will be absolutely swept away by, maybe even enough to give "Angels and Demons" and "Inferno" a chance as well.

When it comes to determining its target audience, "Dora and the Lost City of Gold" is a hard film to place. On the one hand, it's decidedly a PG-rated adventure film that is not only way more entertaining than it has any right to be but would be perfect for newer, younger fans of the "National Treasure" series to enjoy. On the other hand, a fair amount of its setting, sense of humor, and overall appeal is tailor-made for older audiences who grew up with the animated series. Then again, that could make it the kind of movie both you and your kids enjoy equally.

This live-action film features an older version Dora (played by future "Superman" star Isabela Merced) who is suddenly sent to live a "normal" life in Los Angeles after being raised by two treasure hunters in the jungles of Peru. When she and her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) are kidnapped by mercenaries collaborating with Swiper (yes, a literal masked fox voiced by Benicio del Toro), they must finish her parent's search for the lost city of gold.

Readers intrigued by a treasure-hunting film with a romantic comedy twist will be absolutely smitten with "Fool's Gold." A forgotten classic of the treasure-hunting subgenre, it stars Kate Hudson and a pre-"True Detective" Matthew McConaughey (both in top rom-com form in 2008) as former husband and wife treasure hunters attempting to overcome an acrimonious divorce to pursue a $500 million payday. Hudson's Tess is an academic and aspiring writer who has been all but financially ruined by her ex-husband's schemes — McConaughey's Finn, meanwhile, is a thoughtless man of action whose impressive luck overshadows how much he needs his ex-wife.

It isn't a revolutionary film by any means, and readers looking for unpredictability in their media diet can likely guess where the story is headed by the two-sentence synopsis alone. But true rom-com fans know that, sometimes, the whole point of the genre is the amusing comfort of knowing that all the danger, tension, and misadventure will ultimately lead to a happily ever after of some kind.

Admittedly, our next pick deviates from "National Treasure" in such a major way that some readers may want to just keep scrolling — for everyone else, it could be the perfect, bloody follow up for adults who grew up with (and out of) the "National Treasure" movies. Released in 2014, "As Above, So Below" is a found footage horror movie that folds in elements of a treasure hunt/archaeological quest based in real history. Perdita Weeks ("Magnum P.I."), Ben Feldman ("Superstore"), and Edwin Hodge ("The Purge") play a crew of academics who break into a forbidden area of the Catacombs in Paris, France. As they wander the skull-lined mass grave in search of the philosopher's stone, they experience unexplainable supernatural phenomena that draws them closer to Hell itself.

"As Above, So Below" is a horrifically underrated movie that stands out from the broader found footage subgenre, subverting tropes and expectations in a way that fans of Zach Cregger's "Barbarian" will especially appreciate. Despite negative contemporary reviews, we're still holding out hope that its box office haul and newfound cult following will eventually unearth a sequel.

If you watched "National Treasure" with a young person in your life and are looking for another treasure hunt adventure that's appropriate for their age group — but perhaps a bit more nostalgic for you — you can't do better than "The Goonies." From a legendary creative team of top-tier all-ages storytellers that includes director Richard Donner, screenwriter Chris Columbus, and producer Steven Spielberg, "The Goonies" is a hilarious and heartwarming romp that follows a group of kids trying to save their community by hunting for the lost treasure of the pirate One-Eyed Willy.

The exceptional young ensemble of characters features several actors who would go on to star in major films, including future "Lord of the Rings" star Sean Astin, Ke Huy Quan of "Everything Everywhere All at Once," and Josh Brolin. Since its release in 1985, "The Goonies" has maintained a reputation as one of the greatest films ever made for young audiences, with new fans discovering it for the first time on streamers like HBO Max.

There are a few names that will pop up multiple times on this list, for the most part because they did some of their best work within the adventure genre in the 2000s. It's impossible to talk about the films of that era without tipping your hat to Brendan Fraser, whose turn in another supernatural adventure film (that also made the cut for this very list) made him one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood at the time.

This eventually led him to a starring role in "Journey to the Center of the Earth," a 2008 film very, very loosely based on the classic Jules Verne novel. Fraser plays Professor Trevor Anderson, a volcanologist who travels to Iceland in search of his long lost brother, only to stumble upon a world of scientific wonder and danger hidden inside the depths of the planet. Along for the journey are his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) and Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem), a friend of Trevor's brother who believes Verne's novel may hold the key to Earth's greatest secret. In 2012, Hutcherson returned for a sequel without Fraser titled "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," starring opposite Dwayne Johnson instead.

Speaking of The Rock, Dwayne Johnson has been instrumental in bringing back the adventure film for modern moviegoing audiences through projects like 2017's "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" (which was a bit too video-gamey to earn a spot on this list) and 2021's "Jungle Cruise." In the latter film, he stars as Frank Wolff, a steamboat captain and explorer who Emily Blunt's Dr. Lily Houghton and her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) through the Amazon on a quest for a magical tree.

"Jungle Cruise" sailed under the radar when it was first released largely due to the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. With so much content competing for attention on streaming, it was easy to dismiss as a decent but derivative adventure that very clearly aspired to set sail as Disney's next "Pirates of the Caribbean." In hindsight, it's one of Johnson's better early-2020s films, as well as lively, harmless romp that would excite younger viewers who appreciate fantastical action set-pieces and/or have just begun to age out of "National Treasure."

One of the earlier signs that films like "Anyone But You" could revive the romantic comedy at the box office, 2022's "The Lost City" was a surprise financial hit that spun screwball comedy and himbo charm into the greatest, goofiest cinematic adventure of the year. It's a clear and unapologetic throwback to another film we'll discuss further down. Sandra Bullock stars as Loretta Sage, a beloved romance novelist who is abducted by a deranged billionaire fan (Daniel Radcliffe, giving deliberate Tim Curry and Alan Cumming vibes) convinced of her ability to discover a real treasure on a remote island.

Unfortunately for Loretta, the only hero coming to save her from her predicament is the one she created, more or less. Channing Tatum plays Alan, a hapless but good-hearted model who appears on the covers of Loretta's novels. Devoted to her and eager to prove that he can be every bit as heroic as the swashbuckling lover in her stories, Alan daringly joins her in the jungle, the two making a hilariously unconvincing pair of treasure hunters you can't help but fall in love with.

Best known to casual moviegoers as the film that everyone rushed to after a then-unknown Tom Holland was cast as Spider-Man in "Captain America: Civil War," James Gray's deeply personal historical epic "The Lost City of Z" is a slow but rewarding trek through human adversity rooted in an entrancing legend about a lost city in the heart of the Amazon. After Brad Pitt dropped out of the film (presumably when he realized it wasn't a sequel to "World War Z"), "Sons of Anarchy" star Charlie Hunnam stepped in to play Percy Fawcett, a real British soldier and explorer who became obsessed with the lost city at the beginning of the 20th century.

Though Hunnam carries the film's decade-spanning story on his back with an impressive and underseen performance (despite strong reviews, the film was a decisive box office bomb), he is joined by Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Angus Macfadyen, and, of course, Holland, who plays Percy's son Jack. The work of the cast and Gray's careful, patient filmmaking give "National Treasure" fans a follow-up that asks bigger questions about humanity's need for constant discovery.

Then again, who needs to contemplate big questions when you can watch Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz fight the undead with bullets, sarcasm, and dangerous levels of charisma? It's been over a quarter of a century since "The Mummy" remixed the sand-soaked, gruff adventurism of "Indiana Jones" and combined it with an overtly supernatural story, leading to a $400 million box office haul that Universal is still trying to replicate.

The 1999 film is essentially "Raiders of the Lost Ark," if the plot began in earnest after the Ark of the Covenant was opened, leaving our heroes to deal with the direct fallout of history hitting back. Fraser's Rick O'Connell is the quintessential devil-may-care treasure hunter, coerced into leading a group of ill-fated explorers toward an ancient artifact of untold evil. When they finally do unleash its power, the cursed corpse of the Egyptian priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) returns from his slumber to assert his dominance over the world. It's a ridiculously fun movie (with two fairly even sequels), the likes of which we hardly get to see in theaters anymore.

Before he began working on "Stranger Things," "Free Guy," "Deadpool and Wolverine," and the upcoming "Star Wars: Starfighter" film starring Ryan Gosling, director Shawn Levy made his name as a hired-gun making family comedies. Arguably the bridge between all-ages hijinks and the world of science fiction and fantasy he now lives in was his 2006 feature "Night at the Museum."

The film stars Ben Stiller as Larry Daley, a financially down-trodden, divorced dad forced to take a minimum wage job as a security guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Upon taking on the gig, he quickly discovers that the museum's exhibits come to life at sundown, thanks to the magic of an ancient Egyptian tablet (originally owned by a pharaoh played by none other than Rami Malek). "Night at the Museum" deviates from "National Treasure" in terms of its plot, but is nonetheless perfect for the exact same audience: young fans of light adventure stories that fold in historical themes naturally.

It's hard to imagine anyone reading this article somehow got to "National Treasure" before watching "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." But if you need an excuse or some inspiration to rewatch the best movie ever based on a Disneyland attraction, we're happy to provide that for you.

Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer achieved a specific flavor of adventure film with their 2003 debut, one that studios — Disney themselves in particular — have been trying to reverse engineer ever since. Depp's iconic turn as Captain Jack Sparrow instantly created one of the most beloved film characters of all time, a perpetually drunk and lucky pirate whose moral compass reliably points toward his own best interests. He single-handedly creates an unconventional young adult adventure that has captivated audiences for decades. Though subsequent sequels were able to coast on the reputation of the first film at the worldwide box office, Disney has yet to make a "Pirates" film as thrilling, cohesive, and satisfying as "The Curse of the Black Pearl."

"National Treasure" and at least half the films on this list, for that matter, owe a lot to the "Indiana Jones" series. Even without the heightened action and supernatural undertones, every treasure hunter to hit the screen since Steven Spielberg and George Lucas gave Harrison Ford his hat and whip have tried to emulate the once-in-a-generation screen presence of the hero.

While any "Indiana Jones" film would be an effective follow-up watch for "National Treasure" fans, our favorite of them all remains "Raiders of the Lost Ark." This perfectly paced adventure through jungles, deserts, and hidden temples is timeless, with Ford at the height of his pulpy powers as Indiana Jones himself. The story follows his quest to discover the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can unleash its power, leading him to travel around the world hunting artifacts, consulting with questionable allies, and fighting for his life in outrageous action set pieces. It is arguably the greatest adventure movie ever made — and if the "National Treasure" fan in your life has yet to see it, you get the chance to experience it with them for the first time.

While it isn't a remake, it's hard to ignore the similarities between the 2022 film "The Lost City" and 1984's "Romancing the Stone." Stop us if you've heard this one before: A romance novelist (in this case played by Kathleen Turner) is unexpectedly thrust into a treasure-hunting adventure when her life becomes terrorized by evil men who want the bounty for themselves. Rather than being rescued by a bumbling cover model, however, Turner's Joan Wilder employs the help of a savvy explorer named Jack T. Colton (played by Michael Douglas).

"Romancing the Stone" is classic '80s comfort food, filled with romantic comedy tropes, enough violence and danger to keep the energy high throughout, and a hilarious performance from Danny DeVito as an unscrupulous antiques smuggler and criminal. While the romance element is played up much more than the love story at the heart of "National Treasure," it provides a lighter tone to the film that may feel refreshing after the intensity of the Gates treasure hunt.

Another example of Dwayne Johnson carrying the young adult adventure genre on his back, "Race to Witch Mountain" is a forgotten Disney box office hit that captures the same fast-paced thrills and conspiratorial themes as "National Treasure" with the same target audience in mind. Johnson plays Jack Bruno, a cab driver on parole in Las Vegas trying to keep his head down and avoid run-ins with his old associates in organized crime.

While working a UFO convention on the strip, Jack is ambushed by two unusual teenagers (played by prolific 2000s child star AnnaSophia Robb and future "The Hunger Games" actor Alexander Ludwig) who ask him to transport them cross country in exchange for $15,000. The trio are relentlessly pursued by government agents, as Jack realizes the children possess incredible powers that could very well come from a world beyond our own.

Before we get back to recommending movies starring other actors, we simply have to point older "National Treasure" fans toward one of Dwayne Johnson's earliest and most underrated movies. Immediately after the CGI disappointment that was "The Scorpion King" (strangely another instance of Johnson trying to carry the torch of a Brendan Fraser franchise), the recent WWE alum led a stripped-down buddy adventure action comedy "The Rundown" in 2003, immediately redeeming himself as a viable movie star.

Starring Johnson opposite Seann William Scott, this film from "Friday Night Lights" director Peter Berg follows a bounty hunter (Johnson) and his man-child, treasure hunter target (Scott) who are forced to work together to survive a Brazilian jungle. While evading the militia of a mining company that controls the area (led by a villainous Christopher Walken), they must recover a lost artifact and escape to Los Angeles with their lives.

Sadly, there are few options out there for "National Treasure" fans wanting to see Nicolas Cage in the kind of adventure he embarks on as Ben Gates. However, if that film made Cage-head out of a younger moviegoer in your life, you could show them "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" next.

Also produced by Walt Disney Pictures after the "National Treasure" series had wrapped up, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is loosely inspired by a sequence from the 1940 animated film "Fantasia," in which Mickey Mouse dons his iconic red robe and magical blue hat. In the 2010 film, Cage plays a nigh-immortal sorcerer who descends upon New York City to train a nerdy college outcast (played by "How to Train Your Dragon" star Jay Baruchel) in the ways of magic. Despite lukewarm reviews and disappointing box office numbers, it's a fun family adventure film that has the same nostalgic charm as "National Treasure."

While it's not a treasure hunting movie in the traditional sense, Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" packs all the action, suspense, and esoteric historical intrigue of "National Treasure" film into a thrilling mystery carried by a legendary performance from Robert Downey Jr. The "Iron Man" star plays the titular detective, emphasizing his sharp eye for detail, ability to deduce complex mysteries in real time, and even use his wealth of knowledge to combat enemies in delightfully imaginative ways.

In the 2009 film specifically, Downey's Holmes and Jude Law's Dr. Watson are confronted with the confounding case of Lord Henry Blackwood (Mark Strong), a sociopathic British nobleman and serial killer who somehow survives his own execution. Once he emerges from his tomb, the duo must bring him to justice and explain his seeming supernatural gifts before he can use his resources to take over the country.

Of all the hidden gems on this list, none glimmer quite as defiantly as "Treasure Planet." The 2002 animated feature is a bit of an oddity. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a James Dean-esque Jim Hawkins, it reimagines Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story "Treasure Island" as a high-concept science fiction adventure with cyborgs, aliens, and an audaciously rendered intergalactic setting that's often as confounding as it is insanely cool. 

Contemporary critics were split over whether the film was a misunderstood stroke of genius or a mess of animated noise destined for the bargain-bin. Today, "Treasure Planet" is widely remembered by fans as an admirably ambitious swing from Disney that should've been given a shot at a sequel, and any reader young or old enthralled by the escapism of "National Treasure" will be more than satisfied by what it has to offer.