This past Sunday, two friends and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Afterwards, we got to talking about the iconic movies of our childhood. The funny thing was, there was a fair amount of overlap. Two of us, who had both been born in 1977, remembered The Empire Strikes Back as one of our earliest movie-in-the-theatre experiences. All three of us remembered seeing E.T. And we all agreed that Raiders of the Lost Ark had been absolutely key, even though not one of us could remember if we’d seen it on the big screen or a small one.

Looking back, my imagination was powerfully shaped by those early cinematic experiences. Like so many authors, I was a daydreamer from an early age and any powerful plotline that fell into my lap was grist for the imaginative mill. I remember spinning daydreams from the Star Wars movies, imagining myself into a role as Princess Leia’s best friend (I wound up with Luke, of course, after dashing the schemes of several villainous droids and besting Darth Vater in saber to saber combat without ever mussing my elaborately coiled hair). And then there were the Indiana Jones movies, with all their swash and buckle and inventive chase scenes. The book I just finished writing, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine (on shelves in February of ‘09!) contains an Indian-inflected Hellfire Club that owes its original inspiration to the completely over the top Cult of Kali in the second Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which made a lasting impression on my childhood brain, an impression which finally found an outlet in my own secret cult type scene a good two decades later.

Which is the very first movie that you remember seeing? And which movies do you feel made the deepest impression on your imagination?