10 Best Movies Like Fountain Of Youth

One of the oldest genres in movies is adventure, and it’s not hard to figure out why the earliest filmmakers went that route. The best adventure movies are typically classic good vs. evil stories featuring thrilling set pieces, exciting mysteries to uncover, and very often, an everyman/everywoman lead at the center of the action. In 2025, screenwriter James Vanderbilt and director Guy Ritchie brought their vision of the adventure movie to Apple TV+ with “Fountain of Youth.” It tells the story of archaeologist Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) and his museum curator sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) who end up on a mission to find the titular magical water spot of legend.

There are no shortage of great adventure movies to recommend to fans of the genre. But people who enjoyed “Fountain of Youth” in particular will find that there are a number of films within the genre that will scratch more specific itches. From iconic big screen spelunkers and stories about searching for well-known mythical items or locations, to other movies that involve museums and their employees, these are the films that will make a great double feature with “Fountain of Youth.” 

Nicolas Cage — as a character named Benjamin Franklin Gates, no less — uttering the words, “I’m going to steal the Declaration of Independence” was a movie trailer moment for the ages. It also promised that the movie in question, “National Treasure,” was going to be a gleefully cheesy adventure. And that, it definitely is. Benjamin was raised to be interested in all things historical, with his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) telling him of a great treasure passed down through the ages and across multiple nations. Once the United States took their turn protecting the treasure, the founding fathers hid clues to its whereabouts in various places — including on money, and on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

Critics called it a fun but unrealistic movie. Well, duh. Audiences loved “National Treasure,” though, making it a huge hit at the box office. The sequel “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” is fine, but it’s largely a retread of the original. The franchise also later got a one-season follow up on Disney+, but there’s a reason that you’re likely only just hearing about it for the first time as you read this sentence. Dig into the overall “National Treasure” franchise and explore its expansive timeline if your curiosity takes you in that direction, but the original gets the job done well enough for “Fountain of Youth” fans.  

While “Fountain of Youth” takes place in the present day, as do several of the films on this list, it’s a common approach for an adventure film to harken back to a previous era. In particular, there seems to be a draw with setting adventure movies in the 1920s through the 1940s, owing in large part to those being the years when classic adventure serials were at their peak of popularity — which many Boomer filmmakers felt nostalgia for.

Following in that trend is 1999’s “The Mummy,” which takes place in the 1920s and sees treasure hunter Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) team up with archeologist Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) to go searching for ancient Egyptian treasure — while avoiding ancient Egyptian curses. It’s not only a similar protagonist duo to “Fountain of Youth,” but a common one among adventure movies as a whole. At a time when Hollywood was big on techno thrillers, edgy Gen X rebellion, and setting the stage for what movies were going to look and feel like going into the 21st century, “The Mummy” stood out as a fun throwback adventure romp — one that audiences clearly enjoyed, given the movie’s strong box office tally and multiple sequels and spinoffs. 

One of the spinoffs, “The Scorpion King,” would help to launch the film career of wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on his way to becoming one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. That being said, skip “The Scorpion King” if you haven’t seen it, as well as “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” and the 2017 Tom Cruise-fronted “Mummy” reboot. If you are absolutely starving for more “Mummy” after the 1999 movie, “The Mummy Returns” is the only other film in the franchise worth your time. 

Given that “Fountain of Youth” is a streaming original, it seems more than fair to consider a made-for-television movie when recommending similar films. And to that end, TNT’s “The Librarian: Quest for the Spear” is a worthy fellow small-screen adventure film to suggest to “Fountain of Youth” fans. Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) is in his 30s and has spent his entire adult life in college. After finally being forced to get a little bit of real world experience outside of the institution, he takes a job at the local public library — but soon finds that he’ll be doing much more than organizing books. His real job is to protect the various magical artifacts that are being stored in the library’s secret underground vault.

Of course, one of those items gets stolen, and now Flynn has to play a reluctant adventure hero as he tries to get it back. And that sets off not only the events of “Quest for the Spear,” but the ensuing “Librarian” franchise that comprises three films and two series — not to mention novels, comic books, and more. It’s all a lot of fun, and there really isn’t a truly bad film or season to speak of as of yet. But it’s best to just start from the beginning, which is the “Quest for the Spear” film, and go from there. Just don’t be surprised if what you thought was just the second half of a “Fountain of Youth” double feature turns into your latest franchise binge. 

It certainly doesn’t show up on lists of movies that are better than the book: Critics ripped it apart, and it sparked major protests from members of the Catholic church. But “The Da Vinci Code” still found its audience, to the tune of $760 million box office worldwide. It’s also easy to recommend to “Fountain of Youth” fans given that it takes place in and around a museum, and centers on trying to unravel a secret that goes back millennia. 

Said secret involves the supposed descendants of Jesus Christ. And if they existed, that would rock the very foundations of Christianity, long operating under the assumption that Jesus died a virgin — which would obviously be impossible if he had kids, grandkids, etc. Needless to say, this gets some very powerful people trying to stop symbiologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and cryptographer Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tatou) from solving said mystery. It’s not as deep or complex as it thinks it is, but “The Da Vinci Code” is nonetheless a fun, twisty adventure mystery that is well worth the time of any fan of this genre. 

Full disclosure: The sequel “Angels & Demons” is actually the better movie. But despite being a prequel in the book series, it was adjusted to work as a sequel in the film series, so we’re recommending “The Da Vinci Code” here since it’s the necessary place to start. Ultimately, you should watch them both. Just don’t bother with the disappointing and completely unnecessary third film, “Inferno.”

“Fountain of Youth” isn’t an adult movie by any stretch, but it’s also not exactly a family film. Still, it’s always nice to have some recommendations for movies you can watch with the kids, laying the foundation for them to become adventure fans who might someday enjoy “Fountain of Youth” and its ilk. With that in mind, a great place for budding fans of adventure movies with a historical/archeological/museum-focused twist is “Night at the Museum” and its sequels. 

Quality wise, all three installments — the original, “Battle of the Smithsonian,” and “Secret of the Tomb” — are fairly comparable. There isn’t a clear best or worst of the trilogy. So it makes sense to just start from the original and go from there. It centers on the new janitor (Ben Stiller) of a history museum who thinks he’s taking on a cakewalk overnight security job, only to find that the various people and animals in the exhibits come to life when the museum is closed. It’s like “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” only nobody is getting murdered. Each subsequent movie ups the ante as well as the character count, but again, they’re all pretty good.

Much of why the series works is thanks to extremely game performances not only from Stiller, but an impressive ensemble that includes Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Rami Malek, Amy Adams, Steve Coogan, Bill Hader, Ben Kingsley, and Dick van Dyke. It’s also worth noting that the third film was the final on-screen film appearance by Williams, released just four months after his August 2014 death.

What if Indiana Jones was not only a woman, but an extremely curvy woman with a sultry British accent? That was the basic premise for the massive hit video game “Tomb Raider,” with protagonist Lara Croft quickly becoming not only a video game icon but a legitimate digital celebrity whose fame couldn’t be contained to just gaming. Lara got so famous, in fact, that when “Tomb Raider” got its inevitable movie adaptation five years later, her name was put front and center in the film’s title: “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.”

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft is right up there with Patrick Stewart as Professor X in the annals of perfect movie casting history. Just as she is in the games, the movie Lara is a voluptuous Indiana Jones for the modern era, taking viewers on a fun adventure through ancient caves in the search for priceless artifacts — while shooting plenty of her less-noble spelunker colleagues in the process. And when the hugely disappointing sequel “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life” followed two years later, it made audiences appreciate all the ways the original movie got the franchise and the character right the first time. 

For nearly 20 years, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” enjoyed the title of highest-grossing video game movie of all time at the domestic box office, before “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” surpassed it in 2019. It was up there alongside “Mortal Kombat” as rare examples of video game movies not all being universally terrible. And while you should obviously not bother with the awful “Cradle of Life,” the 2018 movie reboot is well worth checking out, as is the Netflix animated series “Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.”

Remember when we mentioned how many adventure movies are inspired by the serials that Baby Boomer filmmakers were nostalgic for? The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus for “Romancing the Stone” makes it pretty clear the adventure comedy is one such film, stating that it, “reaches back to the classic Saturday morning serials of old with an action-filled adventure enlivened by the sparkling chemistry between its well-matched leads.” And speaking of Rotten Tomatoes, it gives “Romancing the Stone” an 85%, making it one of the most critically-acclaimed films in this entire feature.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who obviously knows how to film action and adventure, “Romancing the Stone” stars Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as Jack T. Colton and Joan Wilde, respectively. Joan is a romance novelist who wants to fall in love with the kind of man she writes about in her books, and she thinks she’s found that in bird hunter/thief Jack. But the adventure the pair go on — which involves murder, kidnapping, the jungles of Columbia, a priceless emerald, and more — ends up being much more dangerous than either of them bargained for. 

Jack and Joan deserved to have an entire series of films, and they could have if sequel “The Jewel of the Nile” hadn’t fallen so flat that it stopped any future installments right then and there. Douglas remained interested in making a third entry for years, with him discussing the possibility as recently as 2008. But at this point, that ship has obviously sailed. Luckily, “Romancing the Stone” still holds up remarkably well and is well worth discovering for adventure fans who may have missed it. 

The world wasn’t quite sure what to make of plans to reboot the “Jumanji” franchise, especially since the passing of Robin Williams, who was such a major part of making the original film a beloved classic. Not to mention skepticism over how to not make the movie just be a redo of the original. Remarkably, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” silenced all those doubts by not only bringing in a foursome of heavy hitters — Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan — but having the action actually set inside the world of Jumanji rather than Jumanji coming into the real world as it had in the original. 

Smartly modernizing things by having Jumanji be a video game instead of a board game, four high school kids with tenuous at best connections to one another find themselves all reluctantly playing the game they find in their school’s basement. They then get sucked into said game, where they become video game avatars played by the aforementioned actors. Each avatar is not only the exact opposite in attitude and appearance as the associated player, but the avatars also conveniently seem to play into some real-life anxiety each kid has. Most crucially in terms of this feature, the whole thing turns “Welcome to the Jungle” into a classic adventure movie full of jungles, caves, traps, and monsters, sure to delight “Fountain of Youth” fans.

Not many adventure movies get to claim to be based on a true story. But that’s the case with “The Lost City of Z,” based on the book of the same name about a military cartographer who is tasked with finding the mythical lost city of the Amazon. Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) thinks he’s going on a simple scouting mission, but given that “The Lost City of Z” is on this list, it obviously turns out to be an action-packed adventure. Costarring Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Sienna Miller, “The Lost City of Z” is another movie that critics saw as a throwback to pioneers of the adventure genre. 

“‘The Lost City of Z”s stately pace and visual grandeur hearken back to classic exploration epics, and Charlie Hunnam turns in a masterful performance as its complex protagonist” reads the Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus. In addition to critical acclaim, the movie also scored a bunch of award nominations and handful of wins, not only for the various actors but several for James Gray’s phenomenal screenplay. Unfortunately, being released in 2016 meant it got lost in the shuffle of huge releases like “Captain America: Civil War,” “Moana,” “Rogue One,” and “Deadpool.” But “The Lost City of Z” deserves more attention, for “Fountain of Youth” fans or otherwise. 

As tempting as it is to have lists like this avoid the super obvious choices, you simply can’t do a roll call of adventure movie recommendations without adding “Raiders of the Lost Ark” into the mix. “Fountain of Youth” clearly wears its influences on its sleeve, and Guy Ritchie was no doubt trying to make a movie like the adventure movies he loves — and the DNA of “Raiders” and the entire Indiana Jones franchise is all over that film.

There isn’t much to say about “Raiders” that hasn’t already said, except to reiterate that it’s about as close to perfect as movies get. Harrison Ford’s performance, equal parts heroic and aloof, is a master class in playing an adventure movie hero. The opening scene is the blueprint for opening scenes in film in general, not just adventure movies, expertly setting up the character and the entire adventure with not a single wasted shot or unnecessary word of dialogue. From there, everything rolls along with a polish that continues to be studied and dissected by film nerds to this day.

If you haven’t seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” watch it. If you have, watch it again — not that you needed us to tell you that you should watch it again … and again … and again.