All 9 James Cameron movies ranked from worst to best

2. The Terminator

What is there to say about The Terminator that hasn’t already been said? The fact that it still holds up almost 40 years after its release really says all you need to know about it. That, and the fact that that it turned James Cameron and Linda Hamilton into household names, and sent Arnold Schwarzenegger’s quickly-ascending star into the stratosphere.

The movie is a 90-minute thriller that leans into horror much more than its successors, and that makes it the most intense watch out of all of Cameron’s movies. Centering on a murderous cyborg (Schwarzenegger) sent back in time to eradicate the mother of the future, Sarah Connor, it uses all of the tropes associated with your typical B-movie and elevates them far beyond your expectations. And it’s all down to a thrilling script, superbly written characters, and the commitment from every single actor involved.

A low-budget project, The Terminator did a lot with very little, and the result is a revolutionary piece of cinema that paved the way for genre movies, franchises, and so much more. The fact that it was based on the stuff that James Cameron’s nightmares are made of should have been an indicator of what a visionary he was set to become.

The word “timeless” gets thrown around a lot these days. The Terminator, however, is the perfect example of a timeless movie.