All 34 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies ranked from worst to best

2. The Terminator

Arnold Schwarzenegger was already an established star after the success of Conan The Barbarian but it was the release of The Terminator that turned him into a superstar. There is an irony in the fact that a man whose known as perhaps the greatest action hero of all time delivers arguably his best performance as a villain, but that’s a testament to how thrilling his performance as the relentless T-800 is.

The film’s premise is simple but it alludes to a more complex future for the saga, revolving around a young woman whose life is turned upside down when a murderous cyborg from the future wants to wipe her out before her son destroys all machines. Yes, there’s a lot to unpack there, but even so, The Terminator is a 90-minute thriller that simply focuses on the chase, never once losing itself in the complicated concept behind it – something most of its sequels misunderstood.

This movie was released almost 40 years ago and it remains one of the very best to ever grace the silver screen. A revolutionary piece of entertainment that launched the careers of Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and director James Cameron into the stratosphere, it doesn’t get better than this.

Well, it did just once…