Four decades after a metallic skeleton emerged from flames in a fever dream in James Cameron’s head, the Terminator franchise has exploded into one of the most popular sci-fi properties in the world. After the double whammy of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the series has stumbled from attempted reboot to attempted reboot. Even Cameron himself couldn’t salvage it with 2019’s Dark Fate.
Despite the franchise’s struggles to perpetuate itself, its first two installments remain beloved classics. The 1984 original is a masterfully crafted tech-noir and its 1991 sequel is a mind-blowing action extravaganza, both anchored by sharp storytelling and ingenious character development.
10 Character: T-800 (From The Terminator)
Although he’s a good guy in almost all of the subsequent Terminator movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger is introduced as the bad guy in the first one. He’s just a relentless cyborg who will stop at nothing until Sarah Connor is dead.
It’s easy to make a joke about an emotionless robot being Arnie’s best role, but Schwarzenegger really does give a convincing performance as an unstoppable killing machine.
9 Action Sequence: The Bathroom Fight In Terminator 3
While Terminator 3 follows the same basic premise as Terminator 2, with a T-800 played by Schwarzenegger protecting John Connor from a more powerful Terminator model, it does shake things up in one crucial way: the villainous Terminator this time is coded female.
The T-X, oddly dubbed the “Terminatrix,” was played by Kristanna Loken, whom the producers settled on after a long casting search that included both men and women. The T-800 and the T-X’s brutal final fight in the bathroom is one of the threequel’s few highlights.
8 Character: John Connor
After The Terminator revolved around ensuring the birth of John Connor, who was touted as humanity’s savior, T2 introduced him as a rebellious 10-year-old who robs ATMs and blasts Guns ‘N’ Roses from the back of his dirt bike.
John develops a real connection with his cybernetic protector — largely thanks to Edward Furlong’s on-screen chemistry with Arnold Schwarzenegger — which gives the movie’s ending a lot of emotional depth.
7 Action Sequence: The Desert Highway Chase In Terminator Salvation
Since all the other Terminator movies copied the T2 formula, it’s refreshing that Terminator Salvation actually tried something new by showing John Connor’s adventures with the Resistance in a post-apocalyptic future.
There’s a breathtaking chase sequence in which the protagonists are pursued by Moto-Terminators — Terminators that can turn into motorcycles — along a desert highway.
6 Character: Kyle Reese
The success of T2 meant that the Terminator franchise would double down on its Terminator-versus-Terminator formula for decades to come, but The Terminator’s original dynamic of a mortal human protecting another mortal human from an invincible machine provided plenty of tension.
Michael Biehn’s performance as Kyle Reese is fantastic. He plays every emotion — from falling in love with Sarah to PTSD flashbacks from future wars to his frustrations explaining time travel to the cops who think he’s crazy — with a raw human truth that elevates the story above spectacle.
5 Action Sequence: Taking Down Cyberdyne Systems In T2
When Sarah Connor attacks Miles Dyson and explains to him that Cyberdyne Systems will eventually destroy the world, he agrees that it needs to be stopped and goes with Sarah, John, and the T-800 to infiltrate the company’s lab and blow it up.
Dyson ends up sacrificing himself for the greater good, while the T-800 heeds John’s demand that he not kill anyone by leaving the surrounding police without any casualties.
4 Character: T-800 (From T2)
After giving an incredible performance as a villainous T-800 in the first movie, Schwarzenegger gave an even greater performance as a heroic T-800 in the second one.
In many ways, T2 is a “boy and his dog” story, except the dog is a killer cyborg. John tries to teach the Terminator to feel emotions, and while it never learns how to feel them, it does come to understand them — right before making the ultimate sacrifice and giving the most polarizing thumbs-up in movie history.
3 Action Sequence: The Police Station Assault In The Terminator
When Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are being held at the police station, the T-800 comes in and asks the receptionist to let him in. The receptionist tells him he can’t, so the T-800 says, “I’ll be back.” He leaves and returns seconds later in his car, crashing right through the front of the station, crushing the receptionist behind his desk.
Cameron ratchets up the suspense as Sarah desperately tries to hide from the T-800 and the cops are shown to be ineffective against a bulletproof cyborg.
2 Character: Sarah Connor
At the beginning of The Terminator, we meet Sarah Connor as a waitress living paycheck to paycheck, hanging out with her best friend, and dating her boyfriend — she’s not prepared to take on the responsibility of saving the human race. But when a robot from the future comes after her, she steps up to the plate and becomes a hero. She even signs off with a cool one-liner: “You’re terminated, f*cker!”
After taking out the Terminator chasing her in the first movie, Sarah becomes a butt-kicking warrior determined to take down all of Skynet in the sequel. Thanks to impeccable acting by Linda Hamilton, this transformation is believable. Hamilton is 100% convincing as the everywoman introduced in The Terminator and 100% convincing as the badass she turns into in T2.
1 Action Sequence: The Storm Drain Chase In T2
When the T-1000 relentlessly chases John Connor’s little dirt bike in a giant truck, John tries to escape by turning into the L.A. storm drain system, but the T-1000 just crashes right through the barrier and drives the truck down the storm drain after John.
As the truck quickly closes in on John, the T-800 triumphantly appears on a Harley, singlehandedly reloading a shotgun, and narrowly saves John from being crushed by the truck. The T-800 blows up the truck to give them enough time to escape. Seconds later, the T-1000 emerges from the fiery wreck unscathed.
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