The Terminator franchise has endured for 35 years but which Terminator movie is the best one? Created by James Cameron, Terminator is one of Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi/action movie franchises. Although the saga has had notable ups and downs, the basic core story of killer cyborgs sent back in time to kill Sarah and John Connor has thrilled audiences worldwide for decades and has left an indelible imprint on pop culture, thanks in large part to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic portrayal of the Terminator. The sixth movie, Terminator: Dark Fate, seeks to restore the franchise to past glory.
The rights to the Terminator franchise have passed through numerous hands and that story is as convoluted as the timeline in Terminator Genisys. Briefly, James Cameron, who wrote and directed the first films, didn’t own the rights to Terminator and left the franchise in the 1990s; the rights holders Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna turned to director Jonathan Mostow to make Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but their company soon went bankrupt. The rights passed to the Halcyon Company, which intended to launch a new trilogy starting with 2009’s Terminator Salvation, but that sequel’s lukewarm critical and box office response sent the rights back into limbo. Annapurna Pictures then acquired the rights and set out to create another new trilogy with 2015’s Terminator Genisys but that film also underperformed. Finally, James Cameron returned to the franchise as a producer to oversee director Tim Miller’s Terminator: Dark Fate.
Terminator has featured dozens of different cyborgs, with Schwarzenegger portraying six different models of the T-800 (counting his face digitally added to Terminator: Salvation’s robot), and six actors have played John Connor and three have portrayed Sarah, counting the spinoff TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. While the films vary in quality, they all, on some level, deliver satisfying human vs. robot action and, indeed, the franchise has made good on the original Terminator’s prophetic promise: “I’ll be back!” Here are all the Terminator movies ranked, worst to best.
6. Terminator Salvation (2009)
Terminator Salvation’s most admirable virtue is that it broke the mold of the first three films and tried to tell a different kind of story. Depicting the future war of humans versus Skynet, Salvation is set in the post-apocalyptic 2018 and doesn’t involve sending Terminators or humans to the past via time travel. However, because Arnold Schwarzenegger was Governor of California in the mid-2000s and thus couldn’t star in the film, the filmmakers instead shifted the focus to a new hero, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who discovers he’s a hybrid human/Terminator. Meanwhile, Christian Bale portrays an angry John Connor, Bryce Dallas Howard plays his wife Kate Brewster, and the late Anton Yelchin plays a young Kyle Reese. (Linda Hamilton also appears via voice over.) In the film, both Connor and Reese must be protected due to their importance to past/future events.
Directed by McG, Terminator Salvation is undeniably gritty and action-packed but disappointing because Marcus Wright doesn’t emerge as a worthy hero to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger. Further, Salvation tweaks Terminator lore by changing John Connor from the leader of the Resistance to a subordinate of a general played by Michael Ironside, who runs the human military from a submarine. Yelchin and Worthington have some fun moments as an on-screen duo, but the mystery of Marcus’ true identity was ruined by the trailers long before Helena Bonham Carter appears in the film to explain Wright’s transformation into a hybrid cyborg. The T-800 (Roland Kickinger with Schwarzenegger’s face digitally added) makes its ‘debut’ and faces our heroes for the first time in an awkward climactic fight scene. Terminator Salvation’s ending was meant to launch a new trilogy but its failure marks it as the most disposable and forgettable Terminator movie of the franchise.
5. Terminator Genisys (2015)
Like Salvation before it, Terminator Genisys was meant to launch a new trilogy of films but failed. Going back to the well of the original Terminator story, Genisys reboots the franchise where, once more, John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). However, Reese learns that the timeline has been changed after Skynet tried to have Sarah killed as a girl and she was saved by a T-800 (Schwarzenegger), who then raised her and she calls “Pops”. Back in 2029, Skynet, in the form of a T-5000, murders John Connor and rebuilds him with nanobots into the T-3000; Connor then travels back in time to kill his parents. But Sarah and Pops reveal they have a time machine of their own and jump to 2017 with Reese to stop Genisys, the operating system that will become Skynet in this convoluted revised timeline.
Directed by Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones), Terminator Genisys is an unholy mess of a movie but it’s entertaining enough despite the fact that it takes a woodchipper to the Terminator timeline. Arnold returns as the T-800 with a fairly novel explanation to explain why his cyborg’s outer shell has aged but, curiously, there’s no chemistry between Clarke’s Sarah and Courtney’s Reese, casting doubt on whether John could even be born in the future. And, once more, Terminator Genisys’ trailers gave away the secret that the new enemy was John Connor himself; meanwhile, Jason Clarke’s John/T-3000 proved to be a disappointment. Terminator Genisys retcons Skynet’s origin from a military defense system to an app called ‘Genisys’ but it doesn’t make sense how such an app could later ignite a nuclear war and end humanity. Regardless, Terminator Genisys does feature some crackerjack action sequences and Arnold proves he can still deliver as everyone’s favorite Terminator.
4. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is set several years after T2 and introduced a new idea to the franchise which justifies its own existence as well as every sequel that has followed it: Sarah and John Connor didn’t stop Judgment Day in T2, they merely postponed it and Skynet’s creation is inevitable. This time, Skynet sends a new Terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken), to the past to kill the future leaders of the human resistance, including Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), John Connor’s future wife. But in the future, Kate sends a reprogrammed T-101 (Schwarzenegger) back to protect her past self. Along with the adult John (Nick Stahl), Kate and the T-101 battle the T-X but they are powerless to prevent Judgment Day. After the T-101 destroys the T-X, John and Kate watch helplessly in the Crystal Peak facility in the Sierra Nevada mountains as Skynet destroys humanity with nuclear weapons but they begin to assume their roles as the leaders of the surviving Resistance.
Directed by Jonathan Mostow, Terminator 3 is a workman-like retread of the first two films. However, Danes and Stahl deliver memorable turns as Kate Brewster and John Connor while Loken’s T-X, which combined the powers of the T-800 and the T-1000, is probably the most underrated villainous Terminator of the franchise. Schwarzenegger was reportedly paid $30-million to return as the Terminator but some of the film’s attempts at comedy, like the T-101 donning Elton John sunglasses and attempting a new catchphrase - “Talk to the hand!” - are cringe-inducing. Yet, Terminator 3’s action set pieces like the T-101 fighting the T-X while carrying a casket full of guns and a car chase using construction vehicles are good enough to cover for the paint-by-numbers story that merely apes James Cameron’s films. T3 does, however, boast an evocative ending as John and Kate watch the world end.
3. Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Warning: SPOILERS for Terminator: Dark Fate.
Terminator: Dark Fate wipes away Terminator 3, Salvation, and Genisys, positioning itself as the true sequel to Terminator 2. In present-day Mexico City, a new Terminator, the Rev-9 (Diego Luna) is sent to kill Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), who will threaten the (different) machine-ruled future of 2042. A cybernetically augmented warrior named Grace (Mackenzie Davis) arrives to protect Dani and they are joined by the aged Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who has continued hunting Terminators for the last 22 years. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as a different T-800 Terminator to help the heroic women fight the Rev-9 and save the future.
Produced by James Cameron, director Tim Miller (Deadpool) proves adept at staging the breakneck chase and action sequences that are hallmarks of the Terminator franchise. Dark Fate recycles the basic Terminator story with some intriguing new twists and new characters worth rooting for, as well as restoring Sarah Connor to prominence at the center of the saga. Luna’s Rev-9 is a memorable villain that combines the relentless menace of the T-800 and T-1000. But the standout is Schwarzenegger, who finds a new way to embody the tried and true Terminator; fascinatingly, Arnold’s new T-800 named Carl continued the lessons about humanity T2’s Terminator learned from John Connor (Edward Furlong) even though he’s a different machine altogether. Overall, Dark Fate is a satisfying Terminator story that captures the original movies’ spirit and leaves the saga open to continue.
2. The Terminator (1984)
The Terminator started it all and James Cameron’s 1984 science fiction thriller still holds up today for its powerful themes, exciting action sequences, and the unforgettable presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. The story is a simple causality loop/grandfather paradox: Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to the future leader of the human Resistance. A lone warrior, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), is sent back to protect her and he’s destined to fall in love and father her child. In the analog world of 1980s Los Angeles, Sarah and Kyle have to figure out how to stop a relentless killing machine and give hope to the future.
The Terminator was shot on a mere $6.5-million budget but Cameron showcases all of his skills that would cement him as one of the greatest action movie directors of all time. In the role that would make him a superstar, Schwarzenegger is perfect as the Terminator, an unstoppable, remorseless cyborg. Stan Winston’s special effects mostly hold up though he was limited by the technology of the early ’80s and the scene when the Terminator looks at his damaged human face in the mirror is clunky. Still, the centerpiece action sequence when the Terminator utters his signature dialogue “I’ll be back!” and then annihilates a police station full of cops remains shockingly violent. Meanwhile, there’s palpable doomed chemistry between the desperate Kyle and the deer-in-the-headlights Sarah. The story of the original Terminator film is beautifully simple with an evocative ending that hinted at the sequel to come, and The Terminator still stands as one of the best action movies ever made.
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day took everything about the original and made it bigger and better. Although it repeats the basic plot points of the first film, the sequel weaves in powerful new themes, far better visual effects, and introduces another unforgettable villain, the shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick), thanks to revolutionary CGI. This time, Schwarzenegger’s Terminator is the good guy sent to protect the 12-year-old John Connor (Edward Furlong). After they rescue Sarah from a psychiatric facility, they go to the source of Skynet’s creation, Cyberdyne Systems scientist Miles Bennett Dyson (Joe Morton), and try to stop Judgment Day from happening while also destroying the threat of the T-1000.
While there are certainly hokey elements to T2 like some of the dialogue (“Hasta la vista, baby!”) and even the Terminator’s final thumbs-up as he makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the future, James Cameron’s sequel delivers several classic action sequences and indelible moments. More importantly, the interplay between John and the Terminator, who becomes his big brother/father figure/protector is an entertaining spin, with the rebellious 12-year-old teaching his robot not to kill (the T-800’s solution to not being able to terminate by shooting targets’ kneecaps ends up being hilariously sadistic). But beyond the thrilling car chases and the awesome sight of the Terminator holding a battalion of police at bay with a Gatling gun, T2’s true power lies in its hopeful theme that “if a Terminator can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.” 28 years after it was released, Terminator 2: Judgment Day remains the gold standard the entire Terminator franchise struggles to live up to.
Next: Terminator 2: Judgment Day Ruined The Franchise
- Terminator: Dark Fate Release Date: 2019-11-01
