The Terminator (2005)

Hard to believe now but, in 1984, James “King Of The World” Cameron, the sultan of the summer-sized event flick, unleashed a keen, lean and metal-mean conceptual sci-fi thriller. It didn’t sink under its ambitions. It didn’t let its star, a pre-parodic Arnold Schwarzenegger, loose on any quote-sized quips. It lifted from Alien, robot movies, slasher flicks, conspiracy thrillers and film noir, yet emerged as a brash, bolshy beast of its own. And, post-Alien and pre-Aliens, it helped engineer a switch for female actors from ’80s career-girl types to action-geared leads. The Terminator was small and cheap, but it was deadly effective.

Read the full The Terminator (Ultimate Edition) review