The Terminator (1984) poster
1984 · sci-fi · action · thriller

The Terminator

Directed by James Cameron1h 48m1984
ElsewhereIMDb8.1996kRT90%Metacritic84TMDB7.715k
  • sombre
  • kinetic
  • extreme
Movie DNA

Sombre, breathless, extreme sci-fi / action, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, epic, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the "Terminator" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?

Our read · The Terminator (1984) reads as a sombre, breathless, inventive sci-fi · action · thriller entry — extreme in intensity, epic-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of The Terminator

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want to be gripped by a cyborg killer hunting a woman across time.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakengrabs you earlygrips from the openattention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencenudityjump scaresexplicit sexgore

Skip it tonightYou avoid graphic violence, nudity or intense 80s sci-fi horror.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself