How Many Terminator Movies Are There?

There are six Terminator movies, all released in theaters and all counted as main saga films: The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015) and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). For the series as a whole, the terminator movies hub is the place to start. Each film below links to its own page.

The Terminator (1984), directed by James Cameron, began the saga. A cyborg assassin arrives in Los Angeles from the year 2029 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn son will one day lead the human resistance against the machine network Skynet. A soldier named Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back from the same future to protect her, and Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the machine. It reached US theaters on October 26, 1984, on a budget of $6.4 million, and took about $78 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo and The Numbers. Read more about The Terminator (1984).

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), also directed by Cameron, sends a liquid metal killer called the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) back to find John Connor (Edward Furlong) while he is still a boy. The resistance sends an older model Terminator to protect him, and Sarah Connor is locked in a psychiatric hospital for trying to stop a nuclear war. It cost $102 million and made about $519 million worldwide, which is the highest total of the six, according to Box Office Mojo. See Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), directed by Jonathan Mostow, finds John Connor (Nick Stahl) living off the grid. Skynet sends the T-X (Kristanna Loken) to kill future resistance leaders, starting with Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). Box Office Mojo lists a $200 million budget (The Numbers gives $170 million) and about $433 million worldwide. See Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Terminator Salvation (2009), directed by McG, moves the story forward to 2018. John Connor (Christian Bale) is a leading figure in the human Resistance, and a former death row inmate named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) wakes in the ruined world with no memory of the years in between. It cost $200 million and made about $371 million worldwide. See Terminator Salvation.

Terminator Genisys (2015), directed by Alan Taylor, sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984, where he finds the past has changed. Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) is already a hardened fighter, raised since childhood by a reprogrammed Terminator she calls Pops. The budget was $155 million and the worldwide total was about $441 million. See Terminator Genisys.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), directed by Tim Miller, follows Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a young factory worker in Mexico City who is hunted by a new killer machine, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an augmented soldier from the future, arrives to protect her, and Linda Hamilton returns as Sarah Connor. It cost $185 million and made about $261 million worldwide. See Terminator: Dark Fate.

James Cameron directed The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Jonathan Mostow, McG, Alan Taylor and Tim Miller each directed one of the later four. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the Terminator in The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate. Linda Hamilton plays Sarah Connor in the first two films and again in Dark Fate, with Emilia Clarke taking the role in Genisys. The full credits are on terminator cast, and the main roles are profiled under terminator characters.

The breakdown of the money by film sits on terminator box office. Two of the six, Salvation and Genisys, carry a PG-13 rating in the US, and the other four are rated R.

The six films split into a Cameron pair that defined the series and four later films that each tried a different fix for the same story. The clearest gap is in what each one returned on its budget. The Terminator earned about $78 million on $6.4 million, more than twelve times its cost. Terminator 2: Judgment Day took about $519 million on $102 million, roughly five times its cost, and it is the only film of the six above $500 million worldwide. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation both carry a $200 million budget on Box Office Mojo, yet the third film made about $433 million to Salvation's $371 million. Dark Fate, at $185 million, has the lowest worldwide total of the series at about $261 million.

Where the money came from also changed. Terminator Genisys earned about $90 million in the US and Canada against about $351 million internationally, so roughly four of every five dollars came from abroad. Dark Fate followed a similar pattern, with about $62 million domestic and $199 million international.

The production histories show how different the films were. Cameron's Terminator 2 is built around a few large sequences, such as the T-1000 tracking John Connor through a shopping mall, and it leaned on effects work from ILM and Stan Winston. Terminator 3 hit trouble in casting: Claire Danes replaced Bush as Kate Brewster three weeks into filming, and Danes told CBS News the earlier actor was a bit too young for the part. Salvation was first announced for May 22, 2009, according to Variety, and it opened in the US on May 21. Genisys began filming on April 21, 2014, shot in New Orleans and later around Redwood City and San Francisco, and wrapped in time for the July 1, 2015 date Paramount had set. Dark Fate staged its Mexico City scenes in Madrid neighborhoods, according to Fox News, and it was the first time in 28 years that Hamilton and Schwarzenegger shared the screen.

The music tells a similar story of change. Brad Fiedel scored the first two films, and each later film brought in a new composer: Marco Beltrami for Terminator 3, Danny Elfman for Salvation, Lorne Balfe for Genisys (replacing Beck, according to Wikipedia) and Tom Holkenborg for Dark Fate. No director returned after Cameron either, which in my opinion is why the later films feel like separate attempts instead of a continuous run. Salvation and Genisys also moved from the R rating of the first two films to PG-13, and in my view that softer tone is the most visible break from the Cameron pair.

No seventh Terminator film has been announced. In December 2025, according to The A.V. Club, James Cameron said he is working on a new Terminator story that would not star Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he gave no timeline. No studio, director, cast, title or release date has been confirmed, so any specific shoot or release year in circulation is speculation. The latest status is tracked under new terminator movie.

There are no theatrical Terminator spin-offs. Terminator Zero, a Netflix anime series, was cancelled after one season, according to Variety in February 2026. It is a television series, so it is not counted as a film.

The six Terminator movies can be watched in release order or chronological order; Terminator movies in order lays out both, and terminator timeline covers how the stories connect. For the trailers, see terminator trailers. To stream or rent any of the six, where to watch terminator lists services for the US, UK and Australia. The rankings are on terminator movies ranked.