Overview
See production notesIn 1984 Los Angeles, an imposing man appears naked in an alley amid electric flashes and attacks some punks for clothes. Later, a man with scars appears in an alley the same way and evades police. The first man robs a gun shop, looks up addresses of women named Sarah Connor and begins murdering them. A waitress by that same name sees news reports about the murders and notices the second man following her. As she shelters in a nightclub, the first man kills her roommate Ginger and her boyfriend. He tracks her to the nightclub, where the second man preemptively fires on him. After a chaotic gunfight, the second man escapes with Sarah in a stolen car, while the first man gets up and pursues them on foot and in a police car. The second man identifies himself as Sergeant Reese. He tells Sarah that the other man is a "Terminator", a cyborg assassin from the future, and he has also come from the future to protect her. As they hide in a parking garage, Reese explains that Skynet, a pervasive computer network built by Cyberdyne Systems, will gain intelligence and launch a nuclear war against humans. He grew up in the aftermath as machines rounded survivors into extermination camps, where Sarah's future son, John, would start a resistance. On the verge of the resistance's victory in 2029, Skynet sent the Terminator back in time to assassinate Sarah and prevent John's birth. The Terminator locates them and, during a renewed chase, Reese damages it with a gunshot to the eye. The Terminator crashes and disappears as police arrest Sarah and Reese. Sarah is notified of Ginger's murder while Reese is interrogated by Dr. Silberman, a skeptical criminal psychologist. The Terminator returns to a hotel hideout and repairs itself. Just as Silberman leaves, the Terminator arrives at the police station searching for Sarah, slaughtering many officers in the process. Reese and Sarah escape in another car and get to safety. The next morning, they take refuge in a motel, where they assemble several pipe bombs and plan their next move. Reese confesses that he has adored Sarah since he saw her in a photograph that John gave him and came to the past out of love for her. Realizing that Reese is John's father, Sarah reciprocates his feelings as they conceive their son. The Terminator locates Sarah by intercepting a telephone call intended for her mother, deceiving her into revealing her location with its voice-mimicking ability. She and Reese escape the motel in a pickup truck while it pursues them on a motorcycle. In the ensuing chase, Reese is badly wounded by gunfire while throwing pipe bombs at the Terminator. Sarah knocks the Terminator off the motorcycle but loses control of the truck, which flips over. The Terminator, now bloodied and badly damaged, hijacks a tank truck and attempts to run down Sarah. Reese throws a pipe bomb into the truck's hose tube, causing it to explode and reduce the Terminator to its endoskeleton. Although Sarah and Reese initially believe they are triumphant, the Terminator soon recovers. They flee into a factory, where Reese activates machinery to distract it, but the Terminator eventually discovers them. Reese lodges his last pipe bomb into the Terminator's midsection, blowing it apart at the cost of his own life. The Terminator's still-functioning torso pursues Sarah through a hydraulic press. She clears the press and uses it to crush the Terminator, finally destroying the cyborg. Months later, while pregnant with John, Sarah travels through remote Mexico with a guard dog to hide from Skynet, recording audio tapes for her son. At a filling station, a boy takes an instant film photograph of her, the one that John will one day give to Reese, and she buys it. She restarts her car and drives toward ominous storm clouds.
Plot from The TerminatorCC BY-SA 4.0
- Countries
- United States
- Original language
- English
Cast
See all credits
Gallery
Did you know
Followed by: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Followed by: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Quotes
See all quotesTerminator: The 12-gauge auto-loader. Pawn clerk: That's Italian. You can go pump or auto. Terminator: The .45 long slide with laser sighting. Pawn clerk: These are brand new; we just got them in. That's a good gun. Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss. Anything else? Terminator: Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range. Pawn clerk: Hey, just what you see, pal. Terminator: [looks around] The Uzi 9mm. Pawn clerk: You know your weapons, buddy. Any one of these is ideal for home defense. So uh, which will it be? Terminator: [pointing shotgun towards the door] All. Pawn clerk: I may close early today. [takes out forms] There's a... 15-day wait on the handguns, but the rifles you can take right now. [sees the Terminator loading a shell into the shotgun] You can't do that. Terminator: Wrong. [shoots and kills the clerk]
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Kyle: All right, listen. The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored, very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs. Sarah: Look, Reese. I don't know what you want from... Kyle: Pay attention! I gotta ditch this car. [parks car] The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new, they look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him. Sarah: Look, I am not stupid, you know. They cannot make things like that yet. Kyle: Not yet, not for about 40 years. Sarah: [disbelieving] Are you saying it's from the future? Kyle: One possible future. From your point of view. I don't know tech stuff. Sarah: Then you're from the future too - is that right? Kyle: Right. Sarah: [sarcastically] Right. Kyle: [coldly] Cyborgs don't feel pain. I do. Don't do tha
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sarah: [she and Reese have just snuck into a Cadillac] Reese. Why me? Why does it want me? Kyle: There was a nuclear war. A few years from now...all this...this whole place, everything...it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah. Sarah: I don't understand. Kyle: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination. Sarah: Did you see this war? Kyle: No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's. Sarah: H-K's? Kyle: Hunter-Killers: patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal. [pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark] This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The dispo
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Dr. Silberman: Why didn't you bring any weapons, something more advanced? Don't you have, uh, ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology. Kyle: You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go. Dr. Silberman: Why? Kyle: [frustrated] I didn't build the fucking thing! Dr. Silberman: Okay, okay. But this cyborg, if it's metal... Kyle: Surrounded by living tissue! Dr. Silberman: Oh, right, right. [pauses the interrogation tape] This is great stuff! I could make a career out of this guy. You see how clever this part is, how it doesn't require a shred of proof? And most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is brilliant! [resumes the interrogation tape] Why were the other two women killed? Kyle: Most of the records were lost in the war. Skynet knew almost nothing about Connor's mother. Her full name, where she lives. They just knew the city. The Terminator was just being systematic. Dr. Silberman: Uh-huh. Well, let's go back to where I was
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Terminator: I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told she was here. Could I see her please? Desk Sergeant: No, you can't see her. She's making a statement. Terminator: Where is she? Desk Sergeant: Look, it may take a while. Want to wait? There's a bench over there. [points to bench] Terminator: [looks around, examining the structural integrity of the room, then looks back at him] !
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sarah: Would you talk about something? Kyle: What? Sarah: I don't know. Anything. Just talk. Tell me about my son. Kyle: He's about my height. He has your eyes. Sarah: What's he like? Kyle: You trust him. He's got a strength. I'd die for John Connor. Sarah: Well, at least now I know what to name him. I don't suppose you know who the father is so I won't tell him to get lost when I meet him. Kyle: John never said much about him. I know he dies before the war- Sarah: Wait! I don't want to know. So, was it John that sent you here? Kyle: I volunteered. Sarah: Why? Kyle: It was a chance to meet the legend... Sarah Connor. Taught her son to fight, organize, prepare from when he was a kid. When you were in hiding before the war. Sarah: You're talking about things I haven't done yet, in the past tense. It's driving me crazy. Are you sure you have the right person? Kyle: I'm sure. Sarah: [angry, irritated] Oh, come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean am I tough, organized? I can
The Terminator, CC BY-SA 4.0
Music
See all songsThe Terminator: Original Soundtrack
1984
- 1Burnin’ in the Third Degree (1984)Performed by Tahnee Cain and Tryanglz
- 2Factory Chase (1984)Performed by Brad Fiedel
- 3Future Remembered (1984)Performed by Brad Fiedel
- 4Intimacy (1984)Performed by Lin Van Hek
- 5Love Scene (1984)Performed by Brad Fiedel
Ratings
More like this
Where to watch
Where to watch is coming soon
Discuss
Discussion is coming soon