James Cameron: Ranking the Films of James Cameron
Aren’s Ranking
1. Titanic (1997)
The blockbuster movie as communal catharsis, Titanic is a towering achievement in terms of classical storytelling and filmmaking technology that allows modern audiences to project their own hopes, dreams, and traumas onto a universal story of lost dreams and lost lives. Cameron’s film brings the ship and its people back to life through cinematic wizardry, creating an everlasting tribute to their humanity, while also chronicling the passing of an age.
2. The Terminator (1984)
It’s hard to top the visceral and emotional power of The Terminator, which is all the more impressive due to its miniscule budget. It’s the gold standard as a science-fiction parable, a star-crossed romance, a chase film, and a tribute to human resilience.
3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The ur-text for the scale and emotional impact of sequel filmmaking. It’s bigger, badder, bolder, and, ultimately, more optimistic than its predecessor.
4. Avatar (2009)
A CGI spectacle that acts as a cinematic baptism for viewers. You come for the state-of-the-art technology on display and leave with a greater appreciation for the wonders of our natural world.
5. Aliens (1986)
A “perfect organism” of tension and release, with expertly paced and choreographed action sequences that punctuate an expansion of the storyworld of the original. It stands alongside Alien as a masterpiece of the science fiction genre.
6. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
It’s too soon for me to determine whether this is better than the original. What I do know is that this is a beautiful story of a family under siege, one that delights in the particulars of its fictional world while making clear that humanity cannot run from the problems caused by colonialism and the devastation of our natural environment.
7. The Abyss (1989)
Is this James Cameron’s most personal film? It weds his fascination with the bottom of the ocean with an exploration of marriage, team dynamics, and camaraderie, making for an affecting undersea epic, although the pacing is uneven.
8. True Lies (1994)
Cameron’s most idiosyncratic film, one that doesn’t always work as either a romance, an action blockbuster, or a spy satire. However, when the parts do click, it’s a hilarious send-up of spy tropes, American action films, and romantic comedies.
9. Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)
The companion film to the movie Titanic is an affecting tribute to the people who died on the RMS Titanic. If Cameron’s romantic epic is a living memorial, then Ghosts of the Abyss is a more traditional memorial, revealing an elaborate mausoleum to the world’s most famous shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean.
10. Expedition: Bismarck (2002)
Formally, this is a run-of-the-mill made-for-television historical documentary, but it also acts as a portrait of James Cameron’s obsessions as a filmmaker and explorer.
11. Aliens of the Deep (2005)
An optimistic and sometimes stunning adventure beneath the waves. A bit juvenile, but also hopeful in its approach to scientific exploration.
12. Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
You can quibble about whether Piranha II is a true James Cameron film. What’s not up for debate is that it’s a bad film, and a fair order worse than every other film he’s made over the decades.
Anders’ Ranking
1. The Terminator (1984)
It’s kind of unbelievable that Cameron could create a science-fiction action world this fully realized in the first feature he had any real control over, but this romantic and suspenseful masterpiece comes pretty damn close to perfection. It has aged incredibly well, and even as his budgets got bigger and bigger, this film is proof of concept that Cameron has the chops at any scale. The Terminator thrills, moves, and engages the intellect all at once like few other films have.
2. The Abyss (1989)
For me, this is the key to unlocking most of Cameron’s other films, as it most perfectly includes all his repeated obsessions: an underwater setting, a threat to humanity from technological hubris, romance and a focus on the marital unit as a primary bond, and a production that pushed technical filmmaking beyond what was possible before this film (for both its use of CGI and underwater photography). In its extended Special Edition, it’s a masterpiece.
3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Just a shade less perfect than the original, if only due to unravelling the tightly wound ending of the first. But this action extravaganza never loses its focus on humanity in the midst of some of the best action filmmaking ever to come out of Hollywood. Another masterpiece.
4. Aliens (1986)
Cameron gives an action-suspense masterclass, building on the world of Ridley Scott’s original Alien, while laying the groundwork for what science fiction action from Halo to his own Avatar films would build on.
5. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
After two viewings in IMAX 3D, I would say, without hyperbole, that The Way of Water has the best visual effects of all-time. This epic expansion of the world of Avatar is a classic science fiction sequel in the tradition of The Empire Strikes Back, told on the biggest visual and emotional canvas possible.
6. Titanic (1997)
Of all of Cameron’s films this one has risen the most in my estimation since I first saw it as an older teen. For a film often remembered as a romance for adolescent girls, maturity has allowed me to appreciate its richer tones. A sweeping emotional epic, Titanic manages to combine massive spectacle with a deeply tragic portrait of humanity and its technological achievements.
7. Avatar (2009)
Don’t let its ranking this far down in my list fool you: Avatar is neck-and-neck with its sequel and Titanic in showing the possibilities of large scale, blockbuster filmmaking. Avatar did the near impossible in creating a digital world on screen that we can believe in with the world of Pandora.
8. True Lies (1994)
The first real step-down from the above seven films on my list, True Lies is nonetheless a thoroughly entertaining action-comedy that manages to fit neatly into Cameron’s interests and features wonderful husband-and-wife performances from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
9. Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)
The most successful of Cameron’s underwater documentaries goes beyond the typical nature documentary or History Channel special and deepens our appreciation of his fictional Titanic epic by taking us closer to the source, literally.
10. Aliens of the Deep (2005)
While viewing the film without IMAX 3D certainly shapes my judgement of the film’s success, this plays like a fairly conventional science documentary. The film still stuns with its images of deep sea life and points towards Cameron’s subsequent imagining of life on other worlds in the Avatar films.
11. Expedition: Bismarck (2002)
While it’s a fairly typical History Channel doc in a lot of ways, Cameron’s inquisitive drive to discover the truth about the sinking of the German battleship makes this well worth tracking down.
12. Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
The only out-and-out bad film with Cameron’s name attached as director, this exploitation sequel can barely be considered a “real” Cameron film but it still bears his marks in some of its most interesting bits, which anticipate the director’s future oeuvre.
Anton’s Ranking
1. Aliens (1986)
The theatrical version is Cameron’s most perfect film and a masterpiece of cinematic tension. The slow-building, atmospheric narrative keeps us anxious and intrigued, deftly escalates into all-out space Marine vs. alien combat, and then culminates in Cameron’s most satisfying, and thematically resonant, hero vs. villain fist fight: that between Ripley in the forklift mech and the Alien Queen. Sigourney Weaver gives one of the all-time great female performances. Although this sequel is bigger and more emotional than Ridley Scott’s original film, reflecting Cameron’s trademark approach to sequels, Aliens remains a relatively lean outlier in Cameron’s body of work. The special edition would fall a few slots down on my list.
2. The Terminator (1984)
It’s not just the crisp running time that makes The Terminator Cameron’s most rewatchable movie. It’s the feeling that there’s nothing overdone or overblown about the film (unlike most other Cameron movies). This perhaps also explains why the franchise machine and a host of filmmakers have continually, over the nearly three decades since its release, studied The Terminator and exploited it for fresh invention (or more often imitation)—not unlike the researchers in T2 who preserve the hand and forearm of the destroyed T-800 and build the future based on it. It’s a seemingly simple film that grows in my mind.
3. Titanic (1997)
Even a few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought that Titanic would ever rank this highly for me, but after revisiting the blockbuster, I appreciate it as one of Cameron’s most accomplished works. It’s also his most thematically, narratively, and emotionally potent movie. My appreciation only grew through my writing about the film, which helped me understand how well it fits into Cameron’s cinematic project. Lastly, Titanic is also a film I now admire for its obsessive, detailed portrayal of one important scene in history. Titanic is an important work of historicist filmmaking.
4. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
One of the great action movies, with phenomenal set pieces and a villain who terrifies because he never, ever stops. All that said, Terminator 2 is not a movie that I deeply care about on a personal level at this point in my life, and upon rewatch there’s less there than I remember.
5. The Abyss (1989)
Far from a flawless film, but one that I can really sink into. I appreciate the close, tense, mechanical atmosphere of the oil rig at the bottom of the sea. Through the great acting, but also likely the conditions of principle photography, we can see the toll of deep pressure on the characters’ faces and bodies. The final long dive to the aliens of the abyss is the closest underwater cinema has ever come to the transcendence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The special edition is overly long but still far superior to the theatrical cut.
6. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Anders noted the connections to the sci-fi sequel filmmaking of The Empire Strikes Back above. I would say that the second Avatar movie is The Empire Strikes Back by way of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Thunderball. Cameron, a master of the sequel, relocates his big blue tree folk to the coral reefs of Pandora, darkens the waters with family and tribal drama, and then, in the overly long third act, makes the biggest, most action-packed anti-whaling movie ever made. The ridiculousness of so much of the Avatar movies only wins us over through sheer craft, earnestness, and genuine spectacle. My tongue-in-cheek comments can only partially obfuscate my affection for many aspects of the movie. The special effects are astonishing and I appreciate the film’s family themes as Cameron’s self-conscious corrective to the endless adolescence of current blockbuster moviemaking. In many ways, but not all, The Way of Water is an improvement on the first film.
7. Avatar (2009)
The film will of course go down as one of cinema’s supreme visual accomplishments. Although there is nothing in the story that is not a cliché apart from the avatar concept, avatars as both character and narrative devices actually reshape and reorient aspects of the familiar whole. I basically agree with the film’s poisoned view of aspects of human nature, particularly our avarice, but I don’t buy the antidote, with its strangely transhumanist vision of humankind’s place within the natural world, and its wholly materialist account of the interconnection of living things. Pandora is not Earth. It’s an environmental fantasy, albeit one with much appeal. Avatar remains a film I like but do not love.
8. Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)
Less profitable as a standalone documentary and more as a vehicle for augmenting our appreciation of the movie Titanic. That doesn’t mean Ghosts of the Abyss isn’t respectful of the actual ship and the immense tragedy, or deeply interested in them as such. Rather, it’s that the film helps us see more clearly how much the blockbuster is also about memorializing the shipwreck that the documentary so reverently observes.
9. Expedition: Bismarck (2002)
I’m amused by how compelling I found Cameron’s cable TV history documentary. It’s also amazing how anything that man does displays his preoccupations and creative motifs.
10. Aliens of the Deep (2005)
At times, it’s a little too gee-whiz sciencey, but that’s also a symptom of the documentary’s and its participants’ interest in and wonder at the ocean depths. The subject matter helps tie together Cameron’s concerns in his fictional cinema.
11. True Lies (1994)
Of all Cameron’s movies he had total control over, True Lies is the only one that has plenty of parts I don’t like, as opposed to a few choices I disagree with. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t entertain, especially as a screwball romcom that exaggerates the idea of hiding a secret life from one’s spouse. But the action and humour are also chock full of duds.
12. Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)
Of course, this lands at the bottom of the list. It’s Cameron’s only bad film, but not one that doesn’t generate more than a few snickers. Be advised: it’s only worth seeing for purists who have to complete the Cameron filmography.