In 1984, a fledgling Canadian filmmaker paired up with an actor still best known for taking his shirt off to make a low-budget science-fiction movie called The Terminator. It became a decade-defining hit, turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into a star after the success of Conan the Barbarian. It especially launched an enduring sci-fi franchise in the bargain. That includes six movies in totem as of this writing, as well as a TV series -- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles -- and attendant spinoffs like comic books and novels.

Along the way, The Terminator franchise has developed an extremely convoluted timeline, which is perhaps to be expected from a series about killer robots arriving from the future to change history. Like other franchises such as the Halloween movies and Star Wars, that's led to a number of different viewing orders for those wishing to watch the entire franchise. The first two films are considered iconic, but the remainder are less vital, which lets fans mix and match their viewing order in a number of different ways.

The Terminator's Production Order Is The Best Order for Newcomers

The easiest way to view all six Terminator movies is to simply arrange them in order of release. Each new movie needed to take the previous entries into account, and while most of them involve copious time travel, they keep the timeline clear simply by necessity. Even the late-inning outliers want their viewers to understand what's going on, making a production order viewing an expedient way to keep the key details in hand. It follows a reasonably straightforward narrative for the first four movies.

More specifically, the production order covers the events leading up to John Connor's birth and destiny before ending the world in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and covering the Resistance against the machines in Terminator Salvation. In addition, it puts the most important films -- the original Terminator and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day -- at the front of the viewing order. With the remainder of the series varying greatly in terms of quality, that allows viewers to opt out once they've had their fill. It's also the best viewing order for more casual fans or people coming to the franchise for the first time.

The Terminator's Timeline Order Is the Best One for Continuity

Most bigger movie franchises hold up to a chronological viewing: looking at the movies in the order they take place in-universe, rather than the order they hit theaters in the real world. That can be quite tricky considering that The Terminator movies center on time travel, with almost every film in the series jumping back and forth at least a little bit. Nevertheless, it makes an intriguingly different way to experience the six movies, as well as demonstrating how complex the saga had become with the release of the latter-day films.

The timeline order is reasonably simple, and attempts to navigate various pieces of temporal displacement as easily as possible. It essentially involves watching the fifth film -- Terminator Genisys -- directly after the first Terminator from 1984. Genisys' labyrinthine plot essentially begins on the same night as the first film by making them more or less concurrent. After that, order proceeds according to release date, as with a production order viewing.

The placement of Terminator: Dark Fate becomes a bit of an issue for a timeline order viewing. It takes place in an alternate universe where Judgment Day never happened, effectively eliminating the events of the three films before it. Accordingly, a timeline order viewing can either leave it until the very end, or drop it entirely.

Only Three Terminator Movies Give Viewers James Cameron's True Vision

Like Schwarzenegger, filmmaker James Cameron cemented his reputation with the Terminator franchise, and directed the first two entries -- still regarded as the cream of the crop -- before departing to focus on other projects. Three other directors brought their own take on the story in the interim, which moved away from Cameron's vision. Cameron returned to the franchise as the producer in 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate, and contributed to the story while Tim Miller took over directing duties.

The three films Cameron actually worked on form a rump trilogy, taking place in its own timeline and essentially ignoring the events of the third, fourth, and fifth movies. Cameron brought the original Sarah Connor actor Linda Hamilton back to the role for the first time since Terminator 2: Judgment Day. While the film struggled at the box office, fans largely regard it as a return to form after multiple weak entries. The "Cameron Trilogy" thus represents the cream of the crop, with the benefit of a coherent narrative arc that organically connects all three.

The Terminator Movies By Quality Order Gives Viewers the Best Experience