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The Terminator

1984 · directed by James Cameron · 108 min
27,016 feet · Prominence
80th of 15,261 films scored
The Rewatchables‘The Terminator’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano

How this film scores

Draw63

$78m worldwide in 1984 — $249m in today's money.

As released$78mIn 2026 money$249mRank1,344 of 8,589In 198411 of 93

How Draw works

Inflation-adjusted worldwide box office, on one global curve, and nothing else. It does not know whether a film was good.

Praise87

Critics 87, awards 0. Half each, so Praise lands at 87.

Critics87 → 44Awards0 → 0

No award rows on file. The awards pass reads Wikidata, which is thin for older and non-English films, so an empty ledger is usually missing data rather than an absence of honours.

How Praise works

Half critics, half a tiered award record where Picture and Directing carry most of the weight. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since. This film is near critically unanimous and barely registers on awards, so the awards half halves it — which penalises it for the Academy's rules rather than its quality.

Legacy90

Judged directly: Foundational sci-fi, 'I'll be back'.

Verdict90 of 100IMDb8.1 from 996kWikipedia108k views a monthAge42 years

On the listsNational Film Registryevidence, not an input to the score
Scored beside it · 24 of 3,430 films judged

If it does not belong in this company, the number is wrong.

How Legacy works

Legacy is a judgment, not a formula. A film can be adored by critics and culturally quiet, or lightly reviewed and permanently lodged in the culture, and no arithmetic over IMDb numbers tells the difference. Every signal behind it keeps updating.

draw 63 praise 87 legacy 90averages 80, which places it at27,016 ft
How the three become one number

Added, not multiplied, so a film transcendent on one pillar and weak on another is not zeroed out. A compression curve then squeezes the top, because the seven greatest films ever made should not be four thousand feet apart.

In these careers — elevation for this film

Arnold Schwarzenegger22,627 ft