1991 Hit Film Was Just Ranked 'the Most Perfect Action Movie' of All Time
Action films are not always regarded as high-cinema. However, there are plenty of movies from the genre that are considered well worth viewers' time and attention. Collider recently released the publication's list of the top 10 "most perfect action movies" ever made. The ranking featured classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark from 1981, 1999's The Matrix, Predator from 1987, Mad Max: Fury Road, released in 2015, and Aliens from 1986.
1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day took home the title of the most perfect action movie of all time. Collider reported that the Terminator sequel deserved the list's number one spot because of its impressive script, written by James Cameron and William Wisher, and thrilling action scenes.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day currently has a score of 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
In a 2022 interview with GQ, Cameron shared details about making the Terminator sequel. He said that he was approached to make a second Terminator film in 1990, six years after the first movie premiered. Before writing the script, he wanted to make sure Linda Hamilton, who starred as Sarah Connor, wanted to reprise her role.
According to Cameron, Hamilton told him that she would return as Sarah as long as the character wasn't in the best mental state.
"Her hypothesis was that what she had been through traumatically, and her vision of the future had basically driven her nuts. We eventually modified that so that she wasn't, she was on the edge, but she wasn't really crazy," said the Titanic director in the 2022 interview.
Cameron explained that his final version of Sarah in Terminator 2: Judgment Day "was a victim of trauma," but also "rather coldly calculating," as she was attempting to prevent a horrific future.
In addition, Cameron said that he believed "The Terminator movies were always about our dehumanization of ourself."
"It's not about robots from the future. It's about how we dehumanize ourselves, how we lose our empathy. How a psychologist or a policeman or a soldier can lose their humanity, you know? And [Sarah] becomes the Terminator of that movie," said Cameron while speaking to GQ. "The Terminator, [Arnold Schwarzenegger]'s character is humanized, [but] she has become an inhuman killing machine, except at that brink she steps back. And from then she begins to kind of, her journey back to humanization and to being able to feel, and express love and all that. So there's a whole other subtext going on underneath this kind of rapid fire roller coaster ride of an action film."
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This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 1:44 PM.