My Official And Objectively Correct Ranking Of Every James Cameron Movie

Quality over quantity.

The story of James Cameron's career is quality over quantity. Over 40 years, he has made less than 10 films, and yet, almost every single one of his movies is considered, at worst, extremely good and, at best, one of the best films ever made. He is also the king of the box office, as his movies currently hold two of the top three highest-grossing films of all time (which is especially impressive considering neither is a superhero film).

20th Century Fox Film / Giphy

With Avatar: The Way of Water set to hit theaters this month, I decided to rank all of James Cameron's films up to this point. This ranking is, of course, entirely definitive and will once and for all objectively settle the exact order of all of his films in terms of quality. So, without further ado, here is the work of Cameron, from worst to best.

8. Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981)

Saturn / Courtesy Everett Collection

One of Cameron's first real Hollywood gigs was when he was hired as the special effects director for this sequel to Piranha, a schlocky horror-comedy that managed to significantly out-earn its minuscule budget. But his big break came when original director, Miller Drake, left the project due to creative differences with producer Ovidio Assonitis. Cameron, who was in his late 20s at the time, was chosen to take over the movie, and honestly, there's a reason you've probably never heard of this movie despite it being directed by one of the biggest filmmakers in history. It's bad and may be the only time in his career that he was truly in over his head. Cameron's first film is undoubtedly his worst, but even this mostly mediocre sequel has a few moments that show the much, much bigger things that he was destined to do behind the camera.

Rent it on Prime Video.

7. The Abyss (1989)

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

Even if Cameron's films aren't quite your taste, it's hard to accuse them of ever being boring. Except, perhaps, in the case of The Abyss. Fresh off the success of Aliens, Cameron was given the opportunity to make pretty much whatever movie he wanted. And he chose to write his own story about a US search and rescue crew teaming up with an oil platform unit to try and get to a sunken submarine before the Soviets. The twist of the crew finding something entirely unexpected doesn't really land, and the story in general is pretty generic, without having any of the fun you'd expect in a Cameron film. It's not a disaster, but it does represent a pretty massive drop compared to the rest of Cameron's filmography. 

6. True Lies (1994)

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) may seem like an impossibly jacked computer salesman, but the truth is he's actually an impossibly jacked secret agent for Omega Sector, a counterterrorism agency.  While helping keep the world safe from baddies, Harry must keep his double life a secret from his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has grown increasingly frustrated with her husband's elusive nature. Though not on the same level as Titanic or Avatar in terms of scale, True Lies shows that James Cameron is a master of spectacle and knows exactly how to keep the audience entertained from start to finish. For most filmmakers, this would be right at the top of their ranking, but for someone like Cameron, it doesn't even make the top five. That is more of a statement on the quality of his films than an insult to the movie itself.

Watch it on Peacock.

5. The Terminator (1984)

Orion / Courtesy Everett Collection

Following his competent but underwhelming directorial debut, Cameron wanted to really put his name on the map as a filmmaker. After seeing John Carpenter's Halloween, he decided to write his own movie, a sci-fi action film about a cyborg sent from the post-apocalyptic future with a mission to kill the mother of the future leader of the human resistance. The Terminator became a breakout hit, putting Arnold Schwarzenegger on the track to stardom and establishing Cameron as someone who could handle an action movie of this attitude. And while this movie remains a classic, it was just a small sign of things to come.

Watch it on Paramount+.

4. Avatar (2009)

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

The most common complaint you will hear about Avatar is that the plot is basically FernGully in space with a dash of Pocahontas (including the unfortunate "noble savage" trope). It's not an entirely unfair argument, but Cameron seems to be telling a story that is intentionally broad for the sake of simplicity (case in point, the unobtainable resource is literally called Unobtainium). The real star of the movie here is the visuals, specifically the world of Pandora, and on that front, it is one of the most compelling blockbusters of this century. Seriously, it looks significantly better than most of the big-budget blockbusters that have been made in the 12 years since its release. From the moment Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) enters his Na'vi avatar and starts exploring Pandora, you share his constant sense of awe and wonder, as director James Cameron used groundbreaking visual effects to build a planet that is nonstop eye candy.

Watch it on Disney+.

3. Aliens (1986)

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

This is when Cameron really began to establish himself as a kingmaker. Alien was already a smashing success, and it would be difficult for a relatively unknown director to put his own stamp on the sequel. But shifting the story from the sci-fi horror of the first to a sci-fi action flick proved to be a stroke of genius, allowing Aliens to feel like an entirely distinct film that helped establish the Alien franchise as one of the biggest in Hollywood. Seeing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the Marines face off against an alien army remains some of the most innovative action in the history of movies.

Watch it on Prime Video via Starz.

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Tristar Pictures / Courtesy  Everett Collection

With Judgment Day, Cameron manages to pull off the nearly impossible feat of making a sequel that pretty much everyone considers to be superior to the original. The director managed to hold on to what worked about the first film and elevate it with a brilliant twist (Arnold is now the good guy) and some of the most dazzling action set pieces of all time. It also does not hurt that Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is now a certified badass who has dedicated her life to protecting her son from any robot-killing machines from the future. The result is a movie that is simultaneously on the shortlist of greatest action films and greatest sci-fi films and firmly established Cameron as one of the masters of filmmaking on an epic scale.

Watch it on HBO Max.

1. Titanic (1997)

20th Century Fox Film Corp. / Courtesy Everett Collection

People will often deride Titanic as a melodramatic love story that relies on saccharine musical cues and the backdrop of the sinking ship rather than substance. Those people are wrong. Titanic is one of the few true epics in American cinema; a sweeping romance that also functions as a visual spectacle, the likes of which we have never quite seen before or since. In the age of IP run amok and lifeless reboot/sequels, the pure originality of watching Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) fall in love while onboard a ship that is doomed to reach the bottom of the ocean is spectacular. The movie is simultaneously intoxicatingly romantic, devastatingly tragic, undeniably beautiful, and unbelievably ambitious. Cameron declared himself the king of the world the night the film won 11 Oscars, but honestly, it's hard to disagree. Titanic remains a one-of-a-kind blockbuster that only feels more grand and special with time.

Rent it on Prime Video.