The Terminator (1984)

The Terminator parents guide

It stays inside its R, with moderate sex and nudity, and brutal violence.

Scare

Mildly scary

A few tense or eerie moments.

Jump scares

A couple

One or two sudden jolts.

Gore

Light gore

Some blood or injury, briefly.

Violence

Brutal violence

Our top level for violence.

Sex and nudity

Moderate

Moderate means a sex scene or nudity on screen, even brief, or sexual violence that is described or implied but never shown.

Language

Moderate

Some strong profanity, a few f-words.

How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.

Three questions

Is The Terminator scary?

Only a little. The Terminator has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.

How gory is The Terminator?

Light gore and brutal violence.

What is The Terminator rated, and is it OK for kids?

It is an R, with moderate sex and nudity, brutal violence, and some strong language. Keep it for adults.

What is The Terminator about?

In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the "Terminator" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?

Cast and crew

More like The Terminator

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The Terminator is on our Edge of your seat, Stressful, Time travel, AI and robots and Dystopias lists.

More like this feeling

Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.

• “a thriller with a twist, no spoilers”
• “scary but not gory”
• “a horror movie that's actually scary”

Lists with the same feel: Most violent.