Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

We watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day together and spent an hour talking about the nature of humanity afterward. That kind of conversation doesn't happen often. The film gives you something real to think about together.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is not background viewing. Every scene requires you. Put your phone down, dim the lights. James Cameron is doing too much to be half-watched. Give it the attention it deserves.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been praised so heavily that no film could live up to the hype completely. It's an excellent film — Linda Hamilton's physical transformation is genuinely remarkable — but it's not the untouchable masterpiece some claim.

Some elements of Terminator 2: Judgment Day show their age, but the core of it — sacrifice, the emotional reversal of the T-800 — hasn't diminished at all. Films this good age better than almost anything else.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day deals with sacrifice in a way that's genuinely uncomfortable at times. But that discomfort is the point. James Cameron never lets you look away, and the film is better for it.

I went into Terminator 2: Judgment Day knowing nothing — no trailer, no plot summary. I strongly recommend that approach. The fate vs free will hits much harder when you haven't been primed for it. Go in cold.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day builds so carefully to its conclusion that when it arrives you feel genuinely moved. The fate vs free will thread pays off in a way that's earned rather than manipulative. Couldn't sleep afterward.

Whatever you think of the story, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the most visually extraordinary films ever shot. There are frames here that belong in a gallery. Worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

There are scenes in cinema you never forget. For me, the mall chase in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of them. James Cameron constructs it with total precision and it lands exactly as intended. Pure craft.

The music in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is so deeply married to the images that you almost can't separate them. It stays in your head days later and when you hear it again the emotions return immediately.