James Cameron got his start in the film industry doing visual-effects work for low-budget sci-fi movies like “Galaxy of Terror” and “Battle Beyond the Stars,” but it didn’t take long for his wizardry to land him behind the camera. Within just a few films, Cameron put his stamp on the whole industry, crafting oft-imitated sci-fi hits on reasonable budgets before throwing huge loads of money into epic and sometimes troubled productions which, fortunately for everyone, pretty much always found an appreciative audience (and, not for nothing, made tons of money).
Watching Cameron’s films, from his original low-budget short to his trilogy of underwater documentaries, is a trip through his lifelong passions. You can see seeds of future blockbusters in early schlock like “Piranha II: The Spawning,” and you don’t even have to look that hard.
13. “Expedition: Bismarck” (2002)
The second film in James Cameron’s deep-sea-diving documentary trilogy is the dreariest. Cameron once again travels to the bottom of the ocean, this time to explore the sunken wreckage of the infamous Nazi battleship Bismarck, along with survivors from both the Bismarck and the British ships that sank it. Co-directed by Gary Johnstone, “Expedition: Bismarck” struggles to make its subject seem fascinating, and its attempts to make stories of the German war machine sound impressive uncomfortably downplay the many horrors inherent to the subject matter. A fair amount of impressive footage aside, “Expedition: Bismarck” makes for a dull journey.
12. “Piranha II: The Spawning” (1982)
Cameron has long since disowned his first feature film directorial credit, a sequel to Joe Dante’s 1978 comedy-horror classic about mutated man-eating fish. Reports vary on just how much work Cameron actually did on the film — with the general consensus leaning towards “not much” — but that’s odd, because his stamp is all over it. The film features extensive underwater action sequences, untrustworthy government types, a working-class family drama set against a sci-fi backdrop, and even an early version of the flying fish monsters from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” This definitely plays like a key part of his filmography. It just happens to be really, really bad, with confusing editing and a script that’s all over the place. At least Lance Henriksen is rather good as the weary cop investigating killer-fish crimes. And the monsters are kinda neat.
11. “True Lies” (1994)
The only proper remake in Cameron’s filmography (unless “Titanic” counts, and maybe it should), “True Lies” is a big-budget redux of Claude Zidi’s 1991 French action farce “La Totale!” Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an American version of James Bond, a super spy who keeps his action-packed espionage career a secret from neglected wife Jamie Lee Curtis and daughter Eliza Dushku. When Cameron keeps “True Lies” focused on action, his movie hums along wonderfully. But whenever the characters stop to talk, his film gets tediously swept away in its disturbingly sexist and xenophobic story, with jokes that mostly fall flat, are weirdly cruel, or often both. Curtis gives a comic performance on par with the great Ginger Rogers, but the film she’s in isn’t worthy of her.
10. “Ghosts of the Abyss” (2003)
Bill Paxton stars and narrates as James Cameron’s plus-one on a return trip to the Titanic, to capture footage never before seen of its hidden underwater secrets. The footage Cameron and his crew capture, and the technology they use to achieve it, makes for interesting and informative documentary subject matter, but Paxton seems to be narrating the film more as a droll travelogue, and his laid-back approach robs the film of much-needed gravitas. At a brisk 61 minutes, this theatrical feature plays more like an excellent DVD special feature than a film in its own right.
9. “Avatar” (2009)
The highest-grossing film of all time (as of this writing) may be an impressive spectacle, but it also doesn’t work. The story of a disabled American marine who travels to a distant planet, takes over the genetically engineered form of its indigenous inhabitants, and becomes their legendary savior is an unpleasant and regressive rehash of colonialist H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs–esque fantasies, with a script seems only half-written, plagued with gigantic story holes and unaddressed drama. Some might argue that the colorful and imaginative imagery outweighs the film’s narrative and thematic shortcomings, and would probably rank it higher in Cameron’s filmography. But it’s not an abstract museum piece: this is mainstream pop cinema, and it’s deeply flawed. Gorgeous to look at, though.
8. “Aliens of the Deep” (2005)
Towards the beginning of “Aliens of the Deep,” Cameron notes that he made two deep-sea-diving documentaries and kinda forgot to do any science when he was down there. This beautifully photographed film makes up for that, as Cameron accompanies a group of marine biologists and NASA scientists to the ocean depths to discover radical glowing sea creatures and to theorize about how similar extreme environments could introduce unexpected life on seemingly uninhabitable planets. Co-directed by Stephen Quale, “Aliens of the Deep” is always engaging and incredibly lovely to look at, satisfying our curiosity about ocean life and inspiring us to learn more.
7. “Xenogenesis” (1978)
If you ever wondered what James Cameron would do with a shoe-string budget, the answer is, he’d still try to make the biggest movie you’ve ever seen. This 12-minute short film, starring his future “Terminator” co-writer William Wisher Jr., plays like an excerpt from an imaginative 1970s sci-fi show about a robot and a human trying to find a new planet to rebuild the human race. It’s like watching a kitschy “Valérian and Laureline” TV series where they run afoul of a giant, killer WALL-E, and then it ends with the power loader fight from “Aliens,” except this time Ripley is piloting a giant spider robot. That’s “Xenogenesis,” and that’s awesome. The writing and acting are naive but charming, and the no-budget wizardry boggles the mind.
6. “The Abyss” (1989)
Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio play a married pair of deep-sea salvagers, on the edge of divorce, who are called into action when an American nuclear sub sinks under mysterious circumstances. Along the way a hurricane strikes, the leader of a Navy SEAL team loses his mind and threatens the crew with nuclear annihilation, and they just happen to discover extraterrestrial life. “The Abyss” is a hodgepodge of many different genres — working-class character drama, Cold War paranoia, nerdy tech talk, epic disaster schlock, first contact — but for most of the running time, Cameron makes it all work beautifully. That is, until the film’s incredibly clunky ending, which feels completely tacked-on and artificial even in the film’s (far superior) director’s cut. If he’d stuck the landing, “The Abyss” could have been Cameron’s very best film. There’s nothing quite like it.
5. “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022)
Cameron returns to Pandora in a sequel that’s more imaginative and less beholden to hackneyed and outdated clichés. “Avatar: The Way of Water” finds Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña returning as Jake and Neytiri, who are raising a bunch of kids on Pandora as they fight off a new wave of human colonizers. When things get too hot, they seek refuge with an aquatic tribe, and their children learn valuable lessons about life, love and giant super whales on a beautiful beach. The story still struggles — with interesting characters angling for screen time, an awkwardly constructed first act, and subplots that vary in quality — but once the climax gets underway, the criticisms seem trivial. The drama comes together very well in the end, and Cameron develops it all around an astounding, escalating set piece with boundless creative energy.
4. “The Terminator” (1984)
The film that put James Cameron on the map still plays fantastically today. Part low-budget horror movie and part sci-fi epic, “The Terminator” stars Linda Hamilton as an ordinary waitress targeted for extermination by a time-traveling killer cyborg, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only a human time traveler, played by Michael Biehn, can protect her. The only problem is, everyone thinks he’s crazy. The script is a fantastic bootstrap paradox thriller, smartly conceived and tightly wound, albeit somewhat inspired by an “Outer Limits” episode written by Harlan Ellison, who successfully sued to get his name in the credits. Whatever the inspiration, the original “Terminator” is a total classic, and a textbook example of how to make a low budget look huge.
3. “Aliens” (1986)
Cameron’s ambitious sequel to Ridley Scott’s iconic “Alien” kept the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, but changed the genre. Instead of a haunted-house story in space, Cameron’s “Aliens” is a proper war saga, with Ripley joining a platoon of interplanetary marines on a mission to wipe out — or possibly protect and patent — a species of killer monsters who have wiped out a human colony. Although somewhat undermined by specific filmmaking choices (one of the main cast members is in brownface, for crying out loud), Cameron’s film is incredibly constructed and helped define a sci-fi subgenre; it’s constantly influencing other outer-space action films, video games and other media to this day.
2. “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991)
The big-budget sequel to “The Terminator” is in many ways a playful rehash of the original, repeating story beats, familiar lines of dialogue and even action sequences. If it wasn’t James Cameron doing it, and if the whole franchise wasn’t based on history repeating itself (literally, over and over again), it might be annoying. Instead, “Terminator 2” is absolutely inspired, with visual effects that were ahead of its time and action sequences that put most modern Hollywood set pieces to shame. The characters evolved in interesting directions, and the story expands in satisfying ways. It’s one of the great movie blockbusters.
1. “Titanic” (1997)
Another one of the great movie blockbusters, maybe even the best. Cameron’s Oscar-winning disaster romance might feel familiar to people who saw previous efforts to romanticize the 1912 maritime tragedy, like “A Night to Remember” (1953) or “Titanic” (1953), but Cameron’s pop sensibilities give his version a touch of magic. The old-fashioned forbidden romance between society girl Kate Winslet and penniless ragamuffin Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most entertaining cinematic pulp romances, and the film’s segue into an ever-evolving nightmare of machinery, icy water and hubris is absolutely masterful. Exciting, alluring, tragic, “Titanic” manages to make even its handful of weaknesses — like some truly embarrassing dialogue, and some cartoonishly broad characterizations — feel like an indelible part of its appeal. Big movies don’t get much better.
