15 Best Movies To Watch if You Like The Terminator, Ranked

Here are your best picks to watch next.

1. Blade Runner (1982)

You thought the future in Terminator was bleak? Welcome to dystopian Los Angeles, 2019, where Rick Deckard is a retired Blade Runner. His job? Hunting down "replicants", which are essentially bioengineered humans. Deckard gets called back for one last mission to take down four rogue replicants led by Roy Batty. Throughout the hunt, Deckard encounters Rachael, another replicant who doesn't know she's not human, complicating his feelings about his task.

2. Aliens (1986)

Say hello to Ripley, the badass space traveler who survived the first Alien movie. This time, she's leading a team of Marines to the planet LV-426, where contact with a human colony has been lost. Plot twist: the place is crawling with the same aliens that Ripley narrowly escaped before. The team has to fight their way through a hive, facing off against an alien queen, all while protecting Newt, a little girl who's the colony's sole survivor.

3. RoboCop (1987)

Detroit's in bad shape – crime's rampant, and the police are overwhelmed. Enter RoboCop, the brainchild of a corporation that sees a future in law enforcement automation. They take Alex Murphy, a recently-deceased cop, and turn him into a cyborg law enforcer. Murphy starts cleaning up the streets but soon begins to recall his past life and the thugs who killed him. He's got a vendetta and the firepower to back it up.

4. District 9 (2009)

An alien spaceship gets stranded above Johannesburg, and its inhabitants, nicknamed Prawns, are put into a refugee camp called District 9. Enter Wikus, a bureaucrat assigned to relocate the Prawns to a new camp. During the eviction process, he gets exposed to an alien chemical that starts turning him into a Prawn. Now a fugitive, Wikus teams up with an alien named Christopher Johnson to find a cure while dodging mercenaries and his own agency.

5. Total Recall (1990)

Living an ordinary life, Douglas Quaid becomes obsessed with Mars and decides to go on a "virtual vacation" to experience life as a secret agent on the Red Planet. Things go sideways, and Quaid starts to believe he actually is a secret agent embroiled in a Martian rebellion. He goes to Mars for real, battling his way through assassins and trying to piece together his true identity.

6. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Max, our lone wanderer, gets captured by the warlord Immortan Joe's cult. He's initially used as a "blood bag" for a warrior named Nux but eventually teams up with Furiosa, a badass truck driver trying to save a group of women from Joe's clutches. Together, they go on a high-speed chase across the desert wasteland, facing everything from monstrous vehicles to sandstorms.

7. I, Robot (2004)

Set in 2035, Del Spooner, played by Will Smith, is a Chicago cop who's deeply skeptical of robots. So, when a leading robotics scientist is found dead, Spooner's all ears. The scientist's robot, Sonny, is the prime suspect, but Spooner starts to uncover a more sinister plot. A new line of robots is about to launch, and they may not be as three-laws-safe as advertised. Spooner and Sonny have to stop a robot uprising before it's too late.

8. Looper (2012)

Time travel gets a new twist here. In this future, the mob sends people they want gone back in time to be killed by Loopers. Joe is one such Looper, and he's got a good thing going – until he's tasked with killing his future self. Old Joe escapes, and Young Joe has to catch him or else be "closed", aka terminated. Along the way, Joe encounters a child who might play a crucial role in the grim future he's trying to prevent.

9. The Fifth Element (1997)

It's the 23rd century, and a cosmic evil threatens to destroy Earth every 5,000 years. Bruce Willis is Korben Dallas, a taxi driver and former special forces major, who stumbles upon Leeloo, a humanoid who's the key to stopping this evil. They team up with a priest and embark on a quest to find four elemental stones that, combined with Leeloo, can save the world.

10. Moon (2009)

Ever felt alone? Try being the only human on a lunar mining base. Sam Bell is nearing the end of a three-year contract mining Helium-3 on the moon. He's eager to return to Earth and see his family, but things take a turn for the weird. He starts to experience hallucinations and finds out that there are multiple clones of him operating the facility. Turns out, his contract isn't what it seems.

11. Inception (2010)

Cobb is a skilled thief in the art of "extraction", stealing secrets from people's minds while they sleep. However, he gets an offer he can't refuse: plant an idea in someone's mind, a process called "inception", and his criminal record will be wiped clean. Cobb and his team go layers deep into the dreams of a business magnate's son, fighting off subconscious defenses and racing against a collapsing dream state.

12. The Matrix (1999)

In a world where reality is a computer simulation controlled by sentient machines, Neo, a hacker, is awakened to the real world by rebels Morpheus and Trinity. Once unplugged, Neo learns he's The One destined to end the machines' control. He undergoes intensive training and embarks on a perilous journey through the Matrix. Dodging bullets, fighting agents, and questioning spoons; it's a full-blown war against a simulated reality.

13. Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie is a troubled teen who starts having visions of a rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end in 28 days. Amidst this, a jet engine mysteriously crashes into his house, which sets off a chain of strange and terrifying events. Is it time travel? Parallel universes? Frank guides Donnie through tasks that reveal a much larger cosmic plan.

14. Ex Machina (2014)

A young programmer, Caleb, wins a contest to spend a week with Nathan, the CEO of his company. The twist? He's there to evaluate Ava, an incredibly advanced AI housed in a robotic body. Caleb starts off amazed but soon realizes Nathan has a darker agenda. As Caleb interacts with Ava, he starts to question the ethics of creating such advanced AI and wonders if Ava might actually possess genuine consciousness.

15. 12 Monkeys (1995)

James Cole is a convict sent back in time to discover the origins of a deadly virus that wiped out most of humanity. He ends up in a mental institution, where he meets Jeffrey, a radical animal rights activist. The two escape and discover clues that might point to the virus's origins, but Cole starts to question whether he's trapped in a predestined loop he can't escape.