Despite the existence of six films, two TV series, and countless comic books, fans of the Terminator franchise can really only agree that the first two movies are great: the original film from 1984 and the immortal sequel, T2: Judgment Day. In terms of the debate for the third-best Terminator movie, it can quickly feel like a race to the bottom. While the recent anime series Terminator: Zero reinvented the franchise perhaps better than ever, it’s not quite a true sequel to the first two films. Essentially, selecting the third-best Terminator movie requires a strange mix of both overt nostalgia fan-service, and something that feels a least a little bit new.
And, it’s for this reason that the often-derided 2015 film Terminator Genisys is, in fact, the best Terminator film in the franchise in the 21st century. That’s because this movie actually understood the assignment of a Terminator sequel more than any of the other reboots and continuations combined.
