Poster © Paramount Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreAction, Adventure & Sci-Fi
RatedPG-13
Runtime2 hr 6 mins
ReleasedJuly 1, 2015
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorAlan Taylor
StarringArnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke
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Terminator Genisys (2015)
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| Terminator Genisys's Details | |
| Genre | Action, Adventure & Sci-Fi |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Released | 06/22/2015 (Berlin); 07/01/2015 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 6 mins |
| Budget | $155–158M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Terminator Genisys's Interests | |
| General | Time machines, 1984 Los Angeles, liquid metal, the Golden Gate Bridge, an old robot learning to smile. |
| Music | Lorne Balfe, with nods to Brad Fiedel's classic Terminator theme. |
| Movies | The Terminator (1984). The original timeline, before everyone started messing with it. |
| Television | Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Another Sarah, another bent timeline. |
| Heroes | Pops. Gray hair, creaky knees, still fully operational. |
| Terminator Genisys's Crew | |
| Director | Alan Taylor |
| Writers | Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier |
| Producers | David Ellison, Dana Goldberg |
| Cinematography | Kramer Morgenthau |
| Music | Lorne Balfe |
| Edited By | Roger Barton |
| Production | Skydance Productions |
| Distributed By | Paramount Pictures |
Terminator Genisys made $440.6 million worldwide, and almost nobody who bought a ticket can explain what happened in it. The movie recreates scenes from the original, then knocks them over to start a brand-new timeline, then another one, and spends most of its 126 minutes explaining the rules out loud. Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney play Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, the most important couple in the whole series, and they have the spark of two strangers waiting for the same elevator. J.K. Simmons shows up as a cop who has waited years for this and gets almost nothing to do. The good stuff is all Arnold Schwarzenegger. His gray-haired Pops is a machine that aged on the outside, and his attempts at a friendly smile land somewhere between sweet and terrifying. A 3.4 because Arnold’s grandpa charm can’t save a plot that rewrites itself whenever it gets stuck. $9,956 says you decline the next software update on your phone and tell yourself it’s for the good of humanity.
What works: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s aging Pops is funny and oddly sweet, and a few of the recreated scenes from the original are fun to spot.
What doesn’t: The time travel plot keeps resetting itself, and the leads playing Sarah and Kyle share no chemistry, which sinks the love story the whole series hangs on.
Who it’s for: Terminator diehards who want to see Arnold back in the leather jacket and don’t mind a timeline that needs a whiteboard.
Spoilers
Skynet, in the form of Matt Smith’s character, has turned John Connor into a new kind of Terminator, and Genisys is the program that will wake it up. Pops falls into a pool of liquid metal and comes back upgraded, and a scene after the credits shows that Genisys survived.
In 2029, resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends his most trusted soldier, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), back to 1984 to protect John's mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), from a Terminator. Simple job. Except the 1984 Kyle lands in is not the one he was promised. Sarah is already armed, trained and unimpressed, and she has a bodyguard of her own: an aging, reprogrammed T-800 she calls Pops (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who has been looking out for her since she was a little kid. Alan Taylor directs a timeline that folds like a paper airplane. One hundred twenty-six minutes, zero simple answers about time travel.
Anyone with a working time machine and a good memory. Pops will drive.
the Terminator / Popsphoto: Bernhard Holub, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | the Terminator / Pops |
| Jason Clarke | John Connor |
| Emilia Clarke | Sarah Connor |
| Jai Courtney | Kyle Reese |
| J. K. Simmons | O'Brien |
| Dayo Okeniyi | Danny Dyson |
| Matt Smith (credited | Matthew Smith) as Alex |
| Courtney B. Vance | Miles Dyson |
| Michael Gladis | Lieutenant Matias |
| Sandrine Holt | Detective Cheung |
| Byung-Hun Lee | Cop / T-1000 |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +480 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $440.6M; Domestic box office $89.8M; Opening weekend $27M; Profit / loss (est.) -$14.4M; Rotten Tomatoes 26%; CinemaScore B+; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 26% (276 reviews); Metacritic 38 / 100; CinemaScore B+; IMDb users 6.3 / 10 (310,678 votes); movie.guru score 3.5.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.