King of the World: How to Watch All the James Cameron Movies in Order

Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)

Does Piranha 2: The Spawning even qualify as a Cameron film? After the Italian producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (Tentacles) fired his first choice, Cameron took over with a non-English-speaking crew and was, as the story goes, replaced two weeks into production. Honestly, there’s not much in this tropical travesty that resembles the director’s later work besides the presence of Lance Henriksen. So we’ll honor Cameron’s wishes and call the next film on this list his “feature debut.” But if you’ve got a hankering to watch genetically modified killer fish sprout wings and snack on tourists, have at it. Just don’t blame Jim.

Where to stream Piranha II: The Spawning

The Terminator (1984)

A movie that overachieves on every level, The Terminator squeezes every dime out of its $6.4 million budget. Cameron’s tale of a cyborg from the future sent to assassinate Sarah Connor’s unborn child might owe a debt to Harlan Ellison’s Soldier, but the ultraviolent showdown is an action juggernaut all its own. Much of the credit belongs to Schwarzenegger, whose masterful body language more than compensates for his massacre of the English language.

Where to stream The Terminator

Aliens (1986)

Can we all pause to appreciate the irony of a guy who started out making Alien knockoffs ending up responsible for the best Alien sequel ever? Tasked with turning a one-and-done classic into a franchise seven years later, Cameron built one of cinema’s great expansion packs, sending a squad of colonial marines into a hive of acid-spewing, slime-dripping, baby-making xenomorphs—with Ripley ostensibly just along for moral support. Not only is Aliens a prototype for Cameron’s techno-obsessed take on heroic bloodshed, it might even edge out Ridley Scott’s original depending on your mood and testosterone level.

Where to stream Aliens

The Abyss (1989)

Given carte blanche by the studio after Aliens’ success, Cameron’s next film, a long-gestating passion project, overlong, over budget, and overly fixated on spectacle. The Abyss, his first plunge into what would become a career-long deep-sea fixation, shares his shredded action-movie aesthetic—this time under five cubic tons of water pressure.

Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio star as the feuding leaders of an underwater drilling rig roped into a secret military expedition involving Russian subs, extraterrestrials, and water-breathing rats.

The deep-sea E.T.s (realized with early CGI) are underwhelming and overly preachy, never quite achieving the Kubrickian awe Cameron was fishing for. Still, his grip on the tension between the folksy oil crew, an increasingly unhinged Michael Biehn, and the crushing menace of the ocean keeps things intensely claustrophobic.

Where to stream The Abyss

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

You could call Cameron’s return to his breakout franchise a cash grab (turning Arnold into a hero felt like a compromise at the time) but Terminator 2: Judgment Day is where he got his mojo back in spades. John Connor (Edward Furlong), now a squirrely L.A. tween, enlists the T-800 to bust his mom out of the loony bin and prevent the rise of Skynet. But Cameron’s masterstroke is the new villain: Robert Patrick’s liquid-metal T-1000, a shape-shifting porcupine that raises the stakes both narratively and visually. Less mean-spirited than its predecessor, sure, but it’s bigger, louder, full of swagger—and still the envy of every director saddled with coming up with a sequel.

Where to stream Terminator 2: Judgment Day

True Lies (1994)

Stepping outside sci-fi for the first time, Cameron’s Viagra-spiked take on the spy genre hasn’t aged gracefully. True Lies casts Arnold as a secret agent whose special ops need to be kept hidden even from his own adventure-starved wife (played fearlessly by Jamie Lee Curtis). With aggressively unfunny comic relief from Tom Arnold and an uncomfortable striptease sequence, the film piles on explosion after explosion in a ’90s orgy of budgetary excess, signifying plenty of sound and fury, but not much else. To borrow from Jurassic Park, Cameron was so busy wondering if he could blow up the Seven Mile Bridge, he didn’t stop to think if he should.

Where to stream True Lies

Titanic (1997)

Has there ever been a more perfect collision of directorial hubris and historical happenstance? Titanic is a sprawling, three-hour undertaking that harks back to the budget-busting days of Cleopatra, where filmmakers staked their reputations on a single film.

Lucky for Cameron, his meet-cute disaster epic became a record-breaking phenomenon, catching DiCaprio on the ascent while technology finally let us watch the big boat sink convincingly. In hindsight, the soap-opera stuff (especially those Bill Paxton bookends) drags like an anchor for anyone who came solely for the disaster porn. But credit to Cameron for squeezing a love story into the wreckage and hanging on to his new audience like Jack clinging to that floating door. (Come on, you know she could’ve scooted over!)

Where to stream Titanic

Avatar (2009)

After crowning himself “King of the World,” Cameron ventured into various submersible-based side quests. Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep were engaging enough docs, but you knew his itch to outdo himself would flare up again like a raging case of herpes. Avatar marked a return to Cameron’s production-designer roots: a chock-a-block, creature-stuffed jungle planet ripped straight from classic pulp-sci-fi paperback covers. With motion-capture tech cranked beyond its previous limits, the film’s 3D wasn’t just a novelty; it rewired the entire industry. Performances be damned, Avatar remains a sensory buffet even if its tree-hugging Na’vi have become bigger punchline than the Smurfs.

Where to stream Avatar

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

For all his faults, Cameron had never repeated himself—until Avatar: The Way of Water. Expanding the story to include the blue-skinned progeny of the original cast, who’ve now gone full native, the even-longer, even-cornier sequel broadens its visual palette but dog-paddles through a story that’s too familiar. The man hasn’t lost his flair for pulse-pounding setpieces (that Skimwing flight sequence is something else), but for a director known for breaking new ground, this one feels like he’s killing time in the kiddie pool. And that doesn’t bode well for Avatar: Fire & Ash.

Where to stream Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: Fire and Ash (Dec. 19, 2025)

Avatar: Fire & Ash, arriving in theaters December 19, returns audiences to Pandora as civil war erupts between the tribes. Cameron always delivers spectacle, so skipping this one in theaters is probably unwise. It’s also one of the few ways left to experience immersive 3D without hiring cosplayers to flap around your living room and speak in questionable accents. Just be sure to empty your bladder before you snag a seat.

Where to stream Avatar: Fire and Ash