20 best sci-fi movies featuring women

18. The Terminator

Now, all of this isn’t to say that women can’t show some damage or vulnerability. Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton), one of the central figures of the Terminator franchise, is both tough and tender. She becomes a battle-hardened protagonist but is also a mother trying to protect her son. There’s nothing saying that a woman can’t be both an intimidating hero and a caring parent at the same time, after all.

At first, it appears that Sarah Connor is going to be yet another damsel in distress. In Terminator, she’s the target of the Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and is only saved thanks to the time-traveling Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). Connor, you see, is apparently the mother of John Connor, who will eventually save humanity from their malevolent robot overlords. The future artificial intelligence, Skynet, has sent the T-800 model Terminator back in time to eliminate their foe before he’s even born.

By the way, I’d completely forgotten that the Terminator starts off by murdering all the listed Sarah Connors in the phone book. Seriously. You’d think that, between the time travel technology and the advanced robotic assassins, they’d have a more sophisticated method.

However, Sarah Connor manages to make it to the end of the movie and even defeats the Terminator all by herself. She ends the film by driving off into the sunset and delivering a world-weary narration about the coming robot apocalypse.

By the time Terminator 2 rolls around, she’s even cooler, delivering quips and fighting against the advanced T-1000 Terminator alongside the old, now-friendly T-800. Alas, she’s not much of a presence in the rest of the franchise. That said, the first two are the best films in the franchise, in large part because of Sarah Connor’s breathtaking presence.