Every Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger movie – ranked

With Preda­tor recent­ly cel­e­brat­ing its 30^th anniver­sary, now seems as good a time as any to take a look back through Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fil­mog­ra­phy. With the excep­tion of a word­less walk-on part in Robert Altman’s 1973 mas­ter­piece, The Long Good­bye, and a cou­ple of TV appear­ances, we watched and ranked the actor’s CV in its entire­ty in a bid to sort the curd from the BodyPro Max­Plus whey. Agree with our top spot? Let us know @LWLies

Tom Arnold wrote this well-mean­ing but abject fam­i­ly movie for his young neigh­bour Eric Gores, who was born with cere­bral pal­sy. It sees the pair attempt to remake the teenager’s favourite film, True Lies, which Arnold starred in a decade ear­li­er along­side Schwarzeneg­ger and Jamie Lee Cur­tis, both of whom appear here in cameo as them­selves. Plac­ing this bot­tom of the pile may seem a tad mean-spir­it­ed, espe­cial­ly giv­en that all prof­its from its release went to char­i­ty, but it real­ly is a stinker. Adam Wood­ward

Arriv­ing a whole nine years after the Aus­tri­an Oak made his act­ing debut in Her­cules in New York, and five before The Ter­mi­na­tor shot him to star­dom, this knock­about com­e­dy-west­ern from Smokey and the Ban­dit direc­tor Hal Need­ham is notable for being Arnie’s first and only for­ay into cow­boy coun­try. Cred­it­ed sim­ply as ​‘Hand­some Stranger’, this is a far cry from the straighter roles of his ​’80s action hey­day, though it does offer an ear­ly glimpse of his comedic chops. AW

The most recent and com­fort­ably worst of Arnie’s four ​‘Day’ movies, this expen­sive­ly mount­ed affront to French fab­u­list Jules Verne fea­tures Schwarzeneg­ger as a licen­tious, lute-play­ing Turk­ish prince. Dressed in brown­face, Jheri curls and full sul­tan garb, and spout­ing some tru­ly excru­ci­at­ing sex­ist dia­logue, it’s no sur­prise that the new­ly appoint­ed Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia quick­ly dis­tanced him­self from the film upon its release. AW

Despite the name above the title and his mug front and cen­tre on the poster, it’s well over an hour before Arnie turns up for the final 20 min­utes or so of this woe­ful action-com­e­dy. Writ­ten and direct­ed by SNL alum­nus Taran Kil­lam, this inter­minably shrill mock­u­men­tary sees a mis­matched group of incom­pe­tent hit­men out to take Arnie’s title as best in the biz. Clear­ly the big guy is enjoy­ing a few easy days at the office, but as Man Bites Dog and Christo­pher Guest knock-offs go, con­sid­er this worst in show. Matt Thrift

Schwarzeneg­ger was sure to nab him­self an exec­u­tive pro­duc­er cred­it (i.e. a hand­some slice of the prof­its) for this dire sequel to Oleg Stepchenko’s For­bid­den King­dom. The most high pro­file co-pro­duc­tion between Rus­sia and Chi­na to date, it sees Arnie team up with Jack­ie Chan for what are effec­tive­ly extend­ed cameos – and one lame dust up. The big fel­la is head-gaol­er at the Tow­er of Lon­don in the ear­ly 18^th cen­tu­ry, Chan his wiz­ard pris­on­er. The two face off when the lat­ter makes his escape, but you’d hard­ly know that either of them were in the same place at the same time, giv­en the hor­ror show of edit­ing and spa­tial inco­her­ence with which Stepchenko cov­ers the knock­about. It’ll prob­a­bly earn him a for­tune, despite look­ing a right lemon. MT

The high­light of this ultra-zany ensem­ble com­e­dy involves Arnie inad­ver­tent­ly thrust­ing a man out of a two-storey win­dow with a med­i­cine ball. Pre­sum­ably, play­ing an overzeal­ous gym instruc­tor named Lars wasn’t much of a stretch for the bud­ding actor, although to say that he makes the most of this minor sup­port­ing role would be an over­state­ment. In his DVD audio com­men­tary, direc­tor Michael Schultz reveals that Arnie refused to take his shirt off for the role because he want­ed to save his impres­sive physique for Conan the Bar­bar­ian, which he had just start­ed prep­ping. AW

Arnie leads a squad of com­pro­mised DEA agents out to make a buck on the side in the ugli­est, nas­ti­est piece of work on the actor’s CV. Sab­o­tage dou­bles down on the most unsavoury ele­ments of direc­tor David Ayer’s pre­vi­ous fea­ture, End of Watch, mis­tak­ing porno­graph­ic rel­ish for uncom­pro­mis­ing grit. The lock­er-room dia­logue that makes up the screen­play is tire­some­ly pre­ten­tious, deliv­ered with mug­ging, try-hard inten­si­ty by an unmoored cast. MT

A film that’s as irri­tat­ing and unnec­es­sary as the inten­tion­al typo in its title, Genisys sees Arnie reprise his most icon­ic role to calami­tous effect, play­ing ​“Pops” to Emil­ia Clarke’s younger, sassier Sarah Con­nor. After the dis­ap­point­ment of 2009’s Arnie-free Sal­va­tion, Alan Taylor’s film was sup­posed to kick­start a new Ter­mi­na­tor tril­o­gy, but a crit­i­cal lash­ing and under­whelm­ing per­for­mance at the US box office con­signed this deeply cyn­i­cal reboot to the scrap heap. He said he’d be back, but nobody need­ed this. AW

Though mar­gin­al­ly supe­ri­or to the two sequels it spawned, it’s dif­fi­cult to place The Expend­ables any high­er on this list due to Arnie’s neg­li­gi­ble (and uncred­it­ed) part in it. Under­stand­ably he appears more than a lit­tle rusty in his first post-Gov­er­na­tor role, and the glar­ing lack of on-screen chem­istry between him, Sylvester Stal­lone and Bruce Willis is con­sol­i­dat­ed by a chop­py edit­ing style which sug­gests that this famed action hero / nov­el­ty restau­rant investor trio weren’t even filmed on the same set. AW

Arnie steps behind the cam­era for the first of two adven­tures in direct­ing. A moral­i­ty tale in the famil­iar series mould, the result proves a queasy exer­cise in body-pol­i­tics whichev­er way you unpack it. A mil­lion­aire lusts after a young blonde, who rejects him for being too old. He vis­its a mad doc­tor, who does a Face/​Off num­ber on him, replac­ing his head with that of a cash-poor hunk. He now looks like Bruce Forsyth’s cadav­er, but the gal still ain’t hap­py: ​“Your body is old and decrepit!” So, he swaps his tor­so. ​“Ugh, look at your veiny legs!” He returns to swap those too – and his junk – but by now she’s decid­ed what she real­ly wants in a man is mon­ey, set­ting up home with the bloke he swapped appendages with. The direc­tion is cheer­ful­ly inof­fen­sive, but the val­ues it espous­es on wealth, women and the body sure leave a bad taste. MT

Lar­ry King, Jay Leno and Oliv­er Stone are just a few of the ​‘media per­son­al­i­ties’ who appear as them­selves in Ivan Reitman’s breezy polit­i­cal satire about a good-guy employ­ment agency own­er enlist­ed by the Secret Ser­vice to imper­son­ate the POTUS. Arnie turns up for all of 20 sec­onds to pro­mote healthy eat­ing to a group of mid­dle school­ers, with Kevin Kline’s tit­u­lar pres­i­den­tial dop­pel­gänger prov­ing a more than ade­quate com­ic foil. Enter­tain­ing enough, but too minor to real­ly mat­ter. AW

This fes­tive curio sees our over­sized hero switch modes from one-man-army to sim­ply every­man. He’s Howard Langston, an unas­sum­ing, hard-work­ing Amer­i­can dad whose attempts to buy his child’s love are con­stant­ly thwart­ed by a man­ic mail man named Myron (Sin­bad). Most notable for fea­tur­ing one of Phil Hartman’s last film roles before his pre­ma­ture death in 1998 (and that one scene where Arnie gets drunk with a rein­deer), this is an oth­er­wise bland fam­i­ly com­e­dy which inad­ver­tent­ly cap­tures the true mean­ing of Christ­mas: ram­pant con­sumerism. AW

Schwarzenegger’s big screen debut – billed as Arnold Strong – plays like a ​’70s porno that ran out of mon­ey before they got the chance to shoot any fuck­ing. Her­cules trav­els to earth, teams up with a street-ven­dor, hilar­i­ous (*cough*) antics ensue. There’s a cer­tain charm in see­ing the big lunk’s fero­cious­ly staged bat­tles with all man­ner of con­so­nants and vow­els, but even at just 75 min­utes, get­ting through it proves a chore. MT

Arnie vs Satan pitched itself. In the event, it’s a lam­en­ta­ble addi­tion to the mil­len­ni­um-anx­i­ety canon, direct­ed with dis­dain­ful hack­ery by Peter Hyams and seem­ing­ly cut by a pair of interns with a seri­ous grudge against the sev­enth art. The role of Jeri­cho Kane offered Arnie his first stab at griz­zled and bro­ken, a god­less man up against Gabriel Byrne’s petrol-piss­ing Lucifer, vis­it­ing earth to sire a son with­in the one-hour win­dow cir­cum­scribed by Rod Steiger’s stoup of men­tal­ly ill expo­si­tion. ​“Between your faith and my Glock 9mm, I’ll take my Glock,” says the Glock-less Aus­tri­an who just had the shit kicked out of him by Miri­am Mar­golyes. MT

It’s telling that Brigitte Nielsen, despite play­ing the title char­ac­ter in Richard Fleischer’s fan­ta­sy epic, is dwarfed by Schwarzeneg­ger on the film’s offi­cial poster. Admit­ted­ly the Dan­ish mod­el-turned-actress was not yet a house­hold name in 1985 (Rocky IV, which she starred in along­side then-hub­bie Sylvester Stal­lone, was released four months lat­er), but it says a lot about where Hol­ly­wood was at the time. Arnie only agreed to appear in Red Son­ja to com­plete his three-pic­ture deal with pro­duc­er Dino De Lau­ren­ti­is, who gave him his big break three years ear­li­er in Conan the Bar­bar­ian. Iron­i­cal­ly enough, Lau­ren­ti­is failed to secure the char­ac­ter rights from Uni­ver­sal, mean­ing Arnie wound up being cast as ​“Kali­dor”. He once described the film as the worst he ever made, but there remains a cer­tain cult appeal to this cheap and cheer­less effort. AW

“I con­sid­ered myself a tree-dec­o­rat­ing expert,” notes the Aus­tri­an oak of the hol­i­day sea­son in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, ​“It was in my blood.” There’s no men­tion of Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut, so one might assume that direct­ing fes­tive TV movies is an area in which he’s less sure of his exper­tise. The evi­dence sug­gests that’s prob­a­bly the case, giv­en the fist he makes of almost every comedic beat in his first project post-T2. The cast try their best, not least Tony Cur­tis, seem­ing­ly ever-ready to burst into song, but with the orig­i­nal Bar­bara Stan­wyck vehi­cle hard­ly beloved, the argu­ment that what that film was final­ly lack­ing was a piti­ful Ter­mi­na­tor gag is ques­tion­able at best. MT

The notices that greet­ed After­math and his 2016 under-the-radar indie, Mag­gie, exclaimed Arnie’s act­ing abil­i­ties in a man­ner befit­ting Gre­ta Garbo’s first on-screen syl­la­ble. Just as the actress pos­sessed the abil­i­ty to speak long before audi­ences heard her, Schwarzeneg­ger has been giv­ing per­for­mances bet­ter than these morose snooze­fests for decades. The films may see the actor at his most intro­spec­tive, but both prove too depen­dent on his phys­i­cal screen-pres­ence alone, with few ideas of how to best utilise it. After­math is the big­ger cul­prit – a study in grief with all the dra­mat­ic momen­tum of a drip­ping tap. MT

The last of Schwarzenegger’s ear­ly ones, before megas­tar­dom called with Conan two years lat­er, this TV movie plays like a 100 minute dream sequence imag­ined by Nao­mi Watts’ char­ac­ter in Mul­hol­land Dri­ve. Arnie plays Mick­ey Har­gi­tay, sec­ond hus­band to Jayne Mans­field, in a size­able role, nar­rat­ing with wist­ful solem­ni­ty over the straight-faced heights of direc­tor David Lowry’s sur­re­al melo­dra­ma. Anoth­er chance to flex the act­ing mus­cles, per­haps, but it’s quick­ly clear that Lowry is no Bob Rafel­son, not least when wran­gling one of the actor’s hilar­i­ous­ly petu­lant on-screen tem­per tantrums. MT

It took the Ter­mi­na­tor fran­chise 30 odd years and four sequels to reach its nadir of char­ac­ter revi­sion­ism. Conan’s man in the mir­ror moment occurred just two years lat­er, cas­trat­ing the hard­core Niet­zschean pri­mal­i­ty of its pre­de­ces­sor to fam­i­ly-friend­ly ends. Char­ac­ter devel­op­ment may have been low on Conan the Barbarian’s agen­da, but it had a con­sis­ten­cy of ide­o­log­i­cal vision – how­ev­er tox­ic – that allowed action to serve as char­ac­ter itself. Tak­en away, as it is here, all pur­pose is excised. We’re left with a half-arsed quest nar­ra­tive, some lame one-lin­ers, tire­some comedic sup­port acts and very lit­tle destroy­ing. Arnie does assault a horse though. MT

Its release delayed due to ⁹⁄₁₁, Col­lat­er­al Dam­age might have been eas­i­ly writ­ten off as one of Arnie’s dis­pos­able sil­ly ones were it not for the stench of Amer­i­can suprema­cy and moral supe­ri­or­i­ty. A revenge yarn that sees the star off on a Colom­bian jun­gle jol­ly, to take revenge on the guer­ril­la ter­ror­ists that blew up his fam­i­ly. There are some lols to be had – most­ly unin­ten­tion­al – not least when the big lunk attempts to trav­el incog­ni­to through a vil­lage full of peo­ple half his size. Still, he does get to say the line, ​“You want col­lat­er­al dam­age? I’ll give you col­lat­er­al dam­age,” short­ly before some­one calls him a ​“Ger­man sausage.” MT

This bare­ly pass­able geri­ac­tion­er sees Arnie and Sly share top billing for the first time in their careers, slum­ming it in a throw­back prison flick that fails to play to their respec­tive strengths. Banged up in a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty facil­i­ty known as ​‘The Tomb’ – ​“the most secure prison ever built” – the pair quick­ly cook up a fail­safe scheme to bust them­selves and a rab­ble of surly cons out, with pre­dictably riotous con­se­quences. The plot is dis­ap­point­ing­ly lean, but the film at least deliv­ers on the promise of these two stars final­ly col­lid­ing. AW

Arnie took a cool $25m – a mil­lion a day – for his role as Mr Freeze in Joel Schumacher’s uni­ver­sal­ly reviled Bat­man sequel. While there’s still not much of a case to be made for it ret­ro­spec­tive­ly, it’s an endear­ing­ly rub­bish exer­cise in camp, lit up like a hos­tile christ­mas tree. Arnie embraces his unapolo­getic parade of frozen puns with all the rel­ish of an unem­bar­rass­able dad after one Baby­cham too many, his larg­er-than-life force of per­son­al­i­ty ensur­ing he’s about the only cast mem­ber that exits large­ly unscathed. An epi­cal­ly-scaled fias­co it remains, but there’s more charm to be found here than in the straight-faced career-dol­drums below. MT

The prospect of Arnie tak­ing on hordes of can­ni­bal­is­tic zom­bies is a tan­ta­lis­ing one, but Hen­ry Hobson’s direc­to­r­i­al debut is a more sedate genre offer­ing than first appear­ances sug­gest. Its sto­ry of a father com­ing to terms with his infect­ed daughter’s (Abi­gail Bres­lin) trans­for­ma­tion is told with grace and ten­der­ness, although the film’s flat visu­al style and mud­dled tone makes it a fair­ly drab watch. A griz­zled, gloom-rid­den Schwarzeneg­ger looks great in close-up – just as he always has – but there’s not enough here to leave a last­ing impres­sion. AW

“I’m get­ting out of this busi­ness, and so should you,” says Arnie to Sylvester Stal­lone ear­ly on in The Expend­ables 3. Wise words indeed. Were Stal­lone the sub­ject of this rank­ing, there’d be plen­ty to mine in the film’s inces­sant van­i­ty-mas­sag­ing of the writer-star’s self-image. There’s lit­tle to say regard­ing Schwarzenegger’s cheque-col­lec­tion duties, giv­en how periph­er­al a fig­ure Trench proves this time out. As a film, it’s over­stuffed to break­ing point: more star-turns, dimin­ish­ing returns. Patrick Hugh­es directs with for­get­table effi­cien­cy, pos­sess­ing the patience for a dozen or so inter­minable char­ac­ter (re-)introductions, but the worst kind of fid­get when it comes to hold­ing a shot that counts. MT

On paper, this soft reboot had plen­ty going for it, promis­ing the return of, not just Schwarzeneg­ger, but co-stars Lin­da Hamil­ton and Edward Fur­long. James Cameron is even back, tak­ing a 10 minute break from his Avatar sequels to What­sApp his way to a sto­ry cred­it. In the event, it’s only Hamil­ton who offers cause for cel­e­bra­tion. Under Tim ​“Dead­pool” Miller’s direc­tion, Dark Fate is an effi­cient enough machine to counter low expec­ta­tions, but Arnie’s insis­tence on ​‘char­ac­ter devel­op­ment’ for his T‑101 takes us to some strange ter­ri­to­ry indeed. The Ter­mi­na­tor – who once ​‘couldn’t be rea­soned or bar­gained with’ – is now Carl: impo­tent­ly mar­ried, sell­ing cur­tains and offer­ing inte­ri­or design advice. Reduced to soft-fur­nish­ing in his own fran­chise, it’s time for the big guy to pow­er this one down. MT

Rea­gan-era cin­e­ma at its most palat­ably jin­go­is­tic, this Arnie-as-Ruskie caper saw direc­tor Wal­ter Hill con­tin­ue the ​’80s bud­dy cop trend he start­ed back in 1982 with the Nolte-Mur­phy vehi­cle 48 Hrs. It also marked the begin­ning of its star’s tran­si­tion to more comedic fare, though his iron-willed Sovi­et enforcer Ivan Danko could hard­ly be con­sid­ered a exten­sion of his act­ing reper­toire thus far. There’s plen­ty of fun to be had though, with Jim Belushi prov­ing an able spar­ring part­ner as a wise-ass Chica­go gumshoe. At one point Arnie deliv­ers a Miran­da rights punch­line in char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly direct fash­ion, com­plete with com­e­dy sound effect. Clas­sic. AW

Ivan Reitman’s genet­ic engi­neer­ing-themed odd cou­ple com­e­dy may have aged about as well as Dan­ny DeVito’s pony­tail, but there’s an inno­cent charm to Arnie’s first prop­er com­ic per­for­mance which lingers near­ly 30 years on. Its sim­ple premise – dia­met­ri­cal­ly opposed sib­lings cre­at­ed in a gov­ern­ment lab are reunit­ed – and clean humour made Twins a mas­sive hit. The script does lean a lit­tle too much on the con­trast­ing phys­i­cal attrib­ut­es of its cen­tral star pair­ing though, and Arnie can’t resist recy­cling his most famous catch­phrase. Antic­i­pa­tion is low for the long-moot­ed sequel, with Eddie Mur­phy play­ing a third long lost broth­er. AW

“Those one-lin­ers became my trade­mark,” says Arnie in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, ​“they opened up the movie and made it appeal­ing to more peo­ple.” T2 just about got away with its recours­es to humour, but the third Ter­mi­na­tor film rep­re­sents a whol­ly mis­guid­ed betray­al of char­ac­ter. With Arnie serv­ing as exec­u­tive pro­duc­er and gate­keep­er to the icon he helped cre­ate, the buck for the demise of the fran­chise sure­ly stops with him. It cer­tain­ly starts here. As an action flick, Rise of the Machines is fine – the crane chase demo­li­tion der­by is ter­rif­ic – even if all involved have acquit­ted them­selves bet­ter else­where. As a Ter­mi­na­tor sequel, it’s the first stop on the road to ruin. The half-baked mythol­o­gy-expan­sion might just be for­giv­able, but those ​“talk to the hand” quips make one won­der if mankind is even worth sav­ing. On this evi­dence, it’s prob­a­bly best we skip to the apoc­a­lypse and let the machines have a go. MT

The biggest sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief required for a cer­tain type of Arnie pic­ture comes with those that ask us to buy him as a reg­u­lar blue-col­lar schlub. A sci-fi take on Pet Sematary with Total Recall-aspi­ra­tions, The 6^th Day sees Schwarzeneg­ger as a heli­copter pilot caught up in a high-lev­el cloning con­spir­a­cy. Roger Spo­tis­woode directs, which is about all you need to know – it’s almost inter­est­ing, almost excit­ing, and almost makes sense – busi­ness as usu­al for the direc­tor of Tomor­row Nev­er Dies. It does, how­ev­er, con­tain the most night­mar­ish cre­ation in the star’s canon – a robot­ic Sim­Pal doll called Sindy that would have Chucky and Annabelle for break­fast. MT

The nov­el­ty of see­ing the best and bright­est action stars of their gen­er­a­tion fill­ing the same frame wore off long before the cred­its rolled on 2010’s The Expend­ables. Which makes the stay­ing pow­er of this first sequel all the more remark­able. It’s more of the same, with an impos­si­ble body count and zero char­ac­ter devel­op­ment. Only the tongue-in-cheek twist here is that Sly and the gang get to deliv­er each other’s catch­phras­es – ​“Yippee ki-yay,” Arnie sighs after Bruce Willis paus­es mid-onslaught to berate him for hav­ing been back enough. Cheap fan ser­vice, per­haps, but direc­tor Simon West makes sure to cram his film with as many blis­ter­ing action set pieces as East­er Eggs. Every­body wins. AW

Count­ing dol­lars per sec­ond, it’s the most expen­sive film ever made, com­ing in at $64m for just 12 min­utes of footage. Direct­ed by James Cameron, there are low qual­i­ty ver­sions of the short on YouTube, but you have to trav­el to Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios for the full expe­ri­ence. There’s not much to talk about by way of con­tent – Sarah and John Con­nor take on Cyber­dyne again, the Ter­mi­na­tor whisks him to the future to destroy a Skynet main­frame pro­tect­ed by a new T1,000,000 mod­el – but the mix of aston­ish­ing­ly vivid 65mm 3D and live action prac­ti­cal effects (and actors) that inter­act with the action on screen offer more thrills than any of the recent sequels. MT

It may not be one of his come­dies, but there’s no fun­nier entry on the big guy’s CV than his episode of the Streets of San Fran­cis­co. Arnie plays an appar­ent­ly men­tal­ly-ill body­builder with seri­ous anger man­age­ment and body-image issues, that lead him to mur­der when he per­ceives peo­ple to be laugh­ing at him. Fol­low­ing a hilar­i­ous open­ing act that sees him shake a woman to death for not tak­ing his pos­es seri­ous­ly – ​“You’re just like all the rest… I’m not ugly, I’m beau­ti­ful! This is what the body’s sup­posed to look like!” – the episode cul­mi­nates in an epic break­down in which he tries to explain the impor­tance of pro­gres­sive resis­tance train­ing while smash­ing up an apart­ment. A real hoot. MT

Raw Deal has lit­tle right to look as hand­some as it does. Unsur­pris­ing, giv­en the pres­ence of Alex Thom­son, erst­while Nico­las Roeg, Michael Cimi­no and David Finch­er DoP, on lens­ing duties and the great Anne Coates in charge of the cut. In many ways it epit­o­mis­es the pecu­liar­i­ties of many an ​’80s (wan­na) B‑movie, unde­served­ly ele­vat­ed through bud­getary excess, its charms mis­re­mem­bered by way of VHS-sleeve promise. John Irvin’s direc­tion is whol­ly to blame for a dead mid­dle hour, slug­gish to the point of iner­tia despite the open­ing larks. Gener­ic to a fault, but there’s still fun to be had in the Stones-scored duck-shoot, a warm-up to the finale’s meat­head-cathar­sis, even if it fails to eclipse the ear­ly domes­tic lols. As cyn­i­cal as it is obliv­i­ous when it comes to the Ter­mi­na­tor-Cruis­ing mash-up of Arnie’s final-act attire, but the film sure is a look­er. MT

Still rid­ing high on the suc­cess of Twins, which proved beyond doubt that broad com­e­dy was very much in his wheel­house, Arnie reunit­ed with direc­tor Ivan Reit­man for this sim­i­lar­ly whole­some kid­die polici­er. Pos­ing as a teacher as part of an under­cov­er sting oper­a­tion, he’s ini­tial­ly giv­en the runaround by his class of hyper­ac­tive tots, often to hilar­i­ous effect. Var­i­ous mem­o­rable com­ic moments aside, how­ev­er, there’s a ten­der­ness to the film which stems from Arnie’s gen­uine affec­tion for the young cast. The same can’t be said for his even more diminu­tive co-star: in his time as Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia, Schwarzeneg­ger upheld a state-wide ban on the own­er­ship of fer­rets as pets. AW

Arnie’s Pur­ple Rose of Cairo and his most noto­ri­ous bomb, Last Action Hero was fool­hardy enough to open just one week after Juras­sic Park in the sum­mer of ​’93. And while we’d love to report that is was unfair­ly maligned back then, well… it’s fine. A mess, undoubt­ed­ly, but an inter­est­ing one. Direc­tor John McTier­nan match­es scale with flair, but the bare­ly estab­lished rules of the film’s mul­ti­ple worlds bare­ly cohere. Arnie’s kiss-off quips were pre­vi­ous­ly deployed to bring the audi­ence in on the joke, but there’s lit­tle sense here of who that audi­ence is; the over-abun­dance of gags and ideas reek­ing of direc­tion-by-com­mit­tee. As the kid com­plains of the Jack Slater film he’s watch­ing in the open­ing reel, ​“The film is out of focus!” Well, quite. MT

Six years after Twins, Arnie teamed up with Ivan Reit­man and Dan­ny DeVi­to again for yet more high-con­cept lols. As before, there’s one joke here, but it’s a bet­ter one, giv­en there’s more to be mined from the big guy play­ing preg­nant rather than sim­ply tall. Gen­der pol­i­tics and talk of Arnie’s ​“big load” aside, he gives a great cen­tral per­for­mance here, endear­ing­ly bat­tling his own surg­ing hor­mones. Plen­ty of shade has been thrown his way over the years when it comes to his act­ing skills, but Schwarzeneg­ger is a bril­liant tech­ni­cal per­former, a pre­req­ui­site for nail­ing com­e­dy. He’s fun­ny as hell here, which is more than can be said for Emma Thompson’s relent­less mug­ging. MT

A film that failed to impress crit­ics 30 years ago but which now seems eeri­ly pre­scient in its depic­tion of a futur­is­tic police state beset by eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and the increas­ing tox­i­c­i­ty of TV cul­ture (Stephen King’s source nov­el is set in 2025, with screen­writer Steven E de Souza back­dat­ing the action to 2017), The Run­ning Man is among the most the­mat­i­cal­ly rich sci-fi offer­ings in the Arnie canon. It’s also chock-full of first-rate ​’80s action and irre­sistible zingers (“He had to split,” Arnie quips in ref­er­ence to a recent­ly chain­sawed adver­saries). But above all it’s the idea of the film that endures. The notion of a pow­er­ful few con­spir­ing to keep the gen­er­al pub­lic at arm’s length from real­i­ty is a scary one indeed. AW

Schwarzenegger’s abil­i­ty to open a sum­mer tent­pole died a swift death with The Last Action Hero – despite one last hur­rah with True Lies the fol­low­ing year – from which he nev­er real­ly recov­ered. The next two decades were filled for the most part with work that was mid­dling at best, large­ly made up of glo­ri­fied B‑pictures. Not that there’s any­thing wrong with a B‑picture, espe­cial­ly if they’re as much fun as Eras­er. Chuck Rus­sell is one of those under-appre­ci­at­ed direc­tors who nev­er got the chance to realise his poten­tial. Respon­si­ble for the best of the Elm Street sequels (Dream War­riors) and a ter­rif­ic 1988 remake of The Blob, Rus­sell wears his genre cre­den­tials well. Ditch­ing the fam­i­ly-friend­ly vibe in a bid to res­ur­rect the Arnie of old, it dis­plays a wel­come under­stand­ing of the star’s strengths. Win­ning­ly overblown, it’s the best kind of ludi­crous, earn­ing the price of entry with the sky­dive and croc fight (“You’re lug­gage!”) alone. MT

Schwarzenegger’s post-sab­bat­i­cal CV is noth­ing if not a waste­land. With one excep­tion. The Eng­lish-lan­guage debut of Kore­an genre-mae­stro, Kim Jee-woon, The Last Stand earns a healthy spot amid the ranks of for­eign film­mak­ers cast­ing their eye on Amer­i­can cul­tur­al iconog­ra­phy. Arnie is every bit the Amer­i­can cul­tur­al icon, and so of course, is the west­ern. Kim forges a rol­lick­ing neo-oater, indebt­ed to the mis­matched cama­raderie of Howard Hawks. Every char­ac­ter gets a fair ride, ensur­ing well-cooked stakes en route to a doozy of a cli­max. Sure, it might be loud and sim­plis­tic, but it’s not lack­ing for moral ground­ing or an sharp aware­ness of its star’s strengths. With so much direc­to­r­i­al hack-work pop­u­lat­ing his (late-) fil­mog­ra­phy, The Last Stand more than earns its place in any dis­cus­sion of peak-Arnold. MT

The Cit­i­zen Kane of pro­fes­sion­al body­build­ing docs, Pump­ing Iron earned a 28-year-old Schwarzeneg­ger his first real crack at the big time after two Hol­ly­wood execs watched an ear­ly cut and decid­ed he would be per­fect for their next project, Conan the Bar­bar­ian. Offer­ing an inti­mate behind-the-scenes look at the 1975 Mr Olympia and Mr Uni­verse con­tests, the film cul­mi­nates in the Euro­pean Ado­nis lit­er­al­ly out-muscling his rivals – includ­ing young pre­tender and future Incred­i­ble Hulk, Lou Fer­rig­no – on his way to retain­ing his dou­ble crown for a fifth con­sec­u­tive year. A remark­ably can­did por­trait of a star-in-wait­ing that lays Arnie bare like noth­ing before or since. AW

Effec­tive­ly James Cameron’s divorce album, True Lies is a film whose iffy gen­der pol­i­tics – Arnie’s ter­ror­ist-thwart­ing dou­ble agent Har­ry Tasker kid­naps, inter­ro­gates and then black­mails his own wife (played by Jamie Lee Cur­tis) into becom­ing a pros­ti­tute – root it firm­ly in the ear­ly ​’90s. Much of its domes­tic com­e­dy-meets-espi­onage thriller set-up was actu­al­ly cribbed from the 1991 French farce La Totale!, but Cameron man­ages to spin some­thing far smarter and slick­er from the mate­r­i­al. This is a first-rate action flick, one that’s well worth revis­it­ing for the high-octane heli­copter stunt work alone. AW

John Mil­ius’ pulp epic paved the way for the short-lived sword and sor­cery revival that occurred in the 1980s, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly hint­ing at the ram­pag­ing mas­culin­i­ty that would come to dom­i­nate Amer­i­can genre cin­e­ma through­out the decade. The film opens with a Niet­zsche quote and sees Arnie, in his first major head­line gig, infa­mous­ly punch out a camel and bed a shapeshift­ing sor­cer­ess en route to aveng­ing his par­ents’ death at the hands of James Earl Jones’ mys­ti­cal snake cult leader. It’s a sat­is­fy­ing­ly bonkers, con­stant­ly sur­pris­ing film that ful­ly earns its lofty posi­tion on this list just for Conan’s immor­tal retort to the Mon­gol Gen­er­al: ​“To crush your ene­mies, to see them dri­ven before you, and to hear the lamen­ta­tions of their women.” AW

If Conan the Bar­bar­ian intro­duced Schwarzeneg­ger to the world stage, and The Ter­mi­na­tor birthed a cul­tur­al icon, it was Com­man­do that con­sol­i­dat­ed every ele­ment of his star pow­er into arche­type. In many respects it’s the quin­tes­sen­tial Arnie movie – not exact­ly post­mod­ern, per­haps, but aware enough of the con­tem­po­rary action land­scape to cut loose with tongue lodged firm­ly in cheek. ​“Now that is Amer­i­can work­man­ship,” says a car deal­er in the open­ing sec­onds. He may be talk­ing about a flash ride, but the line briskly fol­lows a death by hail of bul­lets, and suc­cinct­ly sums up the film’s ludi­crous post-colo­nial pneu­mat­ics. As glo­ri­ous, machine-(gun) engi­neered odes to excess go, Com­man­do takes some beat­ing. MT

The first Schwarzeneg­ger pic­ture to make it to the big screen (Her­cules in New York was in release lim­bo for years) affords the not-quite-star a role couched in auto­bi­og­ra­phy. It’s remark­able how relaxed and nat­ur­al a per­former he proves straight out the gate, cred­it for which must sure­ly be shared with direc­tor Bob Rafel­son and a cast that includes Jeff Bridges and Sal­ly Field. While the body­build­ing world serves as back­drop, it’s final­ly a sto­ry of tran­si­tion between cul­tur­al tra­di­tions – between worlds old and new – as Bridges’ well-to-do layabout drifts back to his home­town. Rafel­son reclaims his comedic roots with a decep­tive­ly loose touch, cast­ing so wry an eye on the order and dis­ci­pline of the finale’s Mr Uni­verse com­pe­ti­tion that it can but explode into the streets. MT

“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” For all that John McTiernan’s jun­gle com­bat clas­sic is packed with explo­sive edge-of-your-seat moments, it’s the sheer econ­o­my of its sto­ry­telling that makes it so com­pelling. With a laser-straight plot, improb­a­bly mus­cu­lar cast and end­less­ly quotable (if at times a lit­tle stilt­ed) dia­logue, this is a plain-speak­ing, quick-shoot­ing romp that’s per­fect­ly paced and mas­ter­ful­ly lensed by DoP Don­ald McAlpine. McTier­nan would arguably go one bet­ter with Die Hard the fol­low­ing year, but Preda­tor com­fort­ably match­es it for rewatch val­ue. There’s plen­ty to read into the film’s deep fetishi­sa­tion of a specif­i­cal­ly super­fi­cial kind of screen mas­culin­i­ty, not to men­tion Amer­i­can mil­i­tarism, but it’s prob­a­bly best to just sit back and drink it in one of the purest action movies ever made. AW

With its ground­break­ing use of com­put­er tech­nol­o­gy, devel­oped by the FX wiz­ards at Indus­tri­al Light & Mag­ic, James Cameron’s sequel to his 1984 hit set a new bench­mark for dig­i­tal effects-dri­ven action cin­e­ma that has rarely – if ever – been bet­tered. Despite hav­ing a stag­ger­ing $100m bud­get to play with, how­ev­er, one of the most effec­tive illu­sions in the film was actu­al­ly done on the cheap. When Robert Patrick’s T‑1000 shows off his liq­uid met­al skills by walk­ing through prison bars, the accom­pa­ny­ing sound you hear is actu­al­ly a can of upturned dog food that cost a mere 75 cents. Sim­ple tricks like this are tes­ta­ment to the end­less inven­tive­ness and resource­ful­ness of Cameron and his team, and a part of what makes T2 so spe­cial. For his part, Arnie brings his A‑game once again, his dis­tinc­tive square jaw and steely charis­ma soft­ened – but not dulled – by the reboot­ed T‑800’s more pas­sive ten­den­cies. The ​’90s slang does begin to grate after a while though. AW

While The Last Action Hero was con­tent to beat its audi­ence over the head with laboured skew­er­ing of block­buster cul­ture, a stealth attack on the very same tar­get had gone unno­ticed a few sum­mers ear­li­er. Total Recall was a hit, but one large­ly tak­en at face val­ue. As socio-cul­tur­al satirists go, Paul Ver­ho­even remains Amer­i­can cinema’s great­est import, and with his sec­ond US fea­ture the Dutch mae­stro turned his eye on the act of moviego­ing itself. That the most expen­sive block­buster of its day reads as a sly back­hand against pas­sive con­sump­tion and deferred respon­si­bil­i­ty might just be his dead­liest satir­i­cal dirty bomb to date; for what is Rekall Inc but an enhanced proxy for cin­e­ma, one made all the more hilar­i­ous if we take it that Arnie is effec­tive­ly brain-fried and comatose from 20 min­utes in? The medium’s biggest star game­ly under­goes all man­ner of image-under­min­ing humil­i­a­tions, but the biggest joke is on us, the view­er – and it’s a doozy. MT

A mas­ter­piece of struc­tur­al engi­neer­ing and con­cep­tu­al sim­plic­i­ty, James Cameron’s sopho­more fea­ture takes the Schwarzeneg­ger top-spot. Cameron would go on to forge spec­ta­cles of ever-increas­ing tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty, but none would top the lean-as-fuck chase-film dynam­ic – or the ​“I trav­elled across time for you” romance – at the heart of The Ter­mi­na­tor. It con­tains one of the great Arnie per­for­mances, unsul­lied by any need to be liked, by any notion of ​‘per­son­al­i­ty’ more informed by star pow­er than neces­si­ty of char­ac­ter. The film’s sequel may be the bet­ter action pic­ture, but it’s The Terminator’s present-tense ret­con­ning of the future that serves as one of sci­ence fic­tion cinema’s great­est ele­gies for humankind. MT

What’s your all-time favourite Arnie movie? Let us know @LWLies