Celebrate the star’s 69th birthday with our list of the ten best Arnold Schwarzenegger movies!
Arnold Schwarzenegger turns 69 today! This former professional bodybuilder and Governor of California (2003-2011) has so many iconic movies, we had to choose our very favorites. Schwarzenegger began his film career in Pumping Iron in 1977 (though he’d been in two films before that), appeared as Danny DeVito’s twin brother in Twins, charmed kids in The Last Action Hero and kicked some butt in Red Sonja, which shows you the caliber of film that didn’t make the top 10. Schwarzenegger has replaced Donald Trump as the host of The Apprentice for the new season and he has a number of films in production and development. Happy birthday Ah-nold!
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Schwarzenegger played the title role in this film based on the pulp stories by Robert E. Howard. Conan is a young warrior who becomes a slave after his parents are killed. His hard labor builds his muscles and he trains to become a gladiator. Once he’s free he begins a quest along with a female warrior named Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), battling a warrior named Doom (James Earl Jones) and a cannibalistic cult and recovers his father’s sword. Schwarzenegger returned in 1984 in Conan the Destroyer.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: The Terminator (1984)
This early James Cameron film is probably Schwarzenegger’s most famous role. He played The Terminator / T-800 Model 101, a robot who appeared human who was sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of Resistance leader John Connor. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) was sent back in time and ends up as the father of John Connor. Schwarzenegger returned in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003 and Terminator Genisys in 2015. His famous line, “I’ll be back,” comes from this franchise.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Commando (1985)
Schwarzenegger plays retired Delta Force Colonel John Matrix whose entire team has been killed under mysterious circumstances. When Matrix’s daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped, Matrix has to take action. He brings off-duty flight attendant Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong) on board and sets out to get Jenny back and take out his enemies.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Predator (1987)
Schwarzenegger played Major Alan “Dutch” Schaeffer and uttered yet another famous line, “Get to the choppah!” Dutch takes a team of an elite special forces into the jungle to rescue hostages from guerrilla fighters. Unfortunately, that’s not only who’s lurking there. They’re being hunted by a creature that the locals call, “El diablo cazador de hombres.” That famous creature returned in a number of films, even battling a certain alien we all know and love.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Running Man (1987)
Schwarzenegger plays wrongly accused Ben Richards in this film loosely based on the 1982 novel “The Running Man” by Stephen King (and published under the name Richard Bachman). Set in a dystopian future (that actually begins in 2017), criminals are forced to compete for their lives for the amusement of the population. (Sound familiar, Hunger Games fans?) Criminals are sent to run for their lives, outrunning “stalkers,” who are professional killers in an arena. Want to guess who wins the day?
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Schwarzeneggger showed his comedy chops in this film about a cop who goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher to catch drug dealer Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson). He’s terrible at first, trying to deal with the children as if he were training police, but he ends up being a pretty good teacher. The famous line from this one is, “It’s not a too-mah.” There is also that rather frank description of male and female reproductive systems by one of the students.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Total Recall (1990)
Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, a man living in 2084, having very odd dreams about Mars, in this film directed by Paul Verhoeven. There are memory wipes, an agent who has been posing as Quaid’s wife (Sharon Stone), three-breasted alien women and Kuato (Marshall Bell), the conjoined twin. This is one classic sci-fi film that you really can’t miss.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: True Lies (1994)
This action comedy was directed by James Cameron and stars Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. He plays Harry Tasker, a special opps agent whose family thinks he’s a computer salesman. He’s always out of town doing his job, but finally realizes his wife (Curtis) is looking for excitement to make up for it. He sets up a plan to make it look like she’s part of a mission, but they end up kidnapped. Once she gets a taste of adventure, things in their relationship change quite a bit.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: Batman and Robin (1997)
Widely considered to be the very worst of the Batman films (just try watching it again), this one had to be on the list for the insane amount of cold weather puns that Schwarzenegger says as Mr. Freeze. He joins George Clooney as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Chris O’Donnell as Dick Grayson/Robin, Alicia Silverstone and Barbara Wilson/Batgirl and Uma Therman as Dr. Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy in this absolutely terrible mess of a film. It’s so bad it’s bad-but-watch-with-pizza-and-beer-and-play-Mr. Freeze-pun-drinking-games-good.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies: The Expendables (2010)
Schwarzenegger plays Trench, one of an elite group of mercenaries who set out to save hostages. This film is notable for the insane amount of older action stars it brought together. In addition to Schwarzenegger, we’ve got Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li Terry Cruews, Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture. Even more were added in The Expendables 2 in 2012 and The Expendables 3 in 2014.
We know there are a lot of great Schwarzenegger films and we want to know which ones you would put on the list. Should we have added Jingle All the Way? The Last Stand? Junior? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
(Photo Credit: Ivan Nikolov / WENN.com)
