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The Terminator
In 1984 Los Angeles, an imposing man appears naked in an alley amid electric flashes and attacks three punks for clothes. Later, a man with scars appears in an alley the same way and evades police. The first man robs a gun shop, looks up addresses of women named Sarah Connor, and begins murdering them. A waitress named Sarah Connor sees news reports about the murders and notices the second man following her. As she shelters in a nightclub, the first man kills her roommate Ginger and Ginger's boyfriend. He tracks her to the nightclub, where the second man preemptively fires on him. After a chaotic gunfight, the second man escapes with Sarah in a stolen car, while the first man gets up and pursues them on foot and in a police car.
The second man identifies himself as Sgt. Reese. He tells Sarah that the other man is a Terminator, a cyborg assassin from the future, and he has also come from the future to protect her. As they hide in a parking garage, Reese explains that Skynet, a pervasive computer network built by Cyberdyne Systems, will gain intelligence and launch a nuclear war against humans. He grew up in the aftermath as machines rounded survivors into extermination camps. John Connor, Sarah's unborn son, started a resistance in the camps. On the verge of the resistance's victory in 2029, the machines sent the Terminator back in time to assassinate Sarah and prevent John's birth.
The Terminator tracks Reese and Sarah, but it disappears after being shot in the eye and crashing during a car chase with the duo. The police apprehend Reese and Sarah. Sarah is notified of Ginger's murder, while Reese is interrogated by Dr. Silberman, a skeptical criminal psychologist. The Terminator returns to a hotel hideout and repairs itself.
Just as Silberman leaves, the Terminator arrives at the police station searching for Sarah, slaughtering many officers in the process. Reese and Sarah escape, steal another car and sleep under an overpass, where Sarah learns Reese's first name, Kyle. The next morning, they take refuge in a motel, where they assemble several pipe bombs and plan their next move. Reese admits that he has adored Sarah since he saw her in a photograph that John gave him, and that he traveled through time out of love for her. Reciprocating his feelings, Sarah kisses him and they have sex.
The Terminator locates Sarah by intercepting a call intended for her mother, tricking her into revealing her location with its voice mimicking ability. She and Reese escape the motel in a pickup truck while it pursues them on a motorcycle. In the ensuing chase, Reese is badly wounded by gunfire while throwing pipe bombs at the Terminator. Sarah knocks the Terminator off its motorcycle but loses control of the truck, which flips over. The Terminator, now bloodied and badly damaged, hijacks a tank truck and attempts to run down Sarah. Reese throws a pipe bomb into the truck's hose tube, causing it to explode and burn, reducing the Terminator to its endoskeleton.
Although Sarah and Reese initially believe the Terminator has been destroyed, it soon rises. They flee into a Cyberdyne-owned factory, where Reese activates machinery to distract it, but it eventually discovers them. Reese lodges his last pipe bomb into its midsection, blowing it apart at the cost of his own life. Its still-functioning torso pursues Sarah through a hydraulic press. She clears the press, traps the Terminator and crushes it, finally destroying the cyborg.
Months later, Sarah, now pregnant with John by Reese, travels through Mexico with a guard dog, recording audio tapes to pass on to her son. At a gas station, a boy takes an instant film photograph of her, the one that John will one day give to Reese, and she purchases it. She restarts her car and drives toward ominous storm clouds.