James Cameron is one of those rare filmmakers that doesn’t really need any kind of an introduction. The king of the box office, the one everybody knows damn well not to bet against, Cameron has turned a profit with ever major release, despite frequently breaking all-time records for film budgets as well. He’s of course best known as a king of provocative sci-fi and heart-pounding action, but Cameron is no slouch when it comes to drama and even romance. Often he’s quite profound with these things, frankly.
Cameron’s most underrated qualities have always been his screenwriting, and his willingness to trust whether a massive movie lives or dies on the back of great actors and performances. For someone who’s garnered a reputation for being laser-focused and hardly cuddly on-set, he’s a master of cultivating warm and tender human emotion on-screen, and his films are often as strikingly heartfelt as they are technologically innovative. These are his best and most romantic love stories, ranked.
‘True Lies’ (1994)
All things considered, True Lies is easily one of the best action movies of the ’90s; it’s a testament to Cameron’s prowess that it generally ranks near the bottom of the filmmaker’s canon. Three years after the not-at-all romantic T2 gave Arnold Schwarzenegger the biggest and most iconic hit of his career, he starred in this lighter, still enormously budgeted action rom-com about a family man living a double life as a super spy. The budget here actually set a record for the time, the first to cross $100 million (a mere three years later, Cameron would double that with the risky, career-defining Titanic).
Jamie Lee Curtis’ acting abilities have, fortunately, long been appreciated, ever since she effortlessly earned audiences’ sympathy as the resourceful, intelligent heroine in Halloween. Schwarzenegger’s are often underrated or overshadowed by his sheer star power and legacy; when he’s well cast his physicality and charisma are simply unmatched. There’s a chemistry with Curtis, who’s just flat-out damn incredible here as Helen, long-faithful but repressed wife and mother. Around halfway through the movie, Helen is interrogated and lets loose her desire to “feel alive”… to do “something outrageous.” Curtis’ performance here (Golden Globe-winning, robbed of an Oscar nod) will make you feel all kinds of feelings you’re not used to feeling in movies where things go boom. There really is a lot of genuinely interesting, funny and tender human drama going on in True Lies to match the absolutely astonishing action sequences (the final half hour here, much of it in the air, is still jaw-dropping).
‘Avatar’ (2009)
Sometimes when movies become unbelievably successful, it’s kind of easy and en vogue to rip on them or to maybe undersell them a bit in hindsight. Add to that the simple truth that James Cameron embraces corniness, and it’s easy to see why movies like Titanic and Avatar (which have both held the distinction of highest-grossing movie ever made) are sometimes the butt of jokes these days. This story of a human soldier (Sam Worthington) who falls for the way of the alien Na’vi, especially warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), is often pure visual storytelling, from the envelope-pushing battles to the entrancing sequence where the flora and fauna of Pandora make clear Sully and Neytiri are destined to mate. Corniness is often intertwined with sincerity, which is something international audiences can connect to pretty easily; it’s hard to overstate how spellbinding Avatar is, especially when seen on the biggest screen and in Cameron’s preferred 3D.
Enormously successful follow-up The Way of Water focuses very little on the already-established romance, but it deserves more credit than it gets for fleshing out the marriage and family unit of Neytiri and Jake. Most notably, The Way of Water ends on a note no other movie that’s grossed $2 billion has ended on: the death of a child. There’s a lot of universally potent material here beyond the action sequences that contributed to this series’ record-obliterating theatrical run.
‘The Abyss’ (1989)
Cameron’s single most water-logged motion picture had one of the most infamously arduous and perilous productions ever. The demands of the actors and overall conditions tested the limits of cast and crew in no uncertain terms. The technically adroit deep-sea thriller (it only really becomes a sci-fi movie near its conclusion) reflects the tough production: it’s intense, a little chilly and distant, but not without memorable human drama. Ed Harris stars as a deep sea driller who’s caught by surprise when his estranged wife and fellow engineer (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantino) joins a team of Navy SEALs in a recovery and exploration mission under his jurisdiction.
