The year is 1984. Lighting emenates above a garbage truck, knocking out power. The driver sees an object ahead of him and flees as the electrical surge dissipates. The object is a man (Arnold Schwarzenegger), naked and muscular, and he stands up and starts walking toward the city where he is spotted by three young punks. The man orders the men to give him their clothes, and the punks produce knives in response. The giant swats two punks aside, the third stabs him, but the giant tears open the punk's body and kills him, for the giant is a cyborg, a machine-being within the outer body of a human. The cyborg is from the year 2029, where artificial intelligence has launched nuclear annihilation and humans fight to survive extermination led by a courageous man known as John Connor. The machines have discovered the secret of time travel and have sent this cyborg, known as a Terminator, back in time to stop the birth of John Connor.
Elsewhere a young woman, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), lives the life of a lonely waitress. Sharing an apartment with her friend Ginger Ventura, Sarah is living out a boring existence that seems to go nowhere. One night she decides to go out while Ginger prepares for a raunchy date with her boyfriend Matt Buchanan.
Then she finds out that someone is murdering women who have the same - or at least similar - name as herself. Upon seeing a police announcement of the deaths of numerous women sharing her name, Sarah becomes worried, and when she sees she is being followed, she first calls Ginger, but she and Matt have seen their sexual romp interrupted by an assault by the Terminator, who shoots both of them dead before hearing Sarah's voice on a message machine telling where she is located. Sarah then phones the police department, which tells her to stay at a dance club until help arrives. But the Terminator arrives at the club, dispatches a bouncer, and works his way inside.
But someone else has followed both of them. He is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier from the future sent back in time to intercept the Terminator before it can kill Sarah. Reese spots the Terminator and opens fire, rescuing Sarah as a brutal pursuit ensues with the seemingly invincible machine being withstanding various violent blows and crashes. During the chase Kyle explains that Sarah is destined to give birth to the humans' leader John Connor, but Sarah naturally believes Kyle is some kind of lunatic even as he fights to keep her alive from the Terminator.
Eventually Kyle Reese is arrested by police and his story about the Terminator is treated as the babbling of a psychopath. But that night the Terminator attacks police headquarters and slaughters multiple officers in its pursuit of Sarah. Kyle escapes, rescues Sarah, and the two flee to the countryside.
Realizing Kyle's story is true, Sarah is told about the future where humans barely survive amid the wreckage of cities and the predations of the Terminators. She lapses into sleep and has a nightmare of a firefight where Terminators break into a human sanctuary and massacre scores of civilians.
Later the two reach a roadside motel, where Kyle goes to purchase chemicals needed to make explosives. While he is shopping (using "borrowed" money) Sarah showers and phones her mother, telling her the phone number where she is - unaware that her "mother" is actually the Terminator recreating the voice of her real - and now dead - mother.
The two make a stockpile of explosives and wait. When Sarah asks Kyle if he has ever had a lover, he replies he has not, a fact that Sarah is touched by. Kyle then mentions having a photo of Sarah and how he has fallen in love with her. Realizing he has gone too far he furiously begins loading explosives, but Sarah stops him and kisses him. The two lose their inhibition and make love, and when they climax they have succeeded in conceiving the savior of the future.
But they must first escape when the Terminator finds them and amid a fuel truck explosion they must fight the machine being within an automated factory.
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