Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 American science fiction action film, the second installment of the Terminator franchise and the sequel toThe Terminator (1984). Directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher, Jr., it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong. Terminator 2 follows Sarah Connor (Hamilton) and her ten-year-old son John (Furlong) as they are pursued by a new, more advanced Terminator, the liquid metal, shapeshifting T-1000 (Patrick), sent back in time to 1995 to kill John and prevent him from becoming the leader of the human Resistance against the machines. An older, less advanced Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is also sent back in time to protect John.

After a troubled pre-production characterized by legal disputes, Mario Kassar of Carolco Pictures emerged with the franchise's property rights in early 1990. This paved the way for the completion of the screenplay by the Cameron-led production team, and the October 1990 start of a shorter-than-originally-planned 186-day filming Terminator 2 required an unprecedented budget of more than $94 million (1991 dollars), much of which was spent on filming and special effects. The film was released on July 3, 1991, in time for the U.S. Fourth of July weekend.

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Terminator 2, a box office and critical success, influenced popular culture and especially movies in the genres of action and science fiction.^[4] The film's visual effects saw many breakthroughs in computer-generated imagery, including the first use of natural human motion for a computer-generated character and the first partially computer-generated main character.^[5] It received many accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup, and Best Visual Effects.^[6] Several publications such as the American Film Institute have since rankedTerminator 2 on lists as one of the greatest science fiction films and greatest sequels of all tim