Every James Cameron Film Ranked Worst To Best

James Cameron's name and reputation was household by the late 80s, but his ambition was stronger than ever. So gave rise to the most elaborate project of his career by that point, and by box office standards, one of his biggest failures.

Critics of that era however, gave the film more flak than it deserved, because The Abyss is a cool movie. A Cameron-driven story involving a deep sea dive, which results in the inadvertent discovery of a sentient civilisation, may have been an endurance for every person involved, but the result was a character-driven and suspenseful thriller with some amazing attention to detail. Over the passing decades, the Abyss has become a cult classic and there is a lot to go back to. Its very production values are testament to Cameron's willpower and vision.

All in all, it's a superb ride, if a little let down by its swift closure. This can be rectified by watching the director's cut, which adds additional footage to the ending, so that Ed Harris' close encounter with the underwater kind actually, well... makes sense.