The Tower of Babel (1563)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Our Heavenly Bodies (1925)
dir. Hanns Walter Kornblum
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
The Terminator (1984)
dir. James Cameron
In fact, the more examples are produced against The Terminator, the less damaging they seem. They merely demonstrate the degree to which these ideas formed a bottomless pool of material, available to anybody who could find a use for them. Accusations of plagiarism are beside the point. Like many artists in all fields, Cameron has considerable skill in finding things that have worked for other people or, more interestingly, that haven't worked for other people but can work for him.
Sean French,
The Terminator (BFI Modern Classics)
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
Aliens (1986)
dir. James Cameron
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
The Fifth Element (1997)
dir. Luc Besson
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
Blade Runner (1982)
dir. Ridley Scott
Metropolis (1927)
dir. Fritz Lang
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
dir. Steven Spielberg