James Francis Cameron CC is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability with his use of novel technologies. He first gained recognition for writing and directing The Terminator (1984) and found further success with Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and the action comedy True Lies (1994). He wrote and directed Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009) and its sequels, with Titanic earning him Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing. A recipient of various other industry accolades, two of his films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Cameron co-founded the production companies Lightstorm Entertainment, Digital Domain, and Earthship Productions. In addition to filmmaking, he is a National Geographic sea explorer and has produced many documentaries on the subject, including Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) and Aliens of the Deep (2005). Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies and helped create the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. In 2012, Cameron became the first person to do a solo descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth's ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger submersible.
Cameron's films have grossed over $8 billion worldwide, making him the second highest-grossing film director of all time. Three of Cameron's films are amongst the top four highest-grossing films of all time; Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), and Titanic are the highest, third, and fourth highest-grossing films of all time, respectively. Cameron holds the achievement of having directed the first two of the six films in history to gross over $2 billion worldwide. He is also the only director to have had three films gross over $2 billion worldwide. In 2010, Time named Cameron as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cameron is also an environmentalist and runs several sustainability businesses.
