Sarah Connor

 is one of the main protagonists in the first two Terminator films, and the mother of John Connor. She is also the love interest and later the wife of Kyle Reese.

She was portrayed by in the films,  in the  and by  in the fifth installment .

The Terminator
At the age of 19, she worked as a teenage waitress at Big Jeff's family restaurant and shared a two-story apartment in the Palm District with her roommate Ginger Ventura while studying at college. But everything Sarah had ever known was to change that year in 1984. By the events of , Sarah finds herself pursued by a relentless cyborg killer, the Terminator; a Series 800 Model 101 Infiltrator unit (played by ), for reasons completely unknown to her.

She is rescued from the Terminator by time-traveling soldier Kyle Reese, who explains that in the future, an artificial intelligence called Skynet will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions. The program becomes self-aware, seizes control of most of the world's military hardware (including various highly-advanced robots), and launches an all-out attack on human beings. However, a man named John Connor eventually leads the human resistance group Tech-Com to victory, only to discover that in a last-ditch effort, Skynet had researched time travel and sent a robotic killer back in time in an effort to destroy John Connor's family before he can be born.

John Connor is Sarah's future son, and Connor sends back a trusted sergeant (Reese - who, unbeknownst to him, is John's father) to protect his mother at all costs. During their brief time together, Sarah falls in love with Reese. Reese becomes the only thing protecting her from the Terminator, and her only companion as they flee together.

The Terminator kills a number of people in order to get to Sarah Connor, including her mother. Initially, she is unaware that Reese himself had been in love with her from afar, having been given a picture of her by John Connor, and having always admired her legendary strength and resilience. They share a night of intimacy that results in the conception of John. Their relationship is cut short when Reese dies fighting the Terminator in a Cyberdyne factory; Sarah in turn crushes the Terminator in a hydraulic press.

Though Reese's death deeply saddens her, his sincerity and courage inspires Sarah to carry on and develop the necessary skills and abilities that would make her a suitable mentor and teacher to John. She drives into Mexico and gets some gasoline. A child at the gas station tells her that there is a storm coming and she grimly replies that she knows (thinking about Judgment Day) before driving into the storm clouds.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Going into hiding, Sarah gave birth to John on 28 February 1985, and immediately entered into a semi-criminal lifestyle, beginning his training and learning from whoever would teach them. The two lived as nomads, spending a lot of time in South and Central America. It was not until she attempted to blow up the local offices of some computer corporation, getting herself caught by the police that she was seen again by the authorities. Upon trying to warn of the impending Judgment Day, Sarah was handed over to the custody of Dr. Peter Silberman at the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a prison facility that cares and imprisons people with mental problems. She was diagnosed with acute schizo-affective disorder and institutionalized, her son John being put into foster care.

When Sarah was 29 years old, another Terminator, this time a T-1000, was sent back to eliminate Sarah's ten-year-old son John. Sarah broke out of her room and assaulted Douglas' incapacitating him and stole his keys. She then knocked out another staff member and broke Dr Silberman's arm, and threatening to poison him to get the other staff to release her by unlocking the security doors. However, a back-up member released Silberman and Sarah escaped to the elevators, while the staff desperately chased her all the way.

When the T-800 tells John that the T-1000 will likely copy Sarah and then kill her, he and the Terminator go to rescue her. At Pescadero, Sarah has escaped from her prison cell and kills Douglas (one of Dr Silberman's staff) with a broom handle when she breaks his neck. Next, she knocks out a staff member, breaks Peter Silberman's arm and takes him hostage, holding him with a syringe full of industrial grade poison. She uses him to force the other staff to release her by opening all the security doors. However, on the opposite corridor, an Italian staff member creeps behind Sarah's back and releases Dr Silberman. She then runs down the corridor to the elevators.

As she waits for an elevator, the T-800 walks out. Initially, Sarah is terrified by the Terminator and runs back, but the staff trip her up after chasing her. Dr Silberman, having enough of Sarah's escape attempts, killing Douglas, injuring his staff and trying to poison him, he gets the syringe and attempts to poison Sarah while his staff pin her down to the floor. But as soon as the syringe gets close to Sarah, the terminator comes, hoists and then knocks all the staff unconscious, including one member thrown at a door window and a shard of glass stabs him. Dr Silberman is left unharmed, shocked by the terminator. But the T-1000 arrives and Sarah watches the terminator fight off the T-1000 and seeing that John has accompanied it, she leaves with them. The T-1000 chases them down the highway but fails to capture and kill them.

Later, while hiding out in an auto repair garage (in a deleted scene), John and Sarah remove the T-800's processing chip, which controls it's systems. Sarah, still mistrusting of the machine, sees an opportunity to render the terminator completely inert by destroying the chip but John stops her at the last second, telling her they need it's help. Sarah is reluctant but listens to John when he tells her that he'll one day be a powerful leader & that his decisions will one day be important. She agrees not to destroy the chip and the terminator is reactivated.

As they escape the city, the Terminator tells her about the future of Skynet, the sentient computer that will destroy humans. He tells her about its creator, Miles Bennett Dyson (Joe Morton), who designs a learning computer that is entrusted with command of all military force. When Skynet becomes "self-aware", it launches nuclear missiles to destroy most of humanity, an event referred to by the survivors as "Judgment Day". While watching John teach the terminator a game, Sarah reflects on the fact that the terminator makes a good father-figure for John. Being a machine, the terminator would never be abusive or abandon him & would unreservedly let itself be destroyed while protecting him. In turn, John teaches the terminator to be more human.

Eventually, Sarah, John, and the Terminator arrive in the desert at the camp of Enrique Salceda, who has preserved an underground weapons cache in the event that the war actually happens. Sarah plans to take John and flee over the border into Mexico. During the time at this camp, John bonds more closely with the Terminator. Sarah falls asleep and suffers her recurring nightmare where she sees herself playing with children on a playground. An nuclear bomb suddenly explodes in the distance and Sarah, her double and all the children die in the intense heat of the blast. Sarah wakes up, seeing that she's carved the words "NO FATE" into the table she fell asleep upon.

Sarah now believes that by assassinating Dyson she can prevent Skynet from being invented, preventing Judgment Day and the war with the machines. After she leaves, John and the Terminator find the message she'd left on the table and quickly figure out what she is going to do and drive after her. At Dyson's home, Sarah tries to kill Dyson with an M4 rifle and misses when Dyson's son distracts him from his computer monitor. Sarah is unable to hit her target and marches into Dyson's home. She draws a pistol, shooting him in the shoulder, but finds herself unable to kill him in front of his family. When John and the Terminator arrive, they inform Dyson of the consequences of his research. When he says he'll discontinue his research and quit Cyberdyne the next day, Sarah and the Terminator convince him that they must destroy everything related to his chip design including the CPU and arm from the previous Terminator immediately.

Sarah, John, the Terminator, and Dyson break into the Cyberdyne Systems building and retrieve the parts from the first Terminator. While preparing explosives to destroy all of Dyson's research, security alerts the police who show up in force. When the SWAT team enters the building, they fatally shoot Dyson who stays behind to trigger the detonator.

Sarah, John, and the Terminator escape in a SWAT van, with the T-1000 in pursuit, first in a helicopter then a tanker truck. The truck crashes into a steel mill, causing the tank to rupture and liquid nitrogen to spill everywhere, freezing the T-1000. Even though the Terminator shatters him, the pieces thaw and reassemble. The T-1000 and Model 101 begin to fight, and the T-1000 stabs him through the power cell with a metal pole, deactivating him. The T-1000, disguised as Sarah, goes to hunt John. As John is confronted by two Sarahs, the Terminator, who had reactivated itself using an alternate power source, finally destroys the T-1000 by shooting it with a grenade launcher which causes it to deform and lose balance, and ultimately fall into a vat of molten metal which destroys it.

After John throws the arm and processor chip from the first Terminator into the molten metal, the Terminator tells him that he too must be destroyed to prevent his technology from being used to create Skynet. He tells Sarah that he cannot self-terminate, and she must lower him into the steel. John tearfully begs the Terminator not to leave, but the Terminator insists it must be done. As he sinks into the molten steel, he gives a thumbs up. The film ends with a voice-over from Sarah, in which she describes her new found optimism regarding the future.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Three years later, after training John in the ways of warfare and leadership, and ensuring that Judgment Day did not take place on its original date, Sarah Connor finally died in 1997 from Leukemia (presumably, she died on August 29), three years after her initial diagnosis in Baja. (Although one interpretation of the timeline would suggest that this means she would have been aware of her condition at the time of T2.) She was cremated in Mexico, and her friends scattered her ashes into the sea. Never believing that they had truly won even at the end, she had her friends store weapons in a coffin in a mausoleum in the Valley of Peace cemetery.

Terminator: Salvation
Sarah Connor's audio logs she recorded in 1984 assisted John Connor in his fight against Skynet's forces in 2018 which helps John Connor become the leader of the Human Resistance.

1973
A Terminator Model T-800 time traveled back to 1973 when Sarah was 9 years old. She was targeted by a T-1000 sent by Skynet. The T-1000 was destroyed. Over the years as the T-800 trained her and prepared her for the coming Judgment Day, she called him "Guardian" or "Pops"

1984
The T-800 that was originally sent to kill Sarah Connor in the original timeline arrived as well as Kyle Reese. She would first with a great assist from Guardian, destroyed that Terminator before she saves Kyle from a T-1000. The T-1000 would follow The Guardian, Sarah, and Kyle and another fight ensued. The T-1000 revives the T-800. As Kyle destroys the T-800 a second time, Sarah was being perused by the T-1000.

The T-1000 posed itself as Kyle. Sarah discerns the T-1000 from the real Kyle. Both she and the Guardian melts it in acid before doing the same to the remains of the T-800, except for it's head, which they need a CPU from it's head so they could complete a temporal displacement device so they can travel to 1997. Though Kyle convinced them they needed to go to 2017 because of changes in the timeline affected his memories and he knew that is their destination. However, due to the Guardian's endo-skeleton being exposed, he could not join them, so he waited until the time they appear.

2017
Sarah and Kyle arrive in 2017 but where arrested due to the fact their arrival cased a major traffic accident. The two would discover that John Connor was also there. They questioned John to make sure it wasn't another T-1000. He confirmed to have John's knowledge. However the Guardian shot John infront of Sarah and Kyle, prompting both to be suspicious of the Guardian and trained their guns on him. However Sarah saw John's blood and it appeared to be not human, but technological. John would offer his parents, Sarah and Kyle, to join him and help awaken Skynet. They refused and another fight ensued.