Sarah Connor is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Terminator franchise. She is one of the protagonists of The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), as well as the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009). The character develops from a timid damsel in distress victim in the first film to a wanted fugitive committing acts of terrorism, a hardened warrior and mother who sacrificed everything for her son’s future, on the verge of losing touch with her own humanity, and a mentor preparing and protecting a protégée for her destiny.

In an alternate timeline, depicted in Terminator Genisys, she is in her younger years, raised by a Terminator, while in another alternate timeline, depicted in Terminator: Dark Fate, she hunts numerous rogue Terminators (from various alternate timelines) in the years following her son’s death.

Sarah was portrayed by Linda Hamilton in The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, T2-3D: Battle Across Time, Terminator Salvation (voice only), and Terminator: Dark Fate; she was additionally portrayed by Emilia Clarke, Willa Taylor as a younger Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys and by Lena Headey in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Two minor characters from The Terminator are also named Sarah Connor and are targeted for termination due to sharing a name with the protagonist. One of the other Sarah Connors is played by Marianne Muellerleile.

In November 2005, 20th Century Fox announced that it would produce a television series called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles featuring the adventures of the title character and her son in the years after Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In November 2006, it announced that Headey had been chosen to play Sarah. The choice of Headey was criticized by several fans and critics, who said she bore no resemblance to the athletic, muscular character portrayed by Hamilton. The controversy was covered by the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Herald,[7] The Guardian, and an online fan group.

Series creator Josh Friedman auditioned over 300 actress for the role; he said he was looking for was someone “who embodied that spirit and who was believable in that role and not just some glammed up, Hollywood, actressy thing”.

After a friend recommended English actor Lena Headey for the role, Friedman watched her audition tape and thought she was “a tough, tough woman”. Having seen The Terminator when she was a teenager, Headey was aware of the iconic status of the character; she said, “Linda Hamilton will always be the original Sarah Connor and it’s a very strong print that she’s left, but hopefully people will embrace what I bring to Sarah and see it with fresh eyes”. When asked about her approach to the role, Headey said, “I’m playing a mother who is a single parent, bringing up a teenage son, who also happens to save the world—as a byline to her life. And the way I would play that is someone who’s passionate and scared and angry and a mother, all these things. So I approach that just trying to be honest within the boundaries of her …”

In 1999, four years after the events of the second film (Two years in the show’s timeline), Sarah and John Connor are living undercover after being blamed for the murder of Miles Dyson and is engaged to paramedic Charley Dixon. Fearing discovery and the certainty of a stable life, they flee again. On his first day in his new school, John is attacked by a T-888 Terminator posing as a substitute teacher called Cromartie. He escapes with the help of Cameron Phillips, a Terminator that resembles a teenage girl, sent back in time by the future John to protect him. Sarah hears of the shooting and rushes to the school but is captured by Cromartie, who uses her to lure John into a trap. Again with the help of Cameron, they flee to a bank where resistance members have hidden the parts of a time machine. As Cromartie attacks them, the trio disappear into the year 2007.

Cameron suggests to Sarah their primary mission should be to stop Skynet, estimated to go online in 2011. Sarah argues against this, but Cameron tells her she would have died from cancer in 2005. The three characters try to evade discovery and find the origins of Skynet. In the third episode of the series, Sarah seeks to avoid getting cancer; she trains her body and takes vitamins and medications.

Sarah’s relationship with Cameron has been repeatedly antagonistic and they share a mutual distrust. As Sarah attempts to teach Cameron the value of a human life, Cameron argues the importance of their mission to thwart Skynet’s creation even if killing is necessary. During battles with Terminators programmed to kill the Connors, Sarah and Cameron often find themselves working together. Also, since Cameron is the only other person who knows of her cancer situation, Sarah often approaches her for advice in the matter.

In the episode “Queen’s Gambit”, she discovers that her dead lover Kyle Reese has a brother named Derek, who is also a time-travelling Resistance agent. She hopes to save Derek from being killed by androids. Sarah tells John about his true identity and he seeks help from her former fiancé Charley Dixon to save his uncle’s life. Despite her knowledge of his connection to Kyle, Sarah continues to distrust Derek because she is aware that he killed Andrew “Andy” Goode, one of the creators of Skynet. Despite their mutual distrust, there is some attraction between them.

In the second season, Sarah worries about contracting and dying of cancer. She meets John’s new friend Riley Dawson, and is concerned their friendship risks the family’s safety from Skynet and Riley’s safety. Sarah and Derek help Charley rescue his wife from Cromartie, but she dies in a bomb explosion. Sarah shelters a young boy named Marty Bedell who is being hunted by a T-888 because he shares his name with a future high-ranking member of the human resistance. An attack from Margos Sarkissian leaves John traumatized. Sarah takes the blame of Sarkissian’s death for John, which Derek and Cameron later discover when John and Sarah argue. their relationship changes; John cannot let go of his guilt for killing Sarkissian; Sarah realizes that she cannot always protect her son. She seeks counseling from family psychiatrist Boyd Sherman but discovers his role in Skynet’s future.

Sarah is kidnapped by Cromartie, but she is rescued by John and James Ellison, an FBI agent who was earlier determined to bring her to justice. Along with Derek and Cameron, they plan to lure Cromartie into a nearby church; they kill and bury it and plan to destroy it later. Sarah smashes its CPU; her stress after the battle results in nightmares and sleepwalking. She visits Dr. Sherman again but is unable to be honest with him. Sarah remembers seeing a three-dotted symbol in her dreams. She has seen this before; it was left by a dying Resistance soldier in her basement. Her obsession with the symbol leads her to Dakara Systems, a technology company whose logo includes it. There, Alexander Agagi II is developing an artificial intelligence program named “Emma”. Realizing she has been chasing the wrong lead, Sarah’s stress becomes uncontrollable and she smashes mirrors in her bathroom. Derek thinks Sarah is losing her sanity.

At a UFO convention, which Sarah attends to investigate the three-dotted sign, she meets a woman named Eileen, who is really Alan Park, a scientist who specialized in Light Detection and Ranging. Fearing for his life he underwent sex reassignment surgery. He thinks he is being targeted by his former employer, and that drone sightings in the Mojave Desert are a government conspiracy. Sarah takes him to a hypnotherapist named Dr. Barbara Morris, to unravel his memories to reveal the location of the facility. An assassin arrives during the session and murders Morris and Park. Sarah has recorded the session; Park’s clues lead her to a warehouse. As she entered the building, she fights and apparently kills a man named Ed Winston, who has wounded her leg. Inside the warehouse, she sees three bright dots in the sky; they are hauls of a Hunter-Killer craft from the future. She kidnaps and forces a doctor to remove the bullet from her leg, and then tells Derek to destroy the evidence of her hospitalization to prevent the authorities and the machines from learning her identity and tracking her. After Derek finds her, Sarah decides to tell him about his relation to John, but he already knows. The family arrives at a company town, Charm Acres, looking for survivors of the warehouse explosion. At the end of their search, Sarah, John, Derek and Cameron see the Hunter-Killer drone.

Ed Winston has survived being shot by Sarah. Following a lead from Charm Acres, Sarah visits the factory where Winston kidnapped her and subjected her to hallucinogenic drugs to find out why she bombed the factory and the identities of her accomplices. After enduring Winston’s physical and psychological torments, Sarah breaks free and attacks and shoots him in the head, killing him. She is arrested by the police, beaten up and taken to jail.

Sarah is rescued from jail by John and Cameron; she accompanies them to go see the T-1001 impersonating Catherine Weaver, where it is suggested that she is building something like Skynet, hoping to defeat it. Before Sarah can find out more, the prototype Hunter-Killer assaults the building and the group escape. In the building’s basement Cameron gives her A.I. chip to Weaver’s creation, which is now stored in the exhumed body of Cromartie, who takes it into the future. John finds Cameron’s empty shell lying in the basement and a repeating message on the computer monitors reading, “I’m sorry, John”. John discovers he cannot let her go. In an attempt to save both Cameron and Weaver’s creation, both John and Catherine go to the future after the Cromartie shell, while Sarah remains in the present to continue the fight.