1994 action comedy film by James Cameron
True Lies is a 1994 American action comedy film written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Harry Tasker, a U.S. government agent, who struggles to balance his double life as a spy with his familial duties, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his unknowing wife. Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Art Malik, Tia Carrere, Eliza Dushku, and Charlton Heston star in supporting roles. The screenplay is based on the 1991 French comedy film La Totale!.
The film was the first Lightstorm Entertainment project to be distributed under Cameron's multimillion-dollar production deal with 20th Century Fox, as well as the first major production for the visual effects company Digital Domain, which was co-founded by Cameron. It was also the first film to cost $100 million.
True Lies received mostly positive reviews from critics, and ultimately grossed $378 million worldwide at the box office, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1994. For her performance, Curtis won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Saturn Award for Best Actress, while Cameron won the Saturn Award for Best Director. It was also nominated at the Academy Awards and BAFTAs in the Best Visual Effects category, and also for seven Saturn Awards. A streaming television series adaptation premiered in 2023.
A 2004 ruling by the Court of Appeal of Paris found that True Lies and La Totale! were plagiarized from an unproduced 1981 screenplay, Émilie, by Lucien Lambert.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.