Quentin Tarantino has proclaimed that Inglourious Basterds is his masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his favorite, and Kill Bill is the movie he was born to make, Variety reports.
So this of course means that I now have license – by the power invested in me, dig? – to play the same game.
QT is a pop culture north star for me (and a whole generation of film nerds).
I still remember stumbling into a campus lecture hall screening of Reservoir Dogs for three bucks, having no idea of what I was about to walk into. It felt dangerous, electric, like someone had swapped out film history’s VHS tape for TNT.
As the man said, let’s get to work.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
My “I get to fire off a scorching hot take” QT. Reservoir Dogs is Tarantino’s Mean Streets. Raw, violent, with a cast of current and future legends bursting with life and cool as hell vibes. Okay, Reservoir Dogs is way more stylized and even fun (and Res Dogs is super fun if you’re into this brand of flick) versus Mean Streets, but let the chef cook, okay?
Pulp Fiction (1994)
My first movie I think of when I think QT. This is simply the one that changed everything about movies from this point forward. Here’s a quick sampler plate (which includes cheese served Royale-style): the music, the giddy energy, the dialog (say what again), Mr. Wolf, the gimp(!), Peak Travolta + Peak Uma, don’t be a square… You simply can’t say, “Man, I don’t even have an opinion” with this one.
Jackie Brown (1997)
My Pop Thruster hot take coming inbound: this is the one the buzzy class swears is his Empire Strikes Back. I get it: subtle, mature, Elmore Leonard cool. But for me it’s always been the “Tarantino afterparty movie” – quieter and hung over in a smoggy LA neighborhood that you’re not sure how you ended up crashing there and feel slightly freaked out about getting home safe.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) & Vol. 2 (2004)
My this is QT leaning style over substance, and I’m okay with that, if not enthralled. Vol. 1 is Tarantino mainlining Hong Kong Shaw Brothers flicks and anime blood geysers, and then spitting them back out with a samurai sword in Uma Thurman’s hands.
And then Vol. 2 gets more meditative while bringing the body count down to a simmer. Put them together and you’ve got one hell of a stylish ride, but this duo doesn’t crack my QT Top 5.
Death Proof (2007)
Maxes out my ferociously fun-ometer, and it’s the one where I get to say, “You know, you should really revisit…” This is grindhouse grease fire nonsense, and it’s flat out delightful. I’ll also wager that the dialog in its first half is elite QT. Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike is magnificently sleazy, and the car chases rip and roar 1970s grimy Saturday afternoon matinee-style.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
My favorite vengeance movie and the most playful-with-language flick I’ve ever seen. The dairy farm sequence, the Dirty Dozen vibes, the pub sequence, the final (in)glorious history gone so wrong it’s right bloodbath. And Christoph Waltz giving what’s perhaps the single best villain performance of all time. Not bad.
Django Unchained (2012)
My best stylized western, a spaghetti western in fact reimagined with QT’s sensibilities and Jamie Foxx swagger. But it’s also a straight-up fantasy of justice that still rattles (and ties to Inglourious thematically). Until that epic Lonesome Dove reboot happens (and it better happen in my lifetime), Django sits atop my western throne.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
My QT Waterloo. Hated it. Hated myself for hating it. Claustrophobic, overlong, snowbound whodunnit energy that left me cold (literally). I wound up both not liking (forgivable) and not caring about (not so much forgivable) every character. Friends tell me I was in the wrong headspace and need to revisit. And maybe they’re right, but for now, it’s the QT I’d prefer to keep locked in the cabin.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
My QT masterpiece. All things Tarantino that I deeply love are at play: the myth-making, the comedy, the violence, the insane attention to detail, the warmth. It’s revisionist history as fairy tale, and I’ll never get over the flame-thrower catharsis of it all. But that’s just the beginning: You can watch Once Upon a Time… countless times – for the music, for the ’69 LA-ness, for the Manson-era alternate history, for the period-specific radio and TV and movies, for the “did this really happen” within the film, for the Leo and Brad buddy flick, for the…
It just goes on and on.
And I hope QT fools us with his “I’m planning to retire after my tenth film” rubbish and goes on and on himself.