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| Click on Vincent & OwlKitty to see "Pulp Fiction with a Cat." |
We here at FKMG think Quentin Tarantino is one of our greatest living directors. Detractors can argue that he’s little more than the sum of his influences - and they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong - but it’s what he does with those influences that make his work special.
Having written & directed only ten films over 30 years (we consider Kill Bill 1 & 2 two separate films), he ain’t the most prolific guy on Earth. But while not every movie is a home run, he’s never cranked out any junk, either. What ultimately makes him great is he never appears to be resting on his laurels and coasting on auto-pilot. Even the “worst” film on this list has unique qualities which make it worthwhile.
The following list ranks only the theatrical films Tarantino directed. True Romance is great, but he only wrote the screenplay. I’ve also excluded any film in which he directed just a segment (Four Rooms, which sucked anyway) or was billed as a “guest director” (Sin City).
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10. DEATH PROOF It’s first hour is meandering and relentlessly talky, but the film is ultimately saved by Kurt Russell and a climactic car chase that’s arguably the best action sequence Tarantino ever directed. |
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9. KILL BILL, VOLUME 2 Whereas Volume 1 drew most of its influence from Asian action cinema, Volume 2 plays more like an homage to spaghetti westerns. There’s a lot to love here, but the final act is unnecessarily protracted. |
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8. THE HATEFUL EIGHT The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s longest film...and often feels like it. However, this epic western features another great cast, an effective score by the great Ennio Morricone (his last) and some surprising story twists. |
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7. KILL BILL, VOLUME 1 The director at his most playful. Outlandish and unapologetically gory, Volume 1 is certainly a lot of over-the-top fun and Thurman is a formidable ass-kicker, though style quashes anything resembling substance. |
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6. JACKIE BROWN This might be Tarantino’s most under-appreciated film, anchored by affecting, charismatic performances from Pam Grier and Robert Forster. |
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5. RESERVOIR DOGS Love it or hate it, you’d be hard-pressed to mention a more audacious & striking directorial debut. Though it owes more than a passing nod to The Killing, all the hallmarks we associate with Tarantino began here, especially the memorable, pop culture-referencing dialogue. |
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4. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD In some ways, Tarantino's love letter to the ‘60s is his most self-indulgent film. On the other hand, it’s also his most immersive, with stories-within-stories, compelling characters (even those with just a few minutes of screen-time) and an aesthetic that practically transports us back in time. |
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3. DJANGO UNCHAINED Both a revisionist western and a revenge fantasy, the film makes no claims of historical accuracy. Instead, we take perverse vicarious pleasure in watching terrible people get exactly what’s coming to them. Jamie Foxx is good in the title role, but the film belongs to Christoph Waltz. |
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2. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Aside from revising history, Inglourious Basterds features some of Tarantino’s best dialogue since Pulp Fiction, as well as a similarly episodic structure. There ain’t enough Brad Pitt as Aldo Ray, but at-least it introduces Christoph Waltz to the rest of the world. He mostly owns this movie, too. |
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1. PULP FICTION Everything about Pulp Fiction is note-perfect. With reference-loaded dialogue, eclectic characters, career-saving performances, an intriguing non-linear structure and an absolutely killer soundtrack, the film not-only established Tarantino as a brilliant auteur, it practically invented an entire new subgenre. |
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