From westerns to exploitation: Quentin Tarantino’s favourite movies of the 1960s
If you were to sit down with Quentin Tarantino for just five minutes, you’d likely come away from the conversation with a bunch of movie recommendations by obscure filmmakers you’ve never heard of. The director is known for his deep obsession with cinema, possessing an incredibly detailed knowledge of the history of the medium. That random B-movie starring a once-successful Hollywood star? He’s probably seen it. The latest blockbuster? He’s likely seen that, too.
Before Tarantino was an established filmmaker, he worked in a Video Archives rental store, spending his days surrounded by VHS tapes that exposed him to a world of enticing titles. By the end of the late 1980s, he’d penned several screenplays and started work on a film called My Best Friend’s Birthday, which was never completed.
He struck gold, however, when his script for Reservoir Dogs was picked up, and he was able to make his directorial debut in 1992. Working with actors like Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel, the film ended up treading new ground in the independent realm, receiving critical praise and a box office profit despite being made on a budget of just $1.2million.
Since then, Tarantino’s movies have largely been successful. Most of his work is preoccupied with the past, with just a handful of his movies actually taking place in the time period in which it was made. Only one, however, is set in the ‘60s – Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Tarantino captures the decade well, situating the action in the heat of California as the Manson Family loom over everyone, including Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate.
The ‘60s is a decade that Tarantino is particularly fond of; after all, he was born in 1963. Perhaps reminiscent of his childhood, while also signifying an era of great cultural change (particularly for cinema), the filmmaker has labelled many movies from the period as some of his all-time favourites.
Perhaps his favourite of them all is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, directed by Sergio Leone. The epic western featuring Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name has significantly influenced Tarantino’s approach to filmmaking. He once explained, “The one artist that I think has been the most influential to me in my work has got to be Sergio Leone.” He also called the 1966 film “the greatest cinematic achievement in the history of cinema.”
The filmmaker loves the western Django, helmed by another one of his favourite directors, Sergio Corbucci. The movie was a significant source of inspiration for Django: Unchained, which also features a cameo from Franco Nero, who plays the titular character in the 1966 film.
Tarantino’s favourites from the era aren’t just limited to westerns, of course. He has cited Easy Rider, directed by Dennis Hopper, as “the single greatest example of ’60s cinema in every way,” adding, “It captures the ‘60s in a way that is tangible.” He also loves Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, an exploitation classic, even attempting to remake it in the 2000s, although the project never got very far off the drawing board.
Another film that has directly influenced Tarantino is Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, directed by Paul Mazursky and released in 1969. The filmmaker used the movie as a significant point of reference when crafting the world of late-’60s L.A. in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
Discover some of Tarantino’s favourite movies from the ‘60s below.
Quentin Tarantino’s favourite movies of the 1960s:
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
- Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
- Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963)
- Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
- It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963)
- Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)
- Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)
- Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
- Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
- Twisted Nerve (Roy Boulting, 1968)
- Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964)
- Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969)
- Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
- The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963)