As Quentin Tarantino continues pre-production on his tenth (and perhaps final) film, The Movie Critic, we're looking back at the auteur's filmography and ranking his feature-length movies. (Notice we said "feature-length," meaning we're overlooking the segments he helmed for Sin City and Four Rooms.)
We don't think Tarantino's made a truly bad film yet, just a couple that aren't as good as his best efforts. So bear that in mind as you read the following list. Even the worst of Tarantino is usually better than any other filmmaker's best.
And as always, remember to comment at the bottom of the page and let us know how you would rank Tarantino's films!
10. Death Proof (2007)
Let's get this out of the way now: Death Proof isn't as fun as Planet Terror, but it definitely is the smartest homage to B-movies ever made. The film plays like something one of the most talented (and cocky) filmmakers ever put together with some friends over a series of weekends, albeit with a weekend funded by a major production outlet and one hell of a rapid-fire script.
The story of Stuntman Mike taking down beautiful, talky chicks with his death-proofed car is a bullet of a movie, one that somehow manages to revitalize Kurt Russell's career and make us sit through almost 40 minutes of dialogue before the blood and guts and fun kick in. Sure, the movie is by its very nature polarizing (unless you call Cannes home), and it's not up there with Fiction, but it is a work without any studio fingerprints on it, which makes the film all the more rare and must-see given the current studio climate. And if smartass chicks looking fine and talking fast isn't your bag, the climatic death chase fueled by revenge and pure awesome should satisfy even the most diligent skeptics.
9. The Hateful Eight (2015)
Armed with vicious humor and an intense story, Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is as brutal in its insights into race relations and human nature as it is in its depiction of violence and the Wild West. Combining the western and mystery genres and adding a healthy dose of gallows humor, the film is both an intense character study and a valentine to glorious old school 70mm filmmaking.
The Hateful Eight is very much about race relations in America, its post-Civil War setting actually allowing for an exploration of some very contemporary issues. This makes it arguably Tarantino's most nuanced and adult tale yet. (That's not to say, though, that Tarantino's not also having fun with the material.) There are some elements that may feel overly familiar to Tarantino fans with the filmmaker cannibalizing from his own oeuvre (there are definitely shades of Reservoir Dogs here). Seeing those similarities does lead those who know his work to anticipate where the story might go and thus diffuse some of the surprises he's spent so much time laying the groundwork for. But ultimately those quibbles pale in comparison to the overall tale.
Read our review of The Hateful Eight.
8. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
This is Tarantino's self-described homage to The Dirty Dozen, a character-heavy man-on-a-mission script. Inglourious Basterds is less a single experience than it is four brief plays and a short film. It is, by far, Tarantino's more theatrical work since Reservoir Dogs. Make no mistake, each particular section of the film is filled with first-rate performances and the kind of dialogue-as-suspense that Tarantino fans have come to appreciate. The problem, however, is that there's simply so much of it. We're essentially offered long, sprawling conversations leading up to 30-second bursts of action.
Christoph Waltz's Oscar-winning, effortlessly disarming performance as Colonel Hans Landa stands amongst the best of Tarantino's baddies – brutal, charming, snake-like and cowardly. Lt. Aldo Raine, however, is a stranger case, indeed. Initially a rather one-dimensional role, Brad Pitt's simultaneously terrifying and hilarious performance offers layers to a character that might easily have sloughed across the page and died of excessive personality. At the end of the day, Inglourious Basterds is a series of strongly made, if expertly (over)written, pieces that never really come together into one coherent whole.
Read our review of Inglourious Bastards.
7. Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 follows The Bride (Uma Thurman) as she sets out to dispose of the last three members on her revenge list: Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen) and, of course, Bill (the late David Carradine). Tarantino long ago promised that Vol. 2 would be more of the classic Tarantino style of slick dialogue, pop culture references, and bad-ass characters, with a little less of the action. That's a vast understatement. Vol. 2 may well be Tarantino's most talky film to date. And that's saying a lot. Thurman once again owns the movie, showing a huge spectrum of emotional range.
With Vol. 2, we delve deeper into The Bride's backstory, exploring motivations, reasons and explanations so that the entire piece makes perfect sense, particularly that of Beatrix Kiddo (a.k.a. The Bride), whose name is revealed with typical demented QT humor. Her brawl with fellow assassin Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah) in Budd's trailer is a thing of violent beauty. You'll learn how Elle lost her eye and damn near jump out of your chair as Elle gets the most deserving comeuppance since Nurse Ratched.
Read our review of Kill Bill Volume 2.
6. Jackie Brown (1997)
The immediate reactions to Jackie Brown, back in '97, were definitely good, though as a follow-up to the groundbreaking Pulp Fiction it was also seen, ultimately, as an earnest stumble. Also, being Tarantino's one and only adaptation, that of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, Jackie Brown took the director out of his full comfort zone (despite the fact that Leonard's books were a huge influence on all of Tarantino's movies).
In more recent years, however, Jackie Brown's been looked back on as one of Tarantino's strongest, and more nicely restrained, character-driven efforts. Pam Grier's title character crosses paths with Samuel L. Jackson's gun runner, Ordell, Robert Forster's sympathetic bail bondsman, and Michael Keaton's no-BS ATF agent (whom he also plays in 1998 Leonard adaptation Out of Sight!), all wanting their hands on $500,000 worth of cash. The plot is dense but not alienating, and it's a lot of fun to see Tarantino let actors like De Niro and Keaton play in his world.
5. Django Unchained (2012)
Tarantino doesn't shy away from the horrors of slavery in Django Unchained even as he delivers a weird, wild, and bloody violent crowd-pleaser in this raucous salute to the spaghetti western. The film is designed as a crowd-pleaser and it most certainly delivers on that promise, offering up plenty moments of over-the-top gunslinger violence and humor.
One of the most striking things about the story, though, is how well Tarantino balances the tone, veering between absurd comedy and brutal scenes of life for slaves in the antebellum South. The casual and incessant racism on display is shocking, but sadly accurate for the era depicted.
Horrors aside, Django Unchained is a hell of a lot of fun and definitely a must-see.
Read our review of Django Unchained.
4. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)
Tarantino's most recent film, 2019's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, is not only one of his best works but also his second major "What If...?"-style alternate history projects after Inglourious Basterds. While just as crowd-pleasing with its "course correction" finish, the film boasts a more meaningful emotional underbelly (while still not shying away form the director's penchant for ultra-violence).
The story of an aging actor and his loyal assistant/occasional stunt double navigating the business. while also bizarrely crossing paths with the Manson Family, in 1969 is one of QT's most captivating, and Academy Award-winning, tales. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt (who'd win an Oscar for his role), and Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, the movie is a time capsule featuring magnificent performances, awesome needle drops, and satisfying moments of stark intensity.
Read our review of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
3. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
As Tarantino's shortest film to date, Reservoir Dogs is also his tightest; for every calling-card digression into pop-cultural minutiae, there was some essential plot development or character building happening simultaneously happening, and overall the film moves at such a lightning-fast pace that there is scarcely time to fully digest what's happening until the last shot has been fired. Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen all deliver star-making performances, while stalwart character actors like Lawrence Tierney and especially Harvey Keitel elevate the material beyond the realm of mere pulp fiction into gutter poetry.
Meanwhile, Tarantino's economic but fascinatingly creative directing turns a virtual one-location story into a minor epic, not only transforming the face of crime cinema but all of moviemaking as we know it. So many other screenwriters and directors have come since to try and duplicate his invigorating, postmodern style, but no one has done it as well; in one hundred-minute moment, Tarantino created an instant classic, made a name for himself, and defined an entire generation of filmmakers.
2. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
Tarantino's two-part homage to The Bride Wore Black revolves around The Bride (played by Uma Thurman), who is left for dead after her ex-lover Bill (David Carradine) and her former cohorts (including Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox and Darryl Hannah) gun down her wedding party. After waking from a four-year coma, The Bride embarks on a quest for bloody revenge that leads her around the globe.
The first part of Tarantino's ultra-violent epic is a blood-soaked bonanza. The casting is perfect across the board, but the biggest praise must go to The Bride herself, Uma Thurman. It seems she is most at home when speaking Tarantino's dialogue. She manages to slip in some great lines with that always cool delivery that are sure to be quoted again and again by film geeks. In the second half, when dialogue becomes very sparse, Uma delivers as a pure kick butt action hero.
Read our review of Kll Bill Volume 1.
1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
In 1995, it came down to Pulp Fiction vs. Forrest Gump for the Best Picture Oscar. Gump won and even back then most knew that the Academy voters should have gone less box of chocolates and more wallet that says "Bad Mutherf@#%er" on it.
Disagree? Few films of the 1990s, let alone of all time, ripple effect across pop-culture the way Tarantino's non-linear epic has. It's rock and roll at 24 f/s, fueled by a fanzine sense of taste and a penchant for creating instantly quotable dialogue. The movie has guns, a Bible-quoting hitman, his less-than-righteous partner, leather-clad gimps hiding in corner store back rooms, watches hiding in places not even Bruce Willis wants to talk about and five-dollar milkshakes. As a director, Tarantino established himself as a force to be reckoned with, with his inspired direction and affinity for making source music a key player in the telling of his story. His work also set the stage for a series of copies, as movies like 2 Days in the Valley and Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead can attest. And let's not forget the legion of film school grads who decorated their walls with Jules and Vincent, or looked to the film as a Rosetta Stone for all things movie.
Fiction didn't just change the way movies were made, it changed our expectations for what film can, and should, do. Not bad for your second film.
Matt Fowler is a freelance entertainment writer/critic, covering TV news, reviews, interviews and features on IGN for 13+ years.
