Quentin Tarantino, Ranked

I was exposed to Quentin Tarantino late in high school, which was the perfect time because my interests were aligned with his: movies, being a cleverly profane wiseass, pop culture, and dudes pointing guns at each other onscreen. As I’ve grown deeper in my appreciation for the history of global cinema – a journey I’ll never complete in my lifetime, but that’s been rewarding every step of the way – his postmodern, referential style has become far clearer. He was at the forefront of the 90’s independent cinema movement, the follow-up to the great 70’s era of New Hollywood, which in turn drew so much inspiration from the French New Wave along with the Hollywood staples of the era. However, one key influence that he has paid deep tribute to and sought to elevate throughout his career is the B-Grade, exploitation/Blaxploitation films of the 60’s-80’s.

His films are characterized chiefly by their dialogue, which is infectiously quotable (though be wary of the company you quote him in), and pitch-perfect tension that often results in an explosion of violence. His soundtrack choices are always killer, and since his work in the 90’s he hasn’t repeated a genre. However, his works are so singular, and he plays with the expectations of genre filmmaking so often that his movies are a genre unto themselves. He’s promised that he’ll only make 10 films, and to date he’s made 9 if you count Kill Bill as one movie, which I won’t for the purposes of this list. He’s earned a place on the very selective list of filmmakers who can make the movies they want at a decent budget and receive critical acclaim and strong enough box office success to keep working.

Like the chump I am, it’s time to rank his movies. Kick back, light up a Red Apple cigarette, and enjoy!

10. Death Proof (2007)

Here’s the thing about ranking these movies – it’s nigh impossible to call anyone of them bad as if their flaws outweigh their merits, and I’m sure that there are folks who think of this film as his best. This (by Tarantino’s standards) relatively shorter film is the most explicitly exploitation in its conception and style. the violence is brief but nasty, the dread is palpable, and the characters and setting are deeply scummy. Its structure essentially consists of 5 scenes fueled by Tarantino’s always-interesting dialogue, the final of which is a bonkers car chase featuring a stuntwoman holding onto the hood of a car. Tarantino changes up his style throughout – the first act uses a grainy and cheap film stock, and then the film is black and white, and finally it plays in color. It’s all well-staged, and definitely receives credit for how lean and mean it is, but the intentional B-quality places it at the bottom of my list.

9. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

The most action-packed of Tarantino’s films by a wide margin takes its inspiration from grindhouse revenge flicks, samurai revenge flicks, rape revenge flicks and is a nonlinear tale of, you guessed it, revenge. The structure allows for a thrillingly brutal opening scene set in an ordinary-looking home as well as frequent diversions and flashbacks with a variety of styles that include black and white as well as anime. The violence is as hyper-stylized as the filmmaking, so the result is a breathless and outlandishly bloody experience. Uma Thurman more than holds her own as the revenge-seeking action heroine whose performance also works as a proxy for the tonal balance between bare-knuckled intensity and sparkling humor that powers this film forward. However, without Volume 2, this feels like a partial story that is built around an ecstatically violent climax but otherwise doesn’t serve much purpose on its own, despite being a fantastic thrill ride.

8. The Hateful Eight (2015)

I was fortunate enough to catch the roadshow version of this small-scale mystery thriller when I saw it in theaters, complete with an overture and intermission. This movie really is a throwback, not just to the days of Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery movies, but to Tarantino’s own first feature, Reservoir Dogs. It also works as a worthy follow-up feature to Django Unchained by depicting a cast of characters attempting to navigate the tensions of a post-Civil War America along with the tensions of an increasingly violent situation inside a cabin. It also works as homage to John Carpenter’s The Thing with its wintry setting, nasty violence, escalating paranoia, nihilistic ending, and a wonderful Kurt Russell performance. Across the board, this film is packed with good performances and fantastic writing but suffers from pacing issues and the tone isn’t as precise as Quentin’s best work.

7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Just as Martin Scorsese took a chance to comment on himself, aging, and his career with The Irishman, Tarantino reflected on Hollywood history as well as his own style in the same year with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth feels like a self-aware reference to the types of movies his detractors have accused him of making – dangerous, violent, problematic, and profane. While these notions have their merits, as the rumors and prejudgment of Cliff have theirs, this movie sets out to prove that’s not the full picture. Cliff is a loyal friend whose violent nature is just what’s needed to save the day as Tarantino finds himself rewriting another chapter of history, albeit a hyper-specific one. Leonardo DiCaprio and Pitt shine as a movie star-stuntman duo navigating the fading Old Hollywood of 1969, not unlike another onscreen buddy pairing from that very year in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This movie is a mostly laid-back comedy, with a few spikes of tension and violence to remind you that a gentle Tarantino is Tarantino, nonetheless. Like Leo’s Rick Dalton, he’s attempting to adapt to a changing movie landscape that seems to be urging him to move on; and like Rick Dalton, his inability to yield will continue opening some doors while closing others.

6. Inglorious Basterds (2009)

By now, we’ve cracked the part of the list where people will absolutely swear that any entry is, without a doubt, the best that Tarantino ever made; I hear that a lot around this movie. It boasts strong performances including a particularly charismatic and menacing one from Christoph Waltz, as well as a wonderful and mostly silly Brad Pitt. The supporting cast is, as with the best of Tarantino’s work, absolutely loaded with talent. The dialogue, monologues, and tension are among the best that Tarantino has ever created, to a point of excess in my opinion. Any criticism I levy at a movie like this is an attempt to explain why I don’t have it as my #1, but to me this works better as a collection of fantastic and iconic scenes than a singular work, and yet there’s also plenty to admire in its chaptered structure. However, this approach results in its characters, while being fascinating in their conceptions, serving as cogs in the storytelling machine and not being as fully lived-in as they could have been. With all my petty and inconsequential gripes aside, you will probably not find a better-made scene anytime, anywhere than the extended undercover operation that quickly goes awry in the center of this movie.

5. Jackie Brown (1997)

Unlike the rest of Tarantino’s work, Jackie Brown was created around its metatext rather than being draped in several layers of it and that makes all the difference. I’ve named this as his best soundtrack not just because it’s packed to the gills with an amazing selection of songs, but because of how those songs tie directly to this movie’s mission and greatest accomplishment: paying proper tribute to Pam Grier, her body of work, and the Blaxploitation industry she stood for. How he does this, however, is through a low-key and delightful story of crime and double crossings that ambles along at a relaxed pace. The cast is packed with phenomenal actors doing wonderfully self-effacing work, including Robert DeNiro as a stoned former thief, Samuel L. Jackson as a properly menacing gun/drug dealer, and Michael Keaton as a cocky-if-somewhat-incompetent ATF agent. The most impressive part of the film is the writing for and performances of Pam Grier’s Jackie and Robert Forster’s Max. They play their middle-aged parts so well, with the perfect mix of having lived a life they seek to atone for without wanting to change anything about themselves. And their dynamic isn’t just the sweetest approximation of romance you’ll find in a Tarantino film, but one of the sweetest and most sophisticated you’ll find in any crime film. I’d heartily recommend this to anyone interested in Tarantino, but especially those who liked his gentler approach to OUAIH.

4. Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

Perhaps the strongest achievement of Volume 1 isn’t any of its action sequences, but in how it set viewers up for the brilliantly anticlimactic climax of this story. In contrast to Volume 1, this film is far more concerned with the emotional reckoning of The Bride’s quest for revenge than with being an action story, though there is plenty of that here as well. This film is also an absolute showcase of Robert Richardson’s brilliant cinematography, with each chapter of the story, including the multiple flashbacks, having distinct looks that also feel united and of a piece with Volume 1. The cast turn in uniformly strong performances, with the extended and mostly quiet verbal showdown between Uma Thurman’s Beatrix and David Carradine’s Bill standing as not just some of the best work that both actors have done, but some of the most compelling work that Tarantino has ever produced. Revenge is never a straight line, after all, and this part of the journey contains spectacular emotional detours from expectation.

3. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

One of the most significant directorial debuts of all time went mostly unnoticed outside of the hardcore film community but gained most of its reputation after the fact as its writer-director ascended into superstardom. I can only imagine the shock audiences experienced from this movie: the violence is brutal, the dialogue is often cutting and harsh, it’s quite nihilistic and loaded with plot twists, but the most significant shock at the Sundance film festival in 1992 might have been the style. What became staples of Tarantino’s films are on brazen display here including a non-linear story, lowlife criminals with deep pop cultural awareness, standoffs resulting in shootouts, and lengthy quotable speeches. The film was shot on a miniscule budget, but necessity is the mother of invention and Quentin showed early on how inventive he could be by designing this film to concurrently show the planning and aftermath of a heist that we never see. Thus, the film has two great mysteries that develop as the story unfolds: which of our crass robbers is a mole for the police, and what really happened during the heist to set them all on edge and throw the operation sideways. This is gritty, hard-boiled entertainment with some unforgettable sequences that isn’t just a promising debut for a young director, but one of the most innovative heist films ever made.

2. Django Unchained (2012)

Though there are several key commonalities through all of Tarantino’s films, and he’s embraced and upended several different genres, it’s possible to divide his career into three different phases. The first is a celebration of L.A. lowlifes, a trilogy of crime films that operate uniquely. The second contains the Kill Bill story and Death Proof and is a self-aware and artistic update to and celebration of exploitation B-movies. The third phase, which he’s still in, are a quartet of exciting period pieces that explore and attempt to right historic wrongs; Django Unchained is the best of these. With the bones of a Western, the guts of a revenge story, and the flesh of Tarantino’s invention, his long-gestating interest in a righteous fury befalling evildoers is at its sharpest. Despite this film’s length, we completely follow the journey of Jamie Foxx’s Django as he moves from slave to bounty hunter with a natural gift to an avenging angel. The way that Tarantino deploys the violence in this film is very pointed: any violence done to the slaves is flinchingly graphic, but any violence done to a slaveowner is stylized to be nearly cartoonish. All that I’ve described makes it sound like a deeply serious film, and a times it is in a refreshing way for Tarantino; at other times, it’s among his most hilarious, thrilling, and chaotically fun stuff.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

I’m sure that I’m far from the only person whose life this movie changed by introducing me to a whole new way of thinking and speaking about movies. This was, and remains, one of the few movies that can change an average viewer’s opinion about what a movie can be, and to teach them that movies don’t have to play by certain rules. This movie features a comeback performance from John Travolta, a star making performance from Samuel L. Jackson, an iconic performance from Uma Thurman, and a self-commenting performance from Bruce Willis as well as a full slate of fantastic supporting performances. Its non-chronological, profane, hilarious, menacing and often scary script supplies twists and turns galore that culminate in an ending that clarifies its ultimate morality. Every time I revisit this movie thinking I overrate it in my head because I first saw it at the perfect age of 17, I’m blown away by it anew. During its extended runtime, my heartbeat still gets jacked an inordinate number of times. Tarantino’s trademark ability to mix humor, tension, profanity, and violence in fresh ways wasn’t just perfected in this movie, it’s still perfect in this movie. It’s not overstating things to say that this is one of the most influential American movies of the last 40 years, and that movies were not the same once this film achieved all the success it did. If it’s been awhile, fire it up and see why; it still sings.