Ranking Quentin Tarantino

On the most recent episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, myself and co-host Bob Zerull, ranked our Top 10 Quentin Tarantino movies. That's a controversial number, 10, in the career of Quentin Tarantino. The auteur has stated that 10 movies would be a great way for him to finish his career, a nice round number.

The number is arguably controversial however, depending on whether or not you believe that Tarantino has made 10 movies or not. Does Kill Bill count as one movie or does it count as two? The fact that Tarantino is considering making Kill Bill 3 could lead one to believe that they are indeed separate features. Unless he is considering three a continuation of the first two as the same movie? It's all rather semantic in nature.

For our purposes, ranking the movies of Quentin Tarantino, 10 just sounds better. As I said before, it's a nice round number. The rankings below reflect the opinions of myself, and co-host Bob Zerull on Everyone's a Critic where we did a deep dive on our Quentin Tarantino fandom, and came away even bigger Tarantino fans than ever before.

10. 'Django Unchained'

It's not that Django is a bad movie by any stretch. Rather, it's a case that something, when ranked, has to rank last and Django Unchained is our least favorite of Tarantino's many movies. Django has great strengths in the Academy Award level performance of Samuel L. Jackson, and the Academy Award winning performance of Christoph Walz. Where it lacks is in re-watchability. In an ouevre that is revisited regularly, we felt we went back to Django Unchained far less than we went back to any other Tarantino feature.

9. 'Jackie Brown'

Jackie Brown is a very cool movie with a central love affair between Pam Grier and Robert Forrester that brought forth a new, sentimental side of QT that has not often been on display. That said, Jackie Brown suffers from being a little too loose and relatively minor in scope as a love letter to both Elmore Leonard, and a lost era of blaxsploitation movies that Tarantino loved while growing up.

8. 'Reservoir Dogs'

This is controversial, of that there is no doubt. Reservoir Dogs ranking in behind Death Proof was not an easy decision for either of us. In the end, re-watchability played a role. Death Proof is fast and to the point, whereas Reservoir Dogs, for all of its iconic violence and quotability, is a little longer and more talky. Reservoir Dogs gets points for being a cinematic flashpoint, the introduction of the most unique new voice in Hollywood in decades, but that cultural cache only takes the movie so far in a ranking of movies that are each beloved by those ranking them here.

7. 'Death Proof'

Perhaps the most minor movie on the Tarantino resume, Death Proof debuted as half of a 'Grindhouse' double feature with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. It's the movie most Tarantino fans forget about, but for us at the Everyone's a Critic Podcast, it's a venerated classic that features, arguably the best performance of Kurt Russell's remarkable career. Death Proof is fast and loud, but also wickedly smart and cinematically striking in its homage to low cost theatrical production and presentation.

6. 'The Hateful Eight'

The Hateful Eight is part of an important moment in the history of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. It was for that movie that our crew of three traveled to the suburbs of Chicago to witness a 70 millimeter roadshow presentation of the film that led into our very first live recording show on the road. It was an epic experience for an epic movie. We came away from that viewing only modestly impressed with The Hateful Eight only to find the movie, as so often happens with Tarantino, much more rewarding on later viewings. The new extended cut currently available on Netflix has only heightened and expanded the experience of a movie that has gotten better the more I have seen it.

5. 'Inglorious Basterds'

Inglorious Basterds, much like The Hateful Eight, rewards watching again and again. The film's unique cadence and history defying story becomes richer, and even more engaging the more times I watch it. The strain of dark humor running through the story gives the film a twisted energy that I cannot get enough of. Then there are the remarkable performances from Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, and Christoph Walz's gleefully evil Academy Award winning effort. It's glorious.

4. 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood'

I managed to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood twice on opening weekend. Once in my job as a professional critic, and once as a fanboy, paid ticket scenario. That's how much I was mesmerized by the latest and most mature Quentin Tarantino movie yet. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is exciting for how it shows just how different Tarantino is from every other filmmaker in Hollywood. His uniqueness has never been in doubt, even when everyone was aping his style, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is perhaps Tarantino's most definitive effort in showing the world that no one can truly make movies the way that he does.

3. 'Kill Bill Volume 1'

My co-host and I were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves agreeing that Kill Bill Volume 2 is superior to the first. Why? Well, it has nothing to do with any flaws from Volume 1. Indeed, Kill Bill Volume 1 is stunning and cool, funny and grotesque, vital and enervating all at once. Kill Bill Volume 1 is a tour of Quentin Tarantino's Id, and it's as strange and magnificent a trip as you would imagine it to be. It's a place where Asian Cinema meets Blaxsploitation and Grindhouse in a simmering cauldron of high end cinema.

2. 'Kill Bill Volume 2'

So why is Volume 2 ever so slightly better than Volume 1? It comes down to a confrontation. The Bride's showdown with Bill showcases David Carradine and Uma Thurman in a fashion that is breathtaking in its high level of cool and heightened emotionality. Tarantino has plenty of homage to do here, but he's also managed to raise the stakes, and create a deep emotional connection between us and The Bride/Uma Thurman, and between The Bride and Bill as their shared history gives the confrontation a serious amount of weight and substance. These scenes alone made the difference for me in choosing Kill Bill Volume 2 ever so slightly over Volume 1.

1. 'Pulp Fiction '

Was this ever in doubt? Pulp Fiction is a cultural flashpoint, a filmmaking landmark. This is where movies changed forever. Tarantino's influence may have led to a series of ever-diminishing returns in those who attempted to cop his style, but it is the moment that gave us the filmmaker whose work has most consistently delivered the goods in terms of epic, classic, auteur-driven cinema.