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Breaking Down the Quentin Tarantino Cinematic Universe

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of pulp fiction , we dive deep into the interconnected world that qt has been building for decades..

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a wonder for many reasons, not least of which is the way it wove together an intricate continuity across all of its movies. Throughout 23 films (and counting), there are crossover characters, intersecting storylines, and resonant names, locations, and even brands. Of course, when you step back, you realize that the MCU was only doing what comic books have been doing in print for decades. Take another step back, and you’ll notice that what they’ve done isn’t all that unique to movies, either. Because Quentin Tarantino , for one, has been doing it for decades, too.

From his earliest days as a struggling screenwriter to his iconic and era-defining films, Tarantino has built his own world of interconnected characters and original brands. In honor of the 25th anniversary of his legendary opus Pulp Fiction   (released October 14, 1994), let’s take a look at the QTCU — the Quentin Tarantino Cinematic Universe.

A short film co-written, directed, and starring Tarantino while he was famously working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California (it’s no longer there, so don’t plan a visit), My Best Friend’s Birthday only exists in a truncated 36-minute cut because large parts of it were destroyed in a fire. Still, the seeds of the QTCU are there. For one, Quentin plays a character named Clarence who, early on, discusses his love of Rockabilly music and Elvis’ acting ability. This would, of course, foreshadow Christian Slater’s character in True Romance , a script written by Tarantino but directed by the late Tony Scott. In Birthday , Tarantino’s Clarence hires a call girl to show his friend a good time on his special day — a sequence of events that would be flipped in True Romance , when Slater’s Clarence finds himself on the receiving end of a birthday call girl surprise.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) 90%

Tarantino’s signature work, the movie that launched him as a filmmaker. In this tale of a jewel heist gone wrong, the audience is treated to flashbacks that fill in the stories of each of the movie’s black clad, code-named criminals. We find out that Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) used to run with a partner named Alabama. Of course, a woman named Alabama Whitman (later, Worley) is seen getting a taste for a life of crime in True Romance , the Tony Scott film that Tarantino wrote (see below). We also learn that Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) is named Vic Vega, as in the brother of John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction.

True Romance (1993) 93%

(Photo by Warner Bros. courtesy Everett Collection)

Apart from the obvious connections to earlier films — the Rockabilly-loving Clarence and call girl-turned-crook Alabama — there is a more subtle cinematic link in Tony Scott’s Tarantino-penned action adventure. The movie climaxes with a drug deal in the hotel suite of big time movie producer Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek, channeling real life producer Joel Silver). Donowitz is a producer of war movies — fitting because his father, Donny Donowitz, fought in WWII as part of the Inglourious Basterds . You might remember him as the baseball bat-wielding avenger known as “The Bear Jew” (played by Eli Roth).

Pulp Fiction (1994) 92%

(Photo by Miramax Films)

Pulp Fiction , which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is arguably the Iron Man of the QTCU, because it’s really the one that takes the threads and begins to weave them together. The film introduces us to several brand names that would become central players in Tarantino’s world, starting with “that Hawaiian burger joint” Big Kahuna Burger — Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules takes the world’s most intimidating bite of one of these burgers and washes it down with “a tasty beverage” from the place early in the movie. Later, Bruce Willis’ Butch Coolidge orders a pack of Red Apple cigarettes, a brand that shows up in just about every subsequent QT movie. Finally, Christopher Walken’s Captain Koons — he of the legendary “gold watch” speech — is also a descendant of “Crazy” Craig Koons, one of Django’s bounties in Django Unchained .

Natural Born Killers (1994) 51%

(Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)

Although Natural Born Killers was directed by Oliver Stone, the script was pure Tarantino. We mentioned earlier the brother connection between Vic and Vincent Vega, but there is another set of brothers that was first introduced in Reservoir Dogs , too. In Dogs , Vic complains about a pain-in-the-ass parole officer named Seymour Scagnetti (we never actually see him), whose own brother, Jack, would show up in Natural Born Killers (played by Tom Sizemore).

Four Rooms (1995) 13%

In the Tarantino-written and -directed segment of this anthology film, the characters are seen smoking Red Apple cigarettes. Tarantino’s character also refers to his drink as a “tasty beverage,” which echoes the same colorful turn of phrase Jules used in Pulp Fiction.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) 63%

Tarantino wrote the script for this Robert Rodriguez-directed horror film and peppered in some of his signature touches. There are Red Apple cigarettes present and accounted for, and George Clooney’s Seth Gecko at one point makes a run for Big Kahuna Burgers. The movie also introduces gravelly-voiced, no-nonsense Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (played by Michael Parks), who would become a key player in the QTCU. It’s also worth noting that the movie features yet another pair of brothers (Seth and his brother, Richie, played by Tarantino) who have a thing for black suits.

Jackie Brown (1997) 88%

Beware of people who claim that, because it was based on an Elmore Leonard novel and not an original Tarantino idea, there are no overt connections to the QTCU in Jackie Brown . They’re just not paying attention. Midway through the film, we see Jackie in the Del Amo Mall food court, enjoying a meal from Teriyaki Donut — the same fictional fast food franchise whose food Ving Rhames’ Marcellus Wallace is carrying when Butch Coolidge runs him down in Pulp Fiction . In a second food court scene not long after, we not only see Jackie indulging in Teriyaki Donut again, but her accomplice Sheronda (LisaGay Hamilton) sits down at her table with a tray full of food from Acuña Boys, which would later be referenced in Kill Bill Vol. 2 and appear a couple of times in Grindhouse .

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 85% and  Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 84%

We’ll treat this kung fu-inspired magnum opus as one film, with plenty of easter eggs to link it to the larger QTCU. For one, if you look at The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) old gang, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, you’ll notice that they all fit a little too easily into Mia Wallace’s description of her failed TV pilot, Fox Force Five – the blonde leader, the Japanese kung fu master, the black demolition expert, the French seductress, and Mia’s. character, the deadliest woman in the world with a knife (or sword?). The first cop on the scene after the Bride’s wedding day massacre is, of course, Earl McGraw, and Red Apple and Big Kahuna also make appearances. And remember Acuña Boys from  Jackie Brown ? In Vol. 2 , they happen to be the name of the gang that Michael Parks’ Esteban Vihaio runs.

Grindhouse (2007) 84%

(Photo by The Weinstein Co./Dimension)

In both the Tarantino portion of this double feature homage, Death Proof , and the Rodriguez portion, Planet Terror, there are connections to the QTCU. Big Kahuna burgers are mentioned, and Red Apple cigarettes are smoked. On top of that, an ad for Acuña Boys “Authentic Tex-Mex Food” — first glimpsed in  Jackie Brown  — pops up during intermission, and one of Stuntman Mike’s early victims, Vanessa Ferlito’s Arlene, can be seen sipping from an Acuña Boys cup. Texas lawman Earl McGraw also reappears, along with his son, Ed, and we learn there is a sister named Dakota, too, who features in Planet Terror.  As kind of a bonus, Rosario Dawson’s Abernathy has a familiar ringtone on her phone  — it’s the same melody whistled by Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah) in Kill Bill Vol. 1 .

Inglourious Basterds (2009) 89%

(Photo by Francois Duhamel/©Weinstein Company)

In addition to Donny Donowitz, Michael Fassbender’s English soldier-turned-spy Archie Hicox has deep ties to the QTCU, it turns out. Late in the old west-set Hateful Eight , it is revealed that Tim Roth’s Oswaldo Mobray is actually a wanted man named “English Pete” Hicox, Archie’s great-great-grandfather.

Django Unchained (2012) 87%

(Photo by The Weinstein Co.)

We’ve already mentioned “Crazy” Craig Koons, but there is another deep cut reference to Django hidden in an earlier Tarantino movie. In Kill Bill Vol. 2 , Bill’s brother Budd (played by Michael Madsen – also another pair of QT brothers!) buries the Bride alive in the grave of Paula Schultz. This is the lonely final resting place for the wife of bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) in Django.

The Hateful Eight (2015) 75%

(Photo by The Weinstein Company)

In addition to the Hicox family tree, Red Apple tobacco — the early version of the soon-to-be ubiquitous (in the QTCU, anyway) cigarette brand — makes a couple of appearances here. Demián Bichir’s Bob smokes a “Manzana Roja” right after the intermission, and Channing Tatum gets a custom-rolled Red Apple cigarette — his “favorite” — from Dana Gourrier’s Miss Minnie.

Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019) 86%

(Photo by Columbia Pictures)

At one point in Kill Bill Vol. 2 , The Bride drives a blue Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. That same car shows up (driven by Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth) in Hollywood . And not only do Booth and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton smoke Red Apples (of course), but there’s an end-credits scene in the movie that shows Dalton doing a TV commercial for the cigarette brand.

Pulp Fiction was released in theaters on October 14, 1994.

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All of Quentin Tarantino’s Movies Ranked

In the history of cinema, has any director done more to elevate the idea of movies as cool than Quentin Tarantino ? Certainly, the idea that films could be made by fans dates back at least to the French New Wave, when a group of die-hard critics stepped behind the camera. A few years later, Spielberg, Lucas and a generation of film-school brats riffed on what had come before. But it took a former video store clerk and B-movie savant to sift through genres that weren’t taken seriously in their time and reconfigure their DNA in such a way that made them hipper than ever. The way his characters talked — and more importantly, the subjects that preoccupied them — gave audiences permission to geek out about movies (and the meaning of Madonna songs), and each new project brought a fresh appreciation of some arcane corner of film culture. But how do they stack up against one another? With nine features to his name (Tarantino counts “Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2” as one film, but we’ve assessed them separately) and possibly just one more to come, Tarantino has crafted an oeuvre ripe for debate. Variety ’s resident cinephiles, Peter Debruge and Owen Gleiberman, have done just that, ranking his filmography and weighing in on one another’s assessments.

10. The Hateful Eight (2015)

Owen Gleiberman: The one Tarantino movie that never conjures Tarantino’s joy. The extended slow-poke stagecoach ride that gets things rolling seems to be planting the seeds for a tricky drama of one-upmanship, but once the film arrives at a giant log cabin in the middle of the wintry nowhere, it turns into a variation on “Ten Little Indians” that’s more malevolent than clever, with characters so ill-tempered that you’re only too happy to see them knocked off. Tarantino grew fixated on the film’s 70mm cinematography, but that has to go down as an irony of film history, since the visual “largeness” is lavished on a single claustrophobically gloomy set, resulting in what feels like the world’s most lavish episode of “Gunsmoke.”

Peter Debruge: I like this movie more than most, and am fascinated by the fact that it exists in so many versions (including a new four-episode “extended version” available from Netflix), but admit it’s the one Tarantino movie I can live without.

9. Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

PD: Tarantino front-loaded “Kill Bill: Volume 1” with nearly all the best scenes, although the second installment begins promisingly enough, as “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) continues down her “Death List Five,” resulting in surprising confrontations with Budd (Michael Madsen) and Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah), before leading to a disappointing — and needlessly talky — final showdown with Bill (David Carradine, by far the diptych’s least interesting character). Tarantino clearly intends the “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” as a wink to Shaw Brothers classics, but saving that lethal move till the end leaves “the whole bloody affair” (as the director called his combined four-hour cut) feeling anticlimactic. To its credit, “Volume 2” transforms the Bride from a one-dimensional Bill-killing machine. By resisting gratuitous degradation — and at last revealing its heroine’s motives and backstory — the project improves upon the kind of elle-driven exploitation movies that inspired it, celebrating Thurman’s strong star persona without objectifying her (overly).

OG: Where “Volume 1” was a trash-movie epiphany, this one feels more like an overstuffed trash compactor, with individual great moments — especially when the wizened martial-arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) tutors Uma Thurman’s Bride — but with too much filler gluing them together.

8. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019)

OG: Tarantino plugs deep into the movie and TV industry of Los Angeles in 1969, when the fading embers of the studio system mingled with the hipster vibe of the New Hollywood, when the rise of spangly fashion and Top 40 made the world glow and the hidden presence of Charles Manson made it tremble, and when a has-been TV star like Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) could chuck it all to make a spaghetti Western, with trusty stuntman Cliff Booth ( Brad Pitt ) at his side. This is the closest thing Quentin has made to a hang-out movie, and it’s a funny and captivating one, never more so than when Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate goes to a matinee to see herself on screen. But this is also a tale in which the light of Hollywood meets the darkness on the horizon, and when that finally happens, the movie collapses into a misjudged splatter cartoon.

PD: It’s a pleasure to see him tackling vintage Hollywood, although the suspense doesn’t quite work for me. This is the only Tarantino movie that drags.

7. Django Unchained (2012)

PD: Tarantino’s most financially successful film extends the spirit of radical historical revisionism sparked when his “Inglourious Basterds” killed Hitler, putting a slave named Django in the thrilling position to exert bloody, explosive revenge on those who whipped, sold and oppressed him. Tarantino wrote the character (whose name hails from a Spaghetti Western hero) for Will Smith, but got a grittier and more grounded performance from Oscar-winning “Ray” star Jamie Foxx, who goes tête à tête with Leonardo DiCaprio in the most scenery-chewing performance of the director’s oeuvre to date — a bar that had been raised awfully high already by the likes of Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson. Tarantino has always been a bit too liberal with his use of the N-word, although the racial politics of this movie are endlessly fascinating, forcing America to confront its sordid history, while paving the way for “12 Years a Slave” the following year.

OG: As a historical jamboree about the hideousness of white supremacy, Tarantinos’s slave drama is a subversive triumph, but as storytelling I think it’s a mixed bag.

6. Death Proof (2007)

OG: Tarantino’s half of the schlock-double-bill feature “Grindhouse” is a crash-and-burn homage to the road-demon genre of “Vanishing Point” and “White Line Fever,” and it’s the most knowing plunge into the depravity of drive-in kicks he’s ever taken. The movie has a gaudy nastiness that won’t quit, from the intricate jam session of trash-talking girls that kicks off the action to Kurt Russell’s death-rattle performance as Stuntman Mike to the insane mutilating brutality of the car crash (set to the jaunty strains of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s “Hold Tight!”) that climaxes the film’s first half. Yet if “Death Proof” were nothing more than a revel in cheap thrills, it might not add up to much. It’s really a prophetic fable of the rise of women, and once Rosario Dawson and Zoë Bell take the wheel, the showdown that happens is sheer speed, sheer violence, and sheer bliss. —OG

PD: I love the last 30 minutes, with its bravura stuntwork, but can’t abide the bloody, slobbering buildup and over-the-top misogyny we must sit through en route.

5. Jackie Brown (1997)

PD: “Inglourious Basterds” may have taken its title from a WWII impossible-mission film, but the only genuine adaptation in the director’s oeuvre is “Jackie Brown,” in which Tarantino took Elmore Leonard’s “Rum Punch” and refashioned the caper novel into a feature-length homage to Pam Grier. With “ Pulp Fiction ,” Tarantino breathed fresh life into Bruce Willis’ and John Travolta’s careers, but there was something far more daring (by the industry’s sexist, racist standards) about showing the same reverence toward an actress known primarily for blaxploitation movies — buxom, low-brow diversions with titles like “The Big Bird Cage” and “Sheba, Baby.” Fittingly enough, “Jackie Brown” is the one Tarantino movie with soul, hinging on a romantic connection between a desperate flight attendant (Grier) and the bail bondsman (Robert Forster) who helps her rip off her gun-running boss (Samuel L. Jackson). Tarantino stretches time to new extremes, while inviting audiences to bask in the pleasure of his characters’ company.

OG: It’s almost too meticulously crafted, revealing the seams of an Elmore Leonard plot that Tarantino had already bettered, and the soulful humanity of Pam Grier and Robert Forster’s love dance doesn’t stop that aspect of the movie from becoming a bit draggy.

4. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

PD: These days, audiences are accustomed to the long wait between Tarantino movies, but back in 2003, a delay of six years was enough to make us worried: Had Quentin lost his mojo? How could he match — much less top — what had come before? And then the first installment of his two-part revenge saga dropped, and such doubts disappeared. Somehow, the homage-driven auteur had managed to deliver a film that seemed simultaneously fresh and familiar, surprising in its tone and style, even as it expanded Tarantino’s peerless ability to recast pulp and B-movie tropes as postmodern art. Here, his references include Eastern kung fu and crime films, an extended Brian De Palma riff (the Darryl Hannah hospital sequence) and a key flashback presented as anime. “Kill Bill” looked and sounded different from his previous films, and pop culture took notice, instantly absorbing its ideas — and waiting another six months to see how it ended.

OG: I don’t buy that Tarantino’s movies are just pop pastiches, but this one so is that it feels — thrillingly — like a mash-up of every genre he can jam into the blender. —OG

3. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

OG: Tarantino’s hypnotically enthralling World War II epic takes its title from a 1978 Italian action-combat potboiler, but this is still the one QT movie with an aesthetic rooted in the ’60s — in the last fully functioning moment of the studio system, when directors like Robert Aldrich (“The Dirty Dozen”) and Brian G. Hutton (“Kelly’s Heroes”) found a trip-wired version of old-guard Hollywood in the spectacle of fighting the Nazis. Tarantino, however, ups the narrative intricacy, and the stakes, too. From Christoph Waltz’ heady opening monologue as Col. Hans Landa, the German officer who does more than believe in anti-Semitism, he explains it, the movie is a heady clash of war and ego, constructed around slow-burn set pieces that build and detonate. The performances are uniform perfection, from Brad Pitt as the so-badass-he’s-funny redneck Nazi fighter Lt. Aldo Raine to Michael Fassbender as the film-critic-turned-undercover-soldier Archie Hicox to Diane Kruger as the righteous actress-turned-spy Bridget von Hammersmark. And if Tarantino, at the climax, feels free to rewrite the ending of WWII, he does it with a pugnacious audacity that takes the Hollywood concoctions “Inglourious Basterds” draws upon and trumps them at their own game.

PD: The movie features some of Tarantino’s best set pieces (especially the blood-chilling Nazi house raid that opens the film), but I’m slightly less enthusiastic about the whole.

2. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

OG: A group of tough-nut crooks sit around a coffee shop debating the inner meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”; we’d never seen that one before. But then those same lowlifes, in their skinny black ties, walk toward us in jerky slow motion in the L.A. sun, accompanied by the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” — a sequence that hits your eyes and ears with the force of “Be My Baby” kicking off “Mean Streets.” In a single blistering stroke, Tarantino makes a revolutionary declaration: He would be the next-generation Scorsese. And every scene of his gripping first feature makes good on that promise. A heist thriller as real as a Cassavetes caper, with a pretzel-logic time structure that envelops you by getting inside your head, not to mention the most weirdly jubilant torture scene in movie history (set to yet another Super Sound of the ’70s, “Stuck in the Middle with You”), “Reservoir Dogs” is a red-blooded tale of trickery and loyalty that finds a desperate, indelible humanity in every con and confession.

PD: The one that started it all, “Reservoir Dogs” established Tarantino’s voice, and completely revolutionized genre cinema. He even cast himself to deliver some of that game-changing dialogue.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

PD: Exuberantly self-aware. Shamelessly indulgent. Endlessly quotable. From the opening scene, in which Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer spend four minutes making plans before sticking up an L.A. diner, “Pulp Fiction” invites audiences to recognize that they are watching a Movie. Every line, every angle, every music cue feels as if it was designed to amplify the guiltless pleasure of that experience. The Tarantino touch — introduced in “Reservoir Dogs,” taken up a notch with “True Romance” — went mainstream in a major way with this outrageous, ultra-stylized remix of QT’s many eccentric obsessions, from ’70s movies to foot massages. “Pulp Fiction” may be crowded with pop-culture references, but feels insanely unpredictable on first viewing: the hypodermic to Mia’s heart, the gimp in Zed’s basement, the misfire that costs Marvin his face. The film brazenly wears its director’s personality on its sleeve, inspiring countless others to dress, talk and make movies in direct imitation.

OG: From the wordplay to the gunplay to the diner dancing to the time-bending death and “resurrection” of Travolta’s Vincent Vega, every moment of Tarantino’s masterpiece plugs you into the moment, to the point that there’s no other movie I would rather be in.

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Watch Quick Trip

Quick Trip is a 2019 thriller movie that follows the story of two sisters, Emma and Sarah, who embark on a road trip to visit their grandparents in a remote town in Arizona. The movie stars Angelic Chitwood as Emma and Erika Salima Ellis as Sarah. The movie begins with Emma and Sarah packing their bags and preparing for their road trip. Emma, the older sister, is the responsible one, while Sarah is the adventurous and rebellious sister. The sisters set off to their grandparents' house and decide to take a shortcut through a deserted area that their grandfather had warned them about. As they drive through the desert, they soon realize they are lost.

From this point on, the movie takes a dark turn as Emma and Sarah find themselves stranded in a strange town, where the locals seem to be hiding a dark secret. They soon discover that their grandfather had warned them about this town for a reason.

As they try to find their way out of the town, they encounter a group of local bikers who seem to be involved in criminal activities. Emma and Sarah become suspicious of the bikers and worry that they are in danger. However, their attempts to leave the town are thwarted by the bikers, who seem to be keeping a close eye on them.

As the sisters investigate further, they come across a conspiracy involving the town's corrupt police department and the bikers. Emma and Sarah find themselves trapped in a dangerous game of cat and mouse as they fight to expose the truth and escape the town before it's too late.

One of the strongest aspects of the movie is the chemistry between Angelic Chitwood and Erika Salima Ellis as the two sisters. They both give strong performances and their interactions feel realistic. The character development of both Emma and Sarah is well-done, as we see Emma trying to keep her sister safe while Sarah challenges her choices and pushes her out of her comfort zone.

The movie's pacing is excellent, keeping the audience engaged throughout the film. The director creates tension and suspense, making the audience feel as if they are right there with the sisters, experiencing their fear and anxiety.

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• Genres Horror
• Cast Angelic Chitwood Erika Salima Ellis
• Director Erika S. Ellis
• Release Date 2019
• Runtime 2 hr

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Critics Name ‘Inglourious Basterds’ Quentin Tarantino’s Best Movie — IndieWire Critics Survey

David ehrlich.

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Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

With “ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ” now a certified hit, the debate over Quentin Tarantino ‘s best film has inevitably been re-inflamed all over again. In an effort to suss out the general consensus — or settle this debate once and for all — we asked our panel of critics to pick their favorite.

The winner, if only by a single vote, is up first.

“Inglourious Basterds”

David Ehrlich (@davidehrlich), IndieWire

From the heart-stopping prologue that kicks things off, to the gleeful (and enormously cathartic) bit of revisionist history that highlights its third act, “Inglourious Basterds” isn’t only the most entertaining Tarantino film, it’s also the one that best illustrates the primacy of moving pictures, and their unique power to change the world in their image. Tarantino deploys similar tricks to different ends with “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” but it still feels more radical and resonant here.

Related Stories Uma Thurman Says ‘Pulp Fiction’ Was the ‘Last Film Quentin Made That Was on Schedule’ Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta Heap Praise on Absent Quentin Tarantino as TCM Classic Film Festival Opens with ‘Pulp Fiction’ Reunion

Jesse Hassenger ( @rockmarooned ),  The A.V. Club ,  The Week ,  Nylon

I think I agree with Tarantino himself who used Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine as a mouthpiece to, I assume, size up his own feelings about “Inglourious Basterds,” at least at the time. As Raine looks with satisfaction upon the swastika he’s just carved into a Nazi’s forehead, branding him for life, he tells his sidekick: “I think this just might be my masterpiece.” Cut to black, and “written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.” There’s no mistaking the self-regard it takes to end a movie that way (or, for that matter, to begin the movie with the title appearing in a font of the filmmaker’s own actual handwriting). There’s also no mistaking the grand-statement aspect of “Basterds,” a movie that’s less about the pleasurable repurposing of old movie tropes and more about how movies can change the goddamned world. It sounds insufferable enough for an Oscar telecast (maybe that’s why this is his most-nominated film) but the way it plays out in Tarantino’s alternate-history World War II contains multitudes.

Look at the climactic sequence where the face of Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) appears as a projected ghost as Nazis burn and flee–just moments after the propaganda film she’s about to interrupt makes her feel a twinge of sympathy to the man who winds up shooting her. Tarantino has been accused of understanding (or liking) movies more than actual people; based on both the sadness and the exhilaration of “Basterds,” I’d say it’s more that he understands and likes people through movies, and that maybe deep down, he understands that as a limitation. As time goes on, it feels more and more to like “Inglourious Basterds” is Tarantino both celebrating and pushing at that limitation, and the result is a movie where so many of his hallmarks come together: the slow-burning suspense, the cultural references, the huge laughs in the middle of intense scenes, the asides and sidebars, the love for his actors and characters. So, yeah: what Aldo said.

Luke Hicks ( @lou_kicks ),  Film School Rejects/One Perfect Shot ,  Birth.Movies.Death.

“Inglourious Basterds” is the best Tarantino film. Hell, it’s one of the best films of the century. The cast is superb: Laurent, Kruger, Fassbender, Waltz, (Eli) Roth, and Pitt as the infinitely memorable Lt. Aldo Raine in all of his forehead carving and schlocky Italian. From the long, patient, heart-stoppingly cruel opening scene to the psychotic eruption of violence in what is debatably the most satisfying on-screen vengeance cinema has to offer, Basterds has it all: comedy, drama, terror, gore, pastiche, wit, critique, revisionist history, et al. It’s like a 150+ minute collection of unforgettable scenes that never let up. Not to mention, Shosanna is to “Basterds” what Jackie Brown and Beatrix Kiddo are to their respective films — iconic, inexorable, indestructible badasses.

Daniel Joyaux ( @thirdmanmovies ), freelance contributor for  Vanity Fair ,  The Verge ,  MovieMaker Magazine ,  Filmotomy

No Tarantino movie will ever be as important to the film landscape as “ Pulp Fiction ” was in 1994, because whatever the “film zeitgeist” is, it certainly applies to a far smaller swath of the population now, and it may no longer even exist at all. Likewise, no Tarantino film will ever personally matter to me as much as “Pulp Fiction” did in 1994, because I was 13 when it came out, and it probably launched my obsession with film history and criticism more than any other single movie.

However, because this question is framed in terms of “best” rather than “greatest,” I feel the temptation to try and remove any thoughts of importance or historical significance, and reply with pure subjective taste. Which Tarantino movie do I most enjoy the experience of watching? Which gives me the greatest thrill for the act of watching cinema? For that, the answer is unquestionably “Inglourious Basterds.”

Because I’m writing this, you probably know I’m a film nerd. As you may be able to guess from my name, I also come from a very French family (my dad’s side). And though you would have no obvious way to know this, I am an American Jew, with a long line of Detroit and Chicago rabbis on my mom’s side. “Inglourious Basterds,” at its most basic level, is about an alternate timeline in which World War II is won by French film nerds and American Jews (and Brad Pitt, whom I sadly have no genetic link to). It would simply not be possible to make a movie that more perfectly appeals to me on an autobiographical level than this one does. “Inglourious Basterds” allows me to slip into its characters and vicariously become the world-saving action hero that genetics and circumstance have cruelly denied me from ever being. I have seen it at least a dozen times so far, and I can’t imagine ever watching it without being overwhelmed by pure elation.

Joel Mayward ( @joelmayward ) Cinemayward.com

Confession: I generally loathe Tarantino’s films. I’ve tried and tried, revisiting various QT movies numerous times to try to see what everyone else seems to see, but I still come away feeling drained and annoyed. So, while my overall opinion on his filmography is decidedly mixed to negative, “Inglourious Basterds” is the only Tarantino film I can sincerely call good. “Basterds” is the only one of his films where I feel the on-screen violence is somewhat justified by the narrative themes, where the dialogue isn’t wholly galling and self-indulgent, and where we are truly implicated as the audience in the celebratory revenge bloodlust. I love the performances from Waltz and Laurent, though I still have real problems with how women are portrayed (esp. Shoshanna’s fate and how that scene is shot) but it’s the strongest of Tarantino’s love letters to cinema and (tragically) more relevant ten years later in our contemporary political climate.

Lindsey Romain (@lindseyromain), Staff Writer for Nerdist

“Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” are seminal movies, but best? I’ll go with “Inglourious Basterds,” which is just about perfect, a fun and explosive piece of revisionist history that marries all of Tarantino’s best instincts and skills. It’s both delightfully entertaining and, at times, truly scary–Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa shifts from cartoonish buffoon to terrifying killer with a snap of a finger, one of the best characters and performances in any Tarantino movie. He also grounds all of extreme violence and Hitler-killing antics with Melanie Laurent’s Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jewish woman living incognito in France, whose blackened heart seeks the best — and most satisfying — type of vengeance. Tarantino ends the film with the words “I think this just might be my masterpiece,” which feels like his own acknowledgment that this is a director firing on all cylinders.

Danielle Solzman (@ DanielleSATM ), Solzy at the Movies /Freelance

The best Tarantino film is “Inglourious Basterds.” For all intents and purposes, “Basterds” was my introduction to Tarantino upon its release in 2009. Maybe its because I’m Jewish and had family die in the Holocaust, but “Basterds” was the film I left wishing the ending were real.

Andrea Thompson (@areelofonesown), The Spool, The Young Folks, A Reel Of One’s Own, Film Girl Film

I’ve grown steadily more disillusioned with Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the violent, bloody epic that is Inglourious Basterds. Its liberal use of subtitles is reminiscent of an arthouse film, but it didn’t seem to bother moviegoers who supposedly eschew such things, given the sheer spectacle and revisionist delights Tarantino gleefully provides. “Inglourious Basterds” starts right off with a series of greats: one of the best all-time opening scenes, featuring a villain who could vie for the title of greatest cinematic bad guy ever in Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who also gets one of the most incredible introductions ever. In Landa’s opening conversation, or rather, interrogation, of a French farmer, every word might as well be a bullet, so precisely do Tarantino and Waltz use language to its fullest effect, building suspense until the end arrives in blood and tragedy. In the fiery finale, film itself becomes a weapon, memorializing Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent) as she takes her revenge for the death of her family in the most cinematic way possible while literally burning down the house and the Nazis in it, even reserving a particularly violent death for Hitler himself.

Oralia Torres,  @oraleia ,  Cinescopia ,  Malvestida

“Inglorious Basterds” is Tarantino’s best. It juggles several stories perfectly, in a more polished manner than his previous movies, it infuses humor in a WW2 context, and it has a great cast with familiar and new faces (that would become household names later on). Plus, it is a brilliantly orchested movie about controlled people that decide to create chaos for a greater good: killin’ nazis.

Ethan Warren ( @EthanRAWarren ), Bright Wall/Dark Room

For my money, the answer is so clearly “Inglourious Basterds” that it’s hard to even begin explaining why. It’s just a fact of life, like the existence of sand. It’s a tautology: it’s his best because it’s his best. Trying to explain why leaves me as stymied as when my daughter asks me why the sun is in the sky. It just is! Just like “Inglourious Basterds” just is Tarantino’s best, most viciously whimsical, tightest, strangest, funniest, scariest, most audacious, most belief-beggaringly effective movie. Fortunately, I know I’ll be in very good company with this pick, and my colleagues can pick up my slack with actual, like, reasons.

“Jackie Brown”

Kristen Lopez (@Journeys_Film), Forbes.com , Culturess, Citizen Dame

For me the most ambitious and tightly wound has to be Jackie Brown. Pam Grier plays an phenomenal heroine whose calculating, romantic, dominant, strong, and just a slew of adjectives that I love. And while Tarantino claims to be working within the narrative of blaxpolitation I see a lot of 1940s film noir within it, particularly as Jackie tries to pull one over on Samuel L. Jackson’s Odell. Her dreams of running off with Max Cherry (Robert Forster) could be a lie, which makes the ending all the better. It’s like Grier is hearkening back to those old-school femme fatales. It’s his most adult and cogent film.

Sarah Marrs ( @Cinesnark ), LaineyGossip.com , Freelance

Count me on the “Jackie Brown” train for Tarantino’s best. What stands out for me is that this is Tarantino’s only adaptation. He has riffed on other works with varying degrees of intensity throughout his career, but “Jackie Brown” is an Elmore Leonard adaptation that manages to be true to both the spirit of Leonard and Tarantino without feeling like it cheapens either one. Elmore Leonard is particularly suited for cinematic adaptation—that dialogue!—but his adapted works always feel most like Elmore Leonard. Not “Jackie Brown”. Here Tarantino puts his stamp on something that is explicitly Not His, yet he does not lose Leonard’s voice in his own.

Perhaps that’s because Leonard is one of his biggest influences, but I think it is also because of Tarantino’s sensitivity to story. We don’t think of him as a sensitive filmmaker, and in most ways, he isn’t, but when it comes to story, Tarantino is tuned into the narrative with a sensitive radar. The twisty-turny plot of “Jackie Brown” is perfectly suited to Tarantino’s instinct for building story step-by-step, fulfilling only the promise of the narrative beat and not what formula or the marketing department dictates. Tarantino, like Leonard, knows how to spin a really good yarn, and “Jackie Brown” is a really good yarn. It’s a perfect marriage of director and source, something we don’t get to see often in novel adaptations. It also gives Pam Grier her due as a total cinematic badass.

Aaron Neuwirth (AaronsPS4),  We Live Entertainment ,  Why So Blu ,  Out Now with Aaron and Abe

Over time, Tarantino has delivered an expanded sense of scope, subversion of history, and the new thematic significance for revenge; emphasized best in “Inglourious Basterds.” However, my favorite, and perhaps the best Tarantino film remains “Jackie Brown.”

Part of that has to do with all the hallmarks of a Tarantino film being present. The rapid-fire dialogue that generates many memorable lines, as well as a hang-out vibe allowing the viewer to be plenty comfortable relaxing with these characters is in full force. A command of music choices featuring numerous soul and R&B tracks makes for one of Tarantino’s best soundtracks. And Samuel L. Jackson sinks into another role to great effect, working well with the terrific ensemble cast of supporting characters.

The other aspect that finds this Elmore Leonard adaptation sitting so high is the supposed low-gear shift Tarantino went for, following “Pulp Fiction.” Compared to that film’s propulsion, “Jackie Brown” operates at a smoother, more focused level. In turn, it allows for more character ruminations, which is ideally suited for the spectacular performances delivered by star Pam Grier and the Oscar-nominated Robert Forster.

For a director known for his provocative handling of tense, dialogue-based scenes, “Jackie Brown” is a film with long stretches of quiet. The camera knows how to linger, letting the actors do plenty with their faces, rather than words. Since the plot doesn’t truly kick in until well after the film has started, the payoffs are far more effective, because of how well Tarantino develops this LA world that is both modern, and an homage to the blaxploitation period of films.

The confidence here, a film that moves in ways very different from the movies that put his name on the map, speaks clearly to Tarantino’s strengths as a filmmaker who knows how to evolve, regardless of how unconventional his choices may be. In that growth, he made “Jackie Brown” a mature film about adults who have gotten older that is both unafraid to show a level of melancholy and utterly cool throughout.

“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”

Ray Pride ( @RayPride ) Newcity , Movie City News

There is a case to be made, world and enough time, for the extended “Death Proof” as archetypal or even quintessential Quentin. But the choice of a best final moment can be kept brief, and the best for this lingering instant would be “Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood,” which I conclude my review by describing :  “The final shot is exquisite; a crane shot that begins with a geometric composition of calm and simplicity, an infinitesimal yet blooming suggestion of all the patterns, figurative and literal, which preceded it. The shot fills with laughter and then ghosts move into the night, and the camera rises into the innocent rustle of the leaves in the trees on Cielo Drive and the canyons beyond. The shot is nearly nothing, but it is everything in Tarantino’s tumultuous fairytale. Grids are finite yet mutable. Chance occurs. Fate is the word for what happens once opportunity is spent.”

“Pulp Fiction”

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough), Vague Visages, Screen Rant, RogerEbert.com

“Reservoir Dogs” established Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic voice , but “Pulp Fiction” made him a legend. For “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino used the template for his directorial debut, but made all the necessary improvements.

Whereas “Jackie Brown” shows a different side of Tarantino, and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” underlines Tarantino’s evolution as a filmmaker, neither have the same cultural impact as “Pulp Fiction.” And that’s partially because characters like Jackie Brown and Max Cherry were designed to be sympathetic figures, much like Rick Dalton from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” They don’t knock down the door and get in your face. In contrast, the “Pulp Fiction” characters are ruthless and run with the wrong crowds. Sure, Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace is Crazy/Sexy/Cool, but she’s also dating the gangster Marcellus Wallace. The evidence suggests that one probably doesn’t want to take a spin through Hollywood with Mia.

With “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Tarantino teasingly trolls the audience by merely  implying that Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth did something horrible in the past – but, crucially, he doesn’t show the evidence . Naturally, there’s much to debate about the character and the film as a whole. But “Pulp Fiction” is full of nasty and stylized evidence that viewers have to grapple with while piecing together the narrative. “Jackie Brown” is sweet, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is nostalgic and “Pulp Fiction” is raw, made by someone that’s more interested in his creative vision than what the audience wants.

In 2019 film culture, “Jackie Brown” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” align with the times. But in terms of original and challenging filmmaking, there’s really nothing quite like “Pulp Fiction.”

Joey Keogh  ( @JoeyLDG) News Editor for Wicked Horror , freelance for Birth.Movies.Death , Vague Visages , The List, Girls On Tops

“Pulp Fiction” seems like such an obvious answer but, when it comes to Tarantino, I don’t think he’s bettered it, or even if he ever will (particularly with his retirement supposedly looming). As someone who is either unmoved or completely enraged by his work, depending on the movie, “Pulp Fiction” is the rare Tarantino offering I unabashedly love — even considering the fact it sags considerably whenever Bruce Willis shows up (Vince is the protagonist, not Butch, and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong).

“Pulp Fiction” is the purest distillation of Tarantino’s essence, from his choice of music cues (playing Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” in its entirety is a genius move only he could have conceived), to the still insanely cool styling (I will want that Mia Wallace haircut until the day I die) and the whip-smart, often laugh-out-loud funny dialogue (the foot massage exchange between Vince and Jules is so brilliantly played). The opening is easily one of the greatest in cinema history, primarily because of how brazen it is in presenting QT as this big voice in cinema. 25 years and a million re-watches later, it still gives me goosebumps.

There’s also the small matter of the Tarantino cameo which, here, isn’t nearly as cringe-worthy as elsewhere. In the two decades since its release, QT has become something of a parody of himself, but “Pulp Fiction” retains its purity, representing everything that’s great about the filmmaker.

Eric Kohn (@erickohn), IndieWire

Tarantino has never been better than “Pulp Fiction.” The movie consolidates his wild stylistic swings with genuine observations about human behavior, and a sprawling narrative structure that never overwhelms its momentum. It’s the perfect distillation of his filmmaking talents, and while much of what he has done since then has encapsulated snippets of these attributes, this crowning achievement remains unparalleled 25 years down the line. But it’s also such a high-water mark that it makes each new QT entry worthy of anticipation, because he sure tries like hell to outdo himself.

Joanna Langfield ( @Joannalangfield), The Movie Minute

When I first saw this query, asking what is the best Tarentino movie, I immediately knew, even still on my “ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ” high, my answer would be “Pulp Fiction”. I love “Pulp Fiction”. I love its verve, its audacity, its performances and occasional sweetness. But, after popping onto Twitter periodically over the weekend, and seeing the haughty vitriol directed at “Hollywood”, I have to wonder if it, a film that is brilliantly made, luxurious and more emotional than any of the other Tarantino pieces, doesn’t match or at least come damn close to his best work. Maybe I’ll be able to know years and repeat viewings (something I’m looking forward to) later, but, for better or worse, how long has it been since a new release stirred such heated debate, some of which betrays a whole lot not just about the debater, but, I think, society in general? Perhaps these are not the reactions intended, but any piece of art that provokes such passionate emotion is, to me, pretty darn great. Even if it isn’t “Pulp Fiction”.

Anne McCarthy ( @annemitchmcc ),  Teen Vogue ,  Ms. Magazine ,  Bonjour Paris

“Pulp Fiction” reigns supreme, in my mind, as Tarantino’s best and brightest film. From the soundtrack to the script to the casting decisions, it’s the film which – justifiably – marked Tarantino’s arrival into the mainstream and awakened the masses to his unique talent and vision.

Mike McGranaghan (@AisleSeat), The Aisle Seat, Screen Rant

“Pulp Fiction” is generally considered to be the defining film of the 1990s, and it literally changed the way movies are made (or, at least, the way crime movies are made). Other filmmakers have been shamelessly ripping it off ever since it was first released. For its sheer, immeasurable influence alone, I think this is the obvious choice.

Don Shanahan ( @casablancadon ),  Every Movie Has a Lesson ,  25YL , and  Medium.com

Even after this big weekend and Quentin’s most mature film to date, I still go back to “Pulp Fiction” as his best. I make that decision with ease. It was Tarantino at his purest and most creative, before the parade of imitations showed up trying to make their own brazen coolness to match (a race that really hasn’t stopped 25 years later). More specifically, “Pulp Fiction” was also before Tarantino’s own self-stroked vanity would turn his masterstroke chops into tropes of overplayed hubris and excess. “Pulp Fiction” became the measuring stick, one Tarantino has exhaustingly tried, more often than not since, to blow up rather than complement.

His 1994 Möbius strip of drugs, crime, and scores to settle was Quentin Tarantino tuning every shrewd quality and showmanship tone just right, starting with that Oscar-winning screenplay the director shared with Roger Avery. The two created characters fitting their performers’ dexterous and challenged talents. Through ballsy flashes of violence and led by a grandstanding Samuel L. Jackson show for the ages, “Pulp Fiction” was loud enough to make noise that changed the independent film landscape into an artistic well worthy of contending with the studio system of R-rated mid-budget cookie cutter star vehicles that populated that time period. It was the biggest game-changer since the New Hollywood movement two decades before it.

At the same time, stylish appointments in every set, scene, and song made “Pulp Fiction” sublime enough to impress even the casual movie fan. With fetching coyness from Uma Thurman and the resurrected charisma of John Travolta and Bruce Willis, audiences snorted this movie’s freshness right up. The movie’s endless array of soundtrack cuts and cherished quotations are still echoed today, laurels of love unmatched by Tarantino’s other films. His work since has shown that louder and bloodier isn’t always better.

Rob Thomas (@robt77), Madison Capital Times

I still remember the theater – the now defunct White Oaks Theater in Springfield, Illinois. I still remember my seat — it was sold out so we had to sit in the front row at the far left. And I still remember the feeling of seeing “Pulp Fiction” for the first time, how it was like touching an electric fence. The scrappiness of “Reservoir Dogs,” the maturity of “Jackie Brown,” and now the elegiac comedy of “Hollywood” will lure me to reconsider from time to time. But “Pulp” is the distillation of everything Tarantino was trying to do in a movie. A quarter century later, it still gives off sparks.

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Everything We Know About Quentin Tarantino’s Canceled (?) Final (??) Film, The Movie Critic

After previously announcing that The Movie Critic would be his tenth and final film (or 11th, depending on how you count the Kill[s] Bill ), Quentin Tarantino is reportedly pivoting. On April 17, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the project is canceled. There was no solid studio attached ( though a follow-up THR report claims Sony was basically all in), and nothing had been filmed yet due to numerous rewrites. Throughout the years, Tarantino has expressed that he wants his final film to be his biggest and baddest and to leave the scene before he’s, well, too old.

Tarantino said the movie went into “pre-pre-production” in June 2023, but now it seems as though it might not even happen at all, despite Tarantino receiving $20 million from the California Film Commission to film in the state, as THR reports. Tarantino himself hasn’t confirmed that the movie is totally off, but for now, here’s what we know about the The Movie Critic chaos, from casting rumors (Brad Pitt) to the latest details on what the movie would have been about.

The titular Movie Critic worked at a “porno rag.”

Tarantino told Deadline that the lead in his tenth story was based on a real guy. One of Tarantino’s jobs as a teen was restocking a pornography-magazine vending machine. Sidestepping the legality of that as a job for a teen, Tarantino says he came to really appreciate the writing of the film critic for a “porno rag” he doesn’t want to name. “He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic,” he said. “He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late 30s. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”

Tarantino was supposed to film in California.

Per a Production Weekly listing , The Movie Critic was set to start filming in Los Angeles this fall. Variety previously reported in 2023 that The Movie Critic (under the working title #10 ) got a $20 million tax credit from the state of California. This is hardly surprising, as Tarantino loves L.A. “I started directing movies here and it is only fitting that I shoot my final motion picture in the cinema capital of the world,” he said in a statement. “There is nothing like shooting in my hometown; the crews are the best I’ve ever worked with, and the locations are amazing. The producers and I are thrilled to be making #10 in Los Angeles.” If Pitt and Tarantino agree to collaborate again, the movie couldn’t have begun shooting until maybe late this year or early 2025 anyway, due to the actor’s prior commitments with a Formula 1 racing movie.

The California Film Commission, which granted the $20 million tax credit, told the Hollywood Reporter that a Tarantino representative had been in touch as recently as mid-April. “We’ve not been notified by them about dropping or pulling out or anything,” a person close to the situation said.

Tarantino couldn’t go the Brad-Leo route for the lead.

Tarantino said he wanted to stay at least somewhat faithful to the life of this anonymous movie critic. That means he couldn’t offer the lead to Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio, as they’re both older than this guy ever got. “I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be somebody in the 35-year-old ball park. It’ll definitely be a new leading man for me,” Tarantino said at Cannes. He also said he’d rather not cast a Brit in the role, but other than that he’s keeping mum. Rumors are pointing to Paul Walter Hauser, but those remain unconfirmed.

Brad Pitt could have been involved in some capacity, though.

Hollywood’s rumor mill churned out reports that would make a film bro blush. Namely, that Pitt might actually star in The Movie Critic after all. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter in February 2024 that Tarantino’s recent collaborator was circling a role, though it was unclear if an actual deal on the table was ever inked and ready to go. What would his role have been, since he’s likely far too elderly to play a 35-year-old? The Editor, perhaps? Apparently not. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Pitt was set to turn The Movie Critic into something of a Once Upon a Time spinoff by reprising his role as stuntman Cliff Booth.

But Tarantino nixed the pic about flix.

Okay, never mind! Deadline reported on April 17 that Tarantino had “changed his mind” about The Movie Critic and would start from square one on what his tenth and final film will be. Apparently, Tarantino was toying with a couple different plot ideas during rewrites. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter this week that one possibility was for the film to be a farewell meta-verse, with characters from his previous films making cameos to reprise their characters in “movie within a movie” moments. (Alternatively, they could have played fictional versions of the actors playing those roles.) Reportedly, another idea was for The Movie Critic to include a movie theater where characters could meet a future filmmaker … say, a 16-year-old Tarantino, who really did work as an usher at a porn theater.

Ultimately, Tarantino is said to have become more excited by other movie ideas. Sony Pictures, which was unofficially attached to The Movie Critic, reportedly now plans to partner with Tarantino for whatever his next film will be instead. QT is set on having a decalog of films, so this last one has to be a goodie. Or he could, you know, just make movies until it feels bad, whatever. In the meantime, Tarantino has a couple revival theaters in L.A. that need his attention.

This post has been updated throughout.

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10 Projects Quentin Tarantino Has Abandoned

The average director loves film, but even by these standards, Quentin Tarantino is absolutely obsessed with cinema. In fact, Tarantino loves the medium so much that he created a blueprint for his career long before he earned a reputation as one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers. From the beginning, Tarantino has planned to direct ten feature films of the utmost quality and then call it a career.

Because of his rigid plan, there have been times in Quentin Tarantino's career when he's been close to embarking on a new film, only to get cold feet when he realized that the project wouldn't quite live up to his lofty standards. Now that he's ready to make movie number ten, Tarantino may be more hesitant than ever to commit to his final project, as evidenced by the recent cancelation of The Movie Critic , which joins a long list of the director's abandoned projects.

Tarantino's 10 Film Rule, Explained

The movie critic could have been an appropriate ending to tarantino's career, especially if the rumors about tarantino's meta-verse are true, every quentin tarantino-written movie, ranked.

Tarantino started discussing the idea that turned into The Movie Critic years before announcing it as his tenth and final film. The story was reportedly about a small-town film critic writing movie reviews for an adult magazine in the late 1970s; then, it evolved into something else entirely. After a recent flurry of rewrites, the film was said to resemble something more akin to a spin-off of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and would have served as a goodbye to the meta-verse Tarantino had created with his many films.

In other words, The Movie Critic would have allowed Quentin Tarantino to bring back many of his iconic characters in a series of "movie within a movie" moments. Pre-production on the film even went as far as hiring Brad Pitt to reprise his Academy Award-winning role as Cliff Booth, but ultimately, the entire project fell apart . In short, the director fell in love with his script, presumably deeming it an unworthy ending to his iconic filmography.

Tarantino's First Blood Remake Would Have Looked More Like the Book

However, the director never seemed to take the project too seriously, 10 best sylvester stallone movies (that arent rocky films).

During an interview with The Big Picture podcast in 2021, Quentin Tarantino surprised many fans when he revealed that he had long harbored an urge to remake the original First Blood film starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo . Unlike the unrelenting action spectacle that the series later became, the first film offered a smaller, sympathetic portrayal of the Vietnam vet and focused on the character's struggles with PTSD.

Promising to aim for an adaptation that would be even more faithful to David Morrell's original book, Quentin Tarantino also pitched his dream cast for the film, which would have seen Kurt Russell as the sheriff and Adam Driver as Rambo. Considering he was pitching this film after already seemingly committing to make The Movie Critic his tenth and final film, it's likely that Tarantino never really took the idea of making it all that seriously.

Killer Crows Would Have Completed Tarantino's Revisionist Trilogy

History, after all, is written by the winners.

Tarantino originally envisioned Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained as a thematic trilogy that reveled in revising history. He intended to complete that trilogy with a film titled Killer Crows , which would have followed a host of Black troops in World War II who were betrayed by the American military and their attempts to exact revenge on the white officers who screwed them over.

As recently as 2012, Tarantino claimed that he had a completed script for the project, albeit one that needed to be polished if it were to ever go before the cameras. Of course, that didn't happen, and it isn't likely to. Instead, Tarantino focused on a more direct continuation of the Django Unchained story, only to abandon that project at a later date as well.

Tarantino's Casino Royale Paved the Way for the 21st Century James Bond

Making it one of the most influential unfinished film projects ever.

Before Martin Campbell masterfully reinvented Casino Royale with Daniel Craig , Quentin Tarantino entertained creating his own James Bond film based on the original Ian Fleming novel that introduced 007. While serving on the jury for the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino revealed that he had even drunkenly pitched the idea to the then-007 actor Pierce Brosnan .

Promising to keep the story exactly how it was in the original book, Tarantino's Casino Royale might have been similar to the film Martin Campbell made. Of course, with Tarantino behind the camera, his adaptation would have looked (and sounded) a lot different while being set in the 1960s. The producers behind the Bond franchise claim they were never interested in hiring Tarantino. However, the fact that they then rebooted the franchise anyway suggests they were at least interested in his idea.

The Bounty Law TV Miniseries Could Still Happen

Making it one of the few possible exceptions to tarantino's film rule, quentin tarantino may launch a tv career after his last movie.

Once Quentin Tarantino gets deep into the production process, he becomes so obsessed with what he's creating that he can't help but come up with dozens of new ideas, almost none of which ever make it to the screen. One such moment of inspiration struck when Tarantino directed the fictional television episodes of Bounty Law during the production of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . He enjoyed the process so much that he seriously contemplated directing an entire miniseries set in the Bounty Law universe.

It's possible that Tarantino could one day return to this project. As a television series, it naturally wouldn't count towards his ten feature films, and since Tarantino has directed series like CSI before, there's already a precedent for his involvement in television.

Luke Cage: Hero for Hire Would Have Combined Two of QT's Passions

Unfortunately, casting indecision led to disinterest.

Tarantino has long been a fan of two very different mediums: Blaxploitation cinema and comic books. So, is it any surprise that early on in his career, Tarantino was working on developing a superhero movie featuring Luke Cage? QT revealed to MTV that he planned to direct the film as his follow-up to Reservoir Dogs with Laurence Fishburne in the title role .

Somewhat surprisingly, when Quentin Tarantino pitched this idea to some of his closest comic book geek friends, they disapproved of his casting selection, suggesting Wesley Snipes should portray Luke Cage instead. Shortly after that, QT lost interest in the idea before coming up with the concept for Pulp Fiction. The rest is cinematic history.

A Django-Zorro Crossover Almost Happened

But it would have cost an absolute fortune.

2012's Django Unchained was an action-packed anti-white supremacist film directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Jamie Foxx in the title role that became a major box office success. As early as 2013, Tarantino was already openly discussing ideas for its sequel, tentatively titled Django in White Hell . That initial kernel of an idea transformed into the film that would become The Hateful Eight , but Tarantino wasn't done with Django quite yet.

In 2014, Tarantino teamed up with Dynamite Entertainment to release a seven-part comic book miniseries titled Django/Zorro , which he co-wrote alongside Matt Wagner with art provided by Esteve Polls. The success of that comic inspired Tarantino to develop a film version of the project, and he recruited comedian Jerrod Carmichael to write the script with him. The process got as far as casting Atonino Banderas to reprise his role as Zorro on-screen, but a few years later, the project was dead in the water, primarily due to the sheer cost of the script that Tarantino and Carmichael had written.

Kill Bill Vol 3. Was Initially Intended to Be Released by Now

But other projects have taken precedence.

Although technically comprised of two films, Quentin Tarantino views his epic Kill Bill double-header as one movie in his ten-film rule. It was also supposed to be Tarantino's version of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy , in which he intended to make a new entry every decade. His idea for Vol. 3 supposedly revolved around Beatrix Kiddo's final statement to Nikki, the daughter of her rival Vernita Green. Moments after killing Nikki's mother, the film's protagonist says, "When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting."

The waiting was supposed to take 10 years. Then, Tarantino realized that he needed 15 years for the actress who portrayed Nikki to grow into the role. 20 years after the film's release, Tarantino finally dismissed the idea of completing that story, preferring to concentrate on The Movie Critic as his tenth and final film. Now that that film is no longer happening, the door may once again be open for Kill Bill Vol. 3 .

Star Trek 4 Nearly Went Where No Star Trek Film Had Gone Before

Tarantino nearly crossed the final "r-rated" frontier, tarantino's star trek movie would've featured gangsters and time travel.

Out of all of Quentin Tarantino's unmade projects, Star Trek 4 is likely the most well-known. After the lackluster reaction to 2016's Star Trek Beyond, Paramount Pictures was desperate to turn around its flagship franchise and turned to Tarantino for help. A self-described massive fan of Chris Pine, Tarantino jumped at the chance, and the film gained a lot of traction.

While no one knows for sure what Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek would have been about, rumors suggest that it was going to adapt an episode from The Original Series titled "A Piece of the Action," in which the Enterprise landed on a planet fashioned after 1930s America. According to reports, Tarantino even finished the script for the project, co-written with Mark L. Smith, writer of The Revenant . With rumors swirling from the beginning that this would be an R-rated picture, fans were excited. Then, Tarantino got cold feet at the idea of ending his career with a franchise film , and Star Trek 4 went where many of Taratino's ideas have gone: the scrap bin.

Double V Vega Was the Sequel to Pulp Fiction Fans Never Got

What happens in amsterdam stays in amsterdam.

No other abandoned Quentin Tarantino project has as much history as his intended sequel to Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs , which was to be titled Double V Vega . The film would have brought together the two Vega brothers, Vic Vega (aka Mr. Blonde) and Vincent Vega, with Michael Madsen and John Travolta reprising their roles, respectively.

Throughout the '90s and early 2000s, Tarantino talked about this idea incessantly. However, according to the director himself, even though he loved the concept, he only had a few basic ideas for the plot. These ideas revolved around a nightclub that Vic owned in Amsterdam and were set right before the events of Pulp Fiction . Unfortunately, Tarantino had no idea where the film went from there. Now, his fans are in a similar situation regarding what Quentin Tarantino's tenth and final film will be. The one clear thing is that if he wants to return to the drawing board, the legendary director has a lot of ideas from which to draw.

• C++ Classes

QMovie Class

The QMovie class is a convenience class for playing movies with QImageReader . More...

• List of all members, including inherited members

Public Types

• cacheMode : CacheMode
• speed : int

Public Functions

Public slots, static public members, detailed description.

This class is used to show simple animations without sound.

First, create a QMovie object by passing either the name of a file or a pointer to a QIODevice containing an animated image format to QMovie's constructor. You can call isValid () to check if the image data is valid, before starting the movie. To start the movie, call start (). QMovie will enter Running state, and emit started () and stateChanged (). To get the current state of the movie, call state ().

To display the movie in your application, you can pass your QMovie object to QLabel::setMovie (). Example:

Whenever a new frame is available in the movie, QMovie will emit updated (). If the size of the frame changes, resized () is emitted. You can call currentImage () or currentPixmap () to get a copy of the current frame. When the movie is done, QMovie emits finished (). If any error occurs during playback (i.e, the image file is corrupt), QMovie will emit error ().

You can control the speed of the movie playback by calling setSpeed (), which takes the percentage of the original speed as an argument. Pause the movie by calling setPaused (true). QMovie will then enter Paused state and emit stateChanged (). If you call setPaused (false), QMovie will reenter Running state and start the movie again. To stop the movie, call stop ().

Certain animation formats allow you to set the background color. You can call setBackgroundColor () to set the color, or backgroundColor () to retrieve the current background color.

currentFrameNumber () returns the sequence number of the current frame. The first frame in the animation has the sequence number 0. frameCount () returns the total number of frames in the animation, if the image format supports this. You can call loopCount () to get the number of times the movie should loop before finishing. nextFrameDelay () returns the number of milliseconds the current frame should be displayed.

QMovie can be instructed to cache frames of an animation by calling setCacheMode ().

Call supportedFormats () for a list of formats that QMovie supports.

See also QLabel and QImageReader .

Member Type Documentation

Enum qmovie:: cachemode.

This enum describes the different cache modes of QMovie .

enum QMovie:: MovieState

This enum describes the different states of QMovie .

Property Documentation

[bindable] cachemode : cachemode.

Note: This property supports QProperty bindings.

This property holds the movie's cache mode

Caching frames can be useful when the underlying animation format handler that QMovie relies on to decode the animation data does not support jumping to particular frames in the animation, or even "rewinding" the animation to the beginning (for looping). Furthermore, if the image data comes from a sequential device, it is not possible for the underlying animation handler to seek back to frames whose data has already been read (making looping altogether impossible).

To aid in such situations, a QMovie object can be instructed to cache the frames, at the added memory cost of keeping the frames in memory for the lifetime of the object.

By default, this property is set to CacheNone .

See also QMovie::CacheMode .

[bindable] speed : int

This property holds the movie's speed

The speed is measured in percentage of the original movie speed. The default speed is 100%. Example:

Member Function Documentation

[explicit] qmovie:: qmovie ( qobject * parent = nullptr).

Constructs a QMovie object, passing the parent object to QObject 's constructor.

See also setFileName (), setDevice (), and setFormat ().

[explicit] QMovie:: QMovie ( QIODevice * device , const QByteArray & format = QByteArray(), QObject * parent = nullptr)

Constructs a QMovie object. QMovie will use read image data from device , which it assumes is open and readable. If format is not empty, QMovie will use the image format format for decoding the image data. Otherwise, QMovie will attempt to guess the format.

The parent object is passed to QObject 's constructor.

[explicit] QMovie:: QMovie (const QString & fileName , const QByteArray & format = QByteArray(), QObject * parent = nullptr)

Constructs a QMovie object. QMovie will use read image data from fileName . If format is not empty, QMovie will use the image format format for decoding the image data. Otherwise, QMovie will attempt to guess the format.

[virtual noexcept] QMovie:: ~QMovie ()

Destructs the QMovie object.

QColor QMovie:: backgroundColor () const

Returns the background color of the movie. If no background color has been assigned, an invalid QColor is returned.

See also setBackgroundColor ().

int QMovie:: currentFrameNumber () const

Returns the sequence number of the current frame. The number of the first frame in the movie is 0.

QImage QMovie:: currentImage () const

Returns the current frame as a QImage .

See also currentPixmap () and updated ().

QPixmap QMovie:: currentPixmap () const

Returns the current frame as a QPixmap .

See also currentImage () and updated ().

QIODevice *QMovie:: device () const

Returns the device QMovie reads image data from. If no device has currently been assigned, nullptr is returned.

See also setDevice () and fileName ().

[signal] void QMovie:: error ( QImageReader::ImageReaderError error )

This signal is emitted by QMovie when the error error occurred during playback. QMovie will stop the movie, and enter QMovie::NotRunning state.

See also lastError () and lastErrorString ().

QString QMovie:: fileName () const

Returns the name of the file that QMovie reads image data from. If no file name has been assigned, or if the assigned device is not a file, an empty QString is returned.

See also setFileName () and device ().

[signal] void QMovie:: finished ()

This signal is emitted when the movie has finished.

See also QMovie::stop ().

QByteArray QMovie:: format () const

Returns the format that QMovie uses when decoding image data. If no format has been assigned, an empty QByteArray() is returned.

See also setFormat ().

[signal] void QMovie:: frameChanged ( int frameNumber )

This signal is emitted when the frame number has changed to frameNumber . You can call currentImage () or currentPixmap () to get a copy of the frame.

int QMovie:: frameCount () const

Returns the number of frames in the movie.

Certain animation formats do not support this feature, in which case 0 is returned.

QRect QMovie:: frameRect () const

Returns the rect of the last frame. If no frame has yet been updated, an invalid QRect is returned.

See also currentImage () and currentPixmap ().

bool QMovie:: isValid () const

Returns true if the movie is valid (e.g., the image data is readable and the image format is supported); otherwise returns false .

For information about why the movie is not valid, see lastError ().

bool QMovie:: jumpToFrame ( int frameNumber )

Jumps to frame number frameNumber . Returns true on success; otherwise returns false .

[slot] bool QMovie:: jumpToNextFrame ()

Jumps to the next frame. Returns true on success; otherwise returns false .

QImageReader::ImageReaderError QMovie:: lastError () const

Returns the most recent error that occurred while attempting to read image data.

See also lastErrorString ().

QString QMovie:: lastErrorString () const

Returns a human-readable representation of the most recent error that occurred while attempting to read image data.

See also lastError ().

int QMovie:: loopCount () const

Returns the number of times the movie will loop before it finishes. If the movie will only play once (no looping), loopCount returns 0. If the movie loops forever, loopCount returns -1.

Note that, if the image data comes from a sequential device (e.g. a socket), QMovie can only loop the movie if the cacheMode is set to QMovie::CacheAll .

int QMovie:: nextFrameDelay () const

Returns the number of milliseconds QMovie will wait before updating the next frame in the animation.

[signal] void QMovie:: resized (const QSize & size )

This signal is emitted when the current frame has been resized to size . This effect is sometimes used in animations as an alternative to replacing the frame. You can call currentImage () or currentPixmap () to get a copy of the updated frame.

QSize QMovie:: scaledSize ()

Returns the scaled size of frames.

See also setScaledSize () and QImageReader::scaledSize ().

void QMovie:: setBackgroundColor (const QColor & color )

For image formats that support it, this function sets the background color to color .

See also backgroundColor ().

void QMovie:: setDevice ( QIODevice * device )

Sets the current device to device . QMovie will read image data from this device when the movie is running.

See also device () and setFormat ().

void QMovie:: setFileName (const QString & fileName )

Sets the name of the file that QMovie reads image data from, to fileName .

See also fileName (), setDevice (), and setFormat ().

void QMovie:: setFormat (const QByteArray & format )

Sets the format that QMovie will use when decoding image data, to format . By default, QMovie will attempt to guess the format of the image data.

You can call supportedFormats () for the full list of formats QMovie supports.

See also format () and QImageReader::supportedImageFormats ().

[slot] void QMovie:: setPaused ( bool paused )

If paused is true, QMovie will enter Paused state and emit stateChanged (Paused); otherwise it will enter Running state and emit stateChanged (Running).

See also state ().

void QMovie:: setScaledSize (const QSize & size )

Sets the scaled frame size to size .

See also scaledSize () and QImageReader::setScaledSize ().

[slot] void QMovie:: start ()

Starts the movie. QMovie will enter Running state, and start emitting updated () and resized () as the movie progresses.

If QMovie is in the Paused state, this function is equivalent to calling setPaused (false). If QMovie is already in the Running state, this function does nothing.

See also stop () and setPaused ().

[signal] void QMovie:: started ()

This signal is emitted after QMovie::start () has been called, and QMovie has entered QMovie::Running state.

QMovie::MovieState QMovie:: state () const

Returns the current state of QMovie .

See also MovieState and stateChanged ().

[signal] void QMovie:: stateChanged ( QMovie::MovieState state )

This signal is emitted every time the state of the movie changes. The new state is specified by state .

See also QMovie::state ().

[slot] void QMovie:: stop ()

Stops the movie. QMovie enters NotRunning state, and stops emitting updated () and resized (). If start () is called again, the movie will restart from the beginning.

If QMovie is already in the NotRunning state, this function does nothing.

See also start () and setPaused ().

[static] QList < QByteArray > QMovie:: supportedFormats ()

Returns the list of image formats supported by QMovie .

See also QImageReader::supportedImageFormats ().

[signal] void QMovie:: updated (const QRect & rect )

This signal is emitted when the rect rect in the current frame has been updated. You can call currentImage () or currentPixmap () to get a copy of the updated frame.

© 2024 The Qt Company Ltd. Documentation contributions included herein are the copyrights of their respective owners. The documentation provided herein is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software Foundation. Qt and respective logos are trademarks of The Qt Company Ltd. in Finland and/or other countries worldwide. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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