Total Recall: Quentin Tarantino's Best Movies
We count down the best-reviewed work of the Django Unchained director.
86%
4. Jackie Brown
Three years after achieving "young Hollywood genius" status with Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino re-emerged with Jackie Brown, a 154-minute adaptation of the Elmore James novel Rum Punch that served as Tarantino's homage to 1970s blaxploitation while resurrecting the career of one of the genre's biggest stars: Pam Grier. Hitherto known for playing the title role in 1974's Foxy Brown, Grier returned to the big screen in pretty good company, including Bridget Fonda, Robert Forster, Michael Keaton, Chris Tucker, Robert De Niro, and Pulp Fiction star Samuel L. Jackson. While it was ultimately a bit of a critical and commercial letdown after the raging success of Pulp Fiction, Jackie still proved a favorite for scribes like Chuck Rudolph of Matinee Magazine, who wrote that it "Achieves the soulful edge lacking from Tarantino's previous efforts. Forster and Grier's performances deserve to join the short-list of all-time greats."
88%
3. Inglourious Basterds
Any film fan worth his or her salt has seen plenty of World War II movies, but Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds added a little something special to the mix -- an eminently well-cast revenge fantasy, starring a motley crew of solid actors (including Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender) as soldiers in a parallel reality where the evil of the Third Reich is met full force with an Allied squadron whose members are hungry for Nazi blood (and/or scalps). Boasting a uniquely cathartic flavor of Tarantino-brewed violence to go with its taut drama and dark wit, Basterds proved powerfully compelling for critics like Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, who had to concede, "Quentin Tarantino seems to be hanging on to a lost world of moviemaking. He may be nuts. But he's a nut who cares."
94%
2. Pulp Fiction
Some careers take awhile to get going -- and then there's Quentin Tarantino, who drew almost universal critical praise for Reservoir Dogs before skyrocketing into the Hollywood stratosphere with his second film, 1994's Pulp Fiction. A $214 million box office smash and seven-time Academy Award nominee (as well as Best Original Screenplay winner), Fiction offered a blend of pop culture smarts, laugh-out-loud humor, and shocking violence so potent (and massively influential) that it even managed to revitalize John Travolta's long-moribund acting career -- and left Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" blasting out of countless college dorm rooms along the way. It was also, as Janet Maslin of the New York Times noted, "A triumphant, cleverly disorienting journey through a demimonde that springs entirely from Mr. Tarantino's ripe imagination, a landscape of danger, shock, hilarity and vibrant local color."
96%
1. Reservoir Dogs
Debuts don't come much more auspicious than Reservoir Dogs. Yes, it's a profane, blood-splattered heist flick -- and goodness knows we have more than enough of those -- but this one's noteworthy for a number of things, including its hyper-literate script, its killer soundtrack, and a cast stuffed with tremendously talented character actors (including Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen). While it didn't exactly set the world on fire during its small theatrical run, it did offer cineastes an early look at one of modern filmmaking's most exciting, fully formed talents -- and it definitely drew the notice of critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader, who wrote, "It's unclear whether this macho thriller does anything to improve the state of the world or our understanding of it, but it certainly sets off enough rockets to hold and shake us for every one of its 99 minutes."
In case you were wondering, here are Tarantino's top movies according RT users' scores:
1. Pulp Fiction -- 95%
2. Reservoir Dogs -- 93%
3. Kill Bill, Volume 2 -- 87%
4. Inglourious Basterds -- 87%
5. Grindhouse -- 86%
6. Jackie Brown -- 78%
7. Kill Bill: Volume 1 -- 76%
8. Four Rooms -- 70%
Take a look through Tarantino's complete filmography, as well as the rest of our Total Recall archives. And don't forget to check out the reviews for Django Unchained.
Finally, here's footage from Tarantino's unfinished first film, My Best Friend's Birthday (which unsurprisingly contains some NSFW language):
Mick Travis
The only movie on this list that truly sucks balls is FOUR ROOMS. A lot of guys in the military liked that fucking crap for some reason. Aside from Roth, the film was painfully stupid and unfunny, pointless and just all around excruciating.
Dec 27 - 08:40 AM
Alan Geyer
I had to fake laugh all the way through that piece of garbage film. a friend of mine loved it at the time and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hated it.
Dec 27 - 10:26 AM
Doug Magee
I agree, that movie was terrible.
Dec 28 - 06:55 PM
Janson Jinnistan
"Misbehavers" was classic. The others were cute. I never had a problem with the film.
Dec 27 - 12:39 PM
Jeffrey Donato
I agree with Janson.
Dec 28 - 05:31 PM
Jansen Gefert
Not too often I see somebody with the same name as me. That's all.
Dec 28 - 08:41 PM
Steve Buchanan
Final scene with Roth chopping the guys finger off is pretty funny though.
Dec 27 - 04:44 PM
Gnarls Reece
Worst role i've ever scene Roth play. Embarrassingly annoying.
Dec 28 - 03:42 AM
Tim Terrell
Tarantino's segment was good. Better than all of his films from the first decade of the 21st Century.
Dec 28 - 02:32 PM
Facebook User
If you cannot appreciate Four Rooms then maybe it's better to stop watching movies at all. It might not be the best Tarantino flick but as a Cult flick it's definetely a classic.
Dec 30 - 02:04 AM
Joe Hart
Yeah, man, anyone who disagrees must be wrong.
Dec 30 - 10:24 AM
Mick Travis
Whatever, man! Explain to me how FOUR ROOMS is a cult flick, because it has much cult appeal as MY BABY'S DADDY and CLIFFORD. I'd rather have a dog fart in my face than watch it again.
Dec 30 - 11:32 AM
Janson Jinnistan
Cult = small, but dedicated audience.
Dec 31 - 06:41 PM
Mick Travis
You know what Janson: it's on Netflix, I'll give it another chance as I haven't seen it in 15 years or so.
Jan 1 - 01:18 PM