Rank the Tarantino Movies

Now that I have seen Django Unchained, I am ready to rank the Tarantino movies. And I am curious to see your rankings.

1. Kill Bill Pt. 1: As I mentioned in the favorite movies thread, I am big fan of Kill Bill. It's not as clever as Pulp Fiction, but I do enjoy it as an epic tale of revenge with great style. Of the two parts, I give the edge to Pt. 1 for great fight scenes and better music.

2. Kill Bill Pt. 2: Also excellent, but the pacing is a bit slower than Pt. 1, and I felt that the final confrontation between Bill and the Bride went on a bit long. If both parts had been released together and some scenes from the second half had been cut for time, Kill Bill would have been a serious contender for one of the all-time great movies.

3. Pulp Fiction: Still great after all these years. It's amazing that Tarantino could deliver such a fully-realized work as his second movie. I know that many people rank it as Tarantino's best, but I feel that Kill Bill was a better overall story.

4. Death Proof: Tarantino has publicly declared Death Proof to be his worst movie, but I disagree. The dialogue is great, and Stuntman Mike is a fun villain. Zoe Bell was long overdue for a starring role, and several other folks turned in fine performances. The film does have a very leisurely pace before the action, but with great music and great dialogue, I just relax and enjoy the experience. The chase scene is one of the best I've ever seen.

5. Reservoir Dogs: I admire what Tarantino accomplished with Reservoir Dogs, especially since it was his first movie and the budget was small. And overall, I think it's a great movie. I just happen to find the final scene obnoxious and tedious to such a degree that it hurts my enthusiasm for re-watching the movie.

6. Jackie Brown: This is a decent movie, but it seemed like de Niro's heart wasn't in it. I didn't like most of the characters, so I didn't care about them much. That made following the story less engaging.

7. Inglorious Basterds: The one thing that I loved about this movie was that there were several scenes that featured a high stakes conversation where lives were hanging in the balance. Otherwise, I found this to be a stupid movie about stupid characters. Also, Brad Pitt should just retire if he can't be bothered to act anymore. He has enough money.

8. Django Unchained: I had bad feeling about this one when I saw that Reginald Hudlin was involved. Hudlin is a racist who managed to ruin one of my favorite comic book characters. Anyway, this movie was ridiculously and needlessly violent, and I hope that I never hear the n-word again. At times, I felt like I was watching an ultra-violent parody of Blazing Saddles. Mostly, I felt like I was watching a shameful era of American history that was distorted in ludicrous ways to set up a fairly linear and boring story. That said, Tarantino still delivered excellent cinematography, good dialogue, and a lot of suspense and action.

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. Kill Bill (complete)
4. Django Unchained
5. Inglorious Basterds
6. Death Proof - I need to watch this again. I didn't care for it when I saw it, and I suspect I'd feel differently now.
7. Jackie Brown - didn't care for this one

Inglorious Basterds - I feel like he grew up and came into his own in this picture, finding the proper vision for his voice. I was never a big fan until I saw this flick although I did enjoy some of his earlier films.

Django Unchained - My favorite DeCapprio performance by far. I always thought he seemed like a bit of jerk (entirely unfair of me and based on presence and look) so playing a villain makes sense to me... he just nails his performance in this one. One of the best screen villains around, I feel like he learned a lot from Day Lewis on the set of Gangs of New York. The characters have some things in common.

Jackie Brown -This was a low key film but I really enjoyed the story and felt like it moved at a nice pace.

Pulp Fiction - Very watchable and generally a pretty good time.

Reservoir Dogs - I like Reservoir Dog for the script here and there in places but like a lot of his early pictures it feels like a bunch of nice lines and conversations in service of no vision.

Kill Bill - I hated this and felt very let down by the second film. I'll never watch it again.

1) Pulp Fiction
2) Reservoir Dogs

Everything else has been self indulgent garbage, to my way of thinking. Inglorious Basterds had a great opening scene that went no where. The rest of the movie was just more violence porn.

repoman wrote: 1) Pulp Fiction
2) Reservoir Dogs

Everything else has been self indulgent garbage, to my way of thinking. Inglorious Basterds had a great opening scene that went no where. The rest of the movie was just more violence porn.

I mostly agree with this. I did enjoy From Dusk till Dawn (which he wrote and acted in) as a silly fun romp. It also has one of the best opening sceens in film. The sequence he directed at the end of Four Rooms is also fantastic and possibly his best work after Pulp Fiction.

I'm inclined to agree. His scripts get very similar after a while and his love of cartoon violence repetitive.

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Pulp Fiction

big gap

3.Django Unchained > i thought Foxx's Django lacked any real intensity but the supporting cast was awesome.
4.Death Proof > sort of lacks a good plot to follow and is a bit drawn out, but the car sequences are cool.

really didn't like everything else

Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Everything Else.
Death Proof.

Shellhead wrote: this movie was ridiculously and needlessly violent

I don't think the phrase above makes much sense in a thread about Tarantino films. One of the Kill Bills had a beheading in it but comes at the top of your list.

Pulp Fiction is worth watching just for the Christopher Walken scene in it. And it garners more attention for me personally because it was my first Tarantino experience. The rest of them . . . seem compelling as I'm watching, but a day later feel like they were just another Tarantino film. Take a story, any story, smother it in a quart of Tarantino sauce and serve.

I get the same feeling from Cameron films.

S.

repoman wrote: 1) Pulp Fiction
2) Reservoir Dogs

Everything else has been self indulgent garbage, to my way of thinking. Inglorious Basterds had a great opening scene that went no where. The rest of the movie was just more violence porn.

I agree with this although I have to exempt 1 film from the charge of "self indulgent garbage". The 3 Taratino movies I rate are (in order of preference):

1. Pulp Fiction: this film enjoys the #1 slot on the strength of the cross-cut narrative, a technique which can often be abused, but which Tarantino used to perfection to create all sorts of drama. I was also amused by the reaction against the movie's violence- a case of the self-righteous not seeing the woods for the trees if ever there was one. Pulp Fiction is nothing but a moral parable after all- violent and darkly humourous to be sure- but its theme of 'live by the gun, die by the gun' was obvious to me, at least. I walked out of Pulp Fiction wishing it'd been a half an hour longer, which is pretty rare for me.

2. Jackie Brown: I love caper movies and this a great caper movie. Plus there's that standout performance by Pam Grier. If this film hadn't come along I'd be like repoman in only rating 2 out of all of Taratino's films.

3. Reservoir Dogs: the original and a film which can still hold my attention after all these years.

Other Tarantino films I've seen either simply bored me- Dusk till Dawn and Kill Bill Vol.1, or outright offended me - Inglorious Basterds; either way they're all in the sump of Taratino movies I simply don't rate.

One of Tarantino's strengths is his usage of his vast knowledge of music. He has a knack for choosing the right song for the right scene. However, this knowledge of music is primarily focused on the second half of the 20th Century, and that can work against him when he does an older period piece like Django or Inglorious. Then the music can be jarring and throw the viewer out of the scene. That's one reason why I rate those movies so low and Death Proof somewhat higher.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Shellhead wrote: this movie was ridiculously and needlessly violent

I don't think the phrase above makes much sense in a thread about Tarantino films. One of the Kill Bills had a beheading in it but comes at the top of your list.

All the violence at the Candie Plantation was completely unnecessary. They could have simply bought Django's wife and left. And then Django talked those guys into helping him go after the bounty, only to immediately shoot down all of his new allies. By contrast, the Bride was on a mission of pure vengeance, and everybody she killed was actively trying to kill her as well.

1. Pulp Fiction
Head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe the best movie of the last 30 years?
_____________________________
2. Django Unchained
3. Inglorious Basterds
Both of these films are excellent. Together, they make a fantastic social commentary about heroes and villains in culture and what is and is not "ok" to average American audiences. While I think both would work with foreign audiences, I'm not sure it would make as much sense abroad.
4. Kill Bill (complete)
For 2-4, the order is arbitrary as they are ranked very close together to my mind. I like the 2nd half of Kill Bill way better than the first half.
______________________________
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. Jackie Brown
Third tier. I do not like Reservoir Dogs nearly as much as others do. All style, no substance to me. Tries too hard, very much a catchphrase movie.
___________________
7. Death Proof
8. Grindhouse
9. Dusk Till Dawn
And I"ll be honest, I've never seen Death Proof.

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. True Romance (wrote didn't direct)
4. Django Unchained
5. Inglorious Basterds
6. Kill Bill 1 & 2
7. Jackie Brown

Shellhead wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote:

Shellhead wrote: this movie was ridiculously and needlessly violent

I don't think the phrase above makes much sense in a thread about Tarantino films. One of the Kill Bills had a beheading in it but comes at the top of your list.

All the violence at the Candie Plantation was completely unnecessary. They could have simply bought Django's wife and left. And then Django talked those guys into helping him go after the bounty, only to immediately shoot down all of his new allies. By contrast, the Bride was on a mission of pure vengeance, and everybody she killed was actively trying to kill her as well.

I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't remove the violence. One could argue that the Bride could have gotten in her car and driven into the sunset instead. She didn't, because there needed to be a bunch of violence to complete the movie.

Violence is the curry powder in the Tarantino Sauce.

S.

Gary Sax wrote: 1. Pulp Fiction
Head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe the best movie of the last 30 years?

_____________________________

I pretty much agree. And certainly Taratino's Top-10 contender for the 30-year list.