Quentin Tarantino is a world-famous writer, producer and director, he even does some acting in some of his films but often not a major role, he has been involved in a host of films, TV shows and even gaming a little, but he’s known for his films that he was solely involved in, there snot many as he’s not a writer/director that produces 1 to 2 films a year, he’s has a cult following and arguably changed the face of independent cinema in the early ’90s, and began a change in this style of the film.
There are several directors that have been genre-defining and there are several for me that follow my cinematic adventure, Quentin Tarantino has produced some of my favourite films and so different to many of the others that I love, I grew up on these films, I was a touch too young for the first way round of the earlier ones but only just, so essentially my adult teenager to adult life was filled with these films.
Wanting to do a Top 5 of my choice was tough, but I wanted to focus on the films that he wrote and directed, So Natural Born Thrillers, True Romance and From Dusk till Dawn were all excluded even though they are essentially his films and fantastic, so ill look at those main films.
Table of Contents
Inglorious Basterds
A different type of films from 2009, set in a more fictional side of WW2 featuring Brad Pitt, Christopher Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth and Many others and is more of a satirical look at a War story, but don’t get me wrong its full or great characters an interesting story and is an excellent film, its won a host of awards and commercially was a great success, it is a good film in my opinion and just makes the list
Django Unchained
In 2012 Django hit the cinemas to critics but also multiple awards and this is the split from the film, it Starred Jamie Foxx, Christopher Waltz, Leonardo Dicaprio among others, but its overly offensive language, violence and subject matter certainly split alot of people, but in reality, alot of what happened was based on real life, and for a man that’s how it was, the bounty Hunter side of it and romantical part of the story is beyond lifelike but still it’s set in a tough era for America, for me the performances of Waltz and Leo was tremendous and arguably were my favourite of any Tarantino film…which is a strong statement, but it is a great film.
Reservoir Dogs
The film that arguably started it all, even though he had been involved and was still involved in some of the other films and TV, this film launched him, to the cinematic world, it was technically an independent film and if you subject matter it, the film from 1992 was a crime thriller that had lots of monologues and a little flash backlinking it together, there was a tiny bit of action but that wasn’t the point it was the storytelling of the characters, its for me there favourite Tarantino film and I get it, another year it could have been mine, it’s gone up and down in my mind as the years have gone through.
Kill Bill Vol 1&2
In Tarantinos collection of Genres within his films, he wanted to do a martial arts film, thus in 2003 Kill Bill Vol 1 was released a year later the second was release as this was originally one film, but because of its length, they split it to create the two parts. The first one was a huge success both for its style, characters and its music which at this point for Tarantino films had become almost as respected as the film, this was no different and for me, the soundtrack was as memorable as the film, Starring a great cast of Tarantino ESC actors like Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Davi Carradine and many many others. The second film was still hugely successful much to do with the hype brought from the first, personally, I prefer the first one of the two but in reality, it’s still one long film, Uma’s Yellow and black outfit is iconic and there are so many excellent parts to this film, out of all the films he’s done so far this was the one that had the most impact on me and is arguably my favourite, the only thing that pulls it ever so slightly done is the second one, it feels like it just goes on a bit too long and the end is a little underwhelming after near 4 hours of delight.
Pulp Fiction
After the acclaimed success of Reservoir Dogs and the respected True Romance film that Tarantino had a hand in, the eyes of the film world were on Pulp Fiction and it still had that edgy independent feel to it, so in 1994 to an interesting cast, to say the least, it was a major success and arguably established Tarantino as the real deal, this film neo-noir crime style film was even more unusual as it was shown in a non-chronicle order and was the traditional story of start middle and end, it focused on several characters and stories at different times that overlap slightly but no in any order, it was clever and didn’t detract from the quality of the film and made it even better, from the very beginning in the Cafe to Samual L Jackson and John Travolta in the apartment to Bruce Willis and kidnapping scenes, it was full of iconic moments but perhaps none more than John Travolta and Uma Thurman in their scenes that are still widely known now. The cast is phenomenal a young Uma Thurman which we would see again… to Samuel L Jackson who had done several roles at this point but this was arguably his break outperformance, to Bruce Willis taking a very different role to the last few years.. to John Travolta who arguably steals the shows with his performance, after being world-famous highly successful in the ’70s and early ’80s, his roles in the early ’90s had dried up and this was arguably a restart in his career, and this is arguably a special thing Tarantino can do, take an Actor and get the best out of them.
Overall
Over the years I will go back and watch alot of the films and these are possibly the ones I will go back and watch, after recently rewatching them these stands out for me, of course, there are other great films, Hateful 8 was different and clever but dragged a little for me, Jackie Brown was fine but not my favourite, I didn’t enjoy Death Proof personally, and then there’s Once upon a Time in Hollywood, the latest in film, I feel I need to rewatch it to give a judgement and perhaps would it be in my top 5 ? maybe but nothing really happens, and it would be a toss-up with Inglorious Basterds. However it’s still one of my favourite collections of films from one of my favourite directors and worthy of an individual Top 5 because in reality, his films are different and they’re different to each other, they are iconic.
