Your Favourite Tarantino Movie (revised)

[BigJake]

The original version of this thread accidentally listed Jackie Brown twice in the poll. I can't find a way to correct that, so I'm encouraging the mods to delete the original.

I'm put in mind of this because I'm currently watching "Django Unchained" for the Nth time (plainly my favourite Tarantino movie, eclipsing Jackie Brown), and I'm curious to see how Tarantino fares on the board.

Choices on the poll consists of movies directed by Tarantino.

 

[EnriqueH]

Good topic.

I gotta go with Pulp Fiction, which I saw in theaters 3 times when it came out.

Not only was it a great film, but it was influential, fun, colorful, filled with quotable dialogue, wonderful performances, and scenarios.

(Pulp Fiction will probably always be to Tarantino what Citizen Kane was to Orson Welles, even though both men have gone to make other great films.)

Ever since, I've made it a point to see every Tarantino movie in the cinema at least once.

Here's how I rank them:

Pulp Fiction
Jackie Brown (his most underrated IMO)
Inglorious Basterds
Kill Bill 1
Kill Bill 2
Django Unchained (so far, I've seen it once, but I may bump it up with repeat viewings. I also haven't seen the Kill Bills in years, though I did see them multiple times when they debut in the cinema and on DVD.)
Reservoir Dogs
Death Proof

I know he directed a scene in Sin City and a skit in Four Rooms, but I don't know that it's enough to rank them in the same list as the other full-length features.

 

[Amaris]

Pulp Fiction was a damn good film.
I'd have Inglorious Basterds as runner up.

 

[Gaith]

Though he didn't direct it, I'd call True Romance much more a QT film than Sin City, with its one scene directed by him. Regardless, it's Basterds for moi. Pulp Fiction is great, but I can't resist the one-two punch of Mr. Waltz and Ms. Laurent.

 

[Lucky]

I think I'll have to go with Reservoir Dogs. Always loved the basic story and complex characterizations.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The ones I've seen I'd rank as:

1. Kill Bill, vol. 1
2. Kill Bill, vol. 2
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Pulp Fiction

I think that Kill Bill, vol. 2 is nearly as good as Kill Bill, vol. 1, but since the poll is a radio button , I'll have to separate them and go with my #1.

 

[Beagleman]

For me it's a tie between both Kill Bills and Pulp Fiction. I must say I'm a bit surprised to see Inglourious Basterds so high on so many lists, except for for some briliant performances I thought the film was a bit of a mess...

 

[CaptainCanada]

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Jackie Brown
3. Django Unchained
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Kill Bill, vol. 1
7. Kill Bill, vol. 2

 

[Lonemagpie]

Tie between Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Django Unchained, but I clicked on Jackie Brown just because nobody else had yet.

Kill Bill would be in the tie if it was one single piece.

 

[J.T.B.]

I had a buddy who was working at the Sundance festival in '92 and he kept going on about Reservoir Dogs, I had to see it, it would change my life etc. So as soon as it hit the local art house we went, and it actually lived up to the buildup he had given. I'd never seen anything like it. We almost counted the days to Pulp Fiction, and it didn't disappoint.

My favorite, though, is Jackie Brown; I thought it had a lot of heart and some really nice, "human" performances, as opposed to glib, bantering cool cats and cool chicks. I had hoped that Tarantino would continue in that direction, but the later movies got more cartoony, stylized, ironic and inside-referential. The Kill Bills and Django were OK, but I really hated Inglorious Basterds by the end. Overall, Tarantino hasn't gone in a direction that interests me much.

 

[JWPlatt]

I'd prefer that Kill Bill was listed as a single entity. It is the only film on the list that I can put on for repeat viewings any time and watch any single chapter for a few minutes or the entire film for entertainment.

 

[BigJake]

Yeah, I thought about that, but it was released as two movies and some people have very particular opinions about one vs. the other.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm hoping he does make Kill Bill Vol 3 because I'm 90% sure it will be about Vernita Green's daughter trying to get revenge on Bea.

The first two really do work best as one entity. Because the moment when Budd shoots Bea is funnier if you watch it right after the O-Ren sequence (Knowing then that if just ONE of those people had a gun instead of a sword it would have been over immediately).

As I mentioned in the other thread I like his earlier genre play movies more than I like his later revenge porn movies.

 

[Garak]

Tough call. Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are classics, the Kill Bills were just unreal, Django is so entertaining, but I'd probably have to go with Inglorious Basterds. The revisionist history at the end in the movie theater was just awesome.

He also wrote one of my favorite movies of all time, True Romance.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Part of the charm of KBv2 derives from Bill being in many ways the Mirror Universe version of Kwai Chang Caine. I'm an enormous fan of Kung Fu, so I literally don't mind at all watching Bill and Beatrix simply talk for the extended period it takes for the tension to slowly build to the awesome climax. Basterds also has prolonged dialog exchanges and monologues, the nature and context of which help make it the exceptional movie it also is. YMMV.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I just reread your post above. Awesome climax? Five fingers of death, three seconds of alleged suspense. Part Two's so much longer than one, which also kills its momentum for me.

Yep. Very awesome. I was totally surprised that they went there, to that place that's quite fitting of the chop-socky genre. They'd dropped a few hints along the way and established that there was such a technique in plenty of time so that it's definitely not deus ex machina. But they also played it close enough to the vest to keep it a total surprise that it would end that way, at least to me. Really good balance there, I thought. But as I said also, YMMV.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Now DEATH PROOF's ending is chintzy beyond belief, yet wildly fulfilling just the same. Kurt Russell was hilarious in the end.

The ending was the one thing I liked about Death Proof.

I would say The Great Dictator was the 1940s version of The Interview only The Great Dictator was actually funny. (That one came out BEFORE America entered the war.)

In it Charlie Chaplin plays both Hitler and a Jewish barber, and in the end they switch places and Hitler is dragged away as a Jew.

 

[Gaith]

I'm hoping he does make Kill Bill Vol 3 because I'm 90% sure it will be about Vernita Green's daughter trying to get revenge on Bea.

[...]

As I mentioned in the other thread I like his earlier genre play movies more than I like his later revenge porn movies.

Anyone else see the glaring contradiction here?




(Hint: KB1 is by far the revenge porniest of Tarantino's films to date, as is, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, KB as a whole.)

 

[BigJake]

I just reread your post above. Awesome climax? Five fingers of death, three seconds of alleged suspense. Part Two's so much longer than one, which also kills its momentum for me.

Yep. Very awesome. I was totally surprised that they went there, to that place that's quite fitting of the chop-socky genre. They'd dropped a few hints along the way and established that there was such a technique in plenty of time so that it's definitely not deus ex machina. But they also played it close enough the vest to keep it a total surprise that it would end that way, at least to me. Really good balance there, I thought. But as I said also, YMMV.

I totally agree with this. In general vol. 2 is my favourite of the two Kill Bills.

 

[Melakon]

I am the only person in North America who has not seen even one of Tarantino's films.