Unlocking Tarantino: The Shocking Truth Behind His 9 Films, Ranked from Best to Worst

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Ennio Morricone’s score goes to great lengths to add a huge sense of dread and isolation, which won him his first competitive Academy Award for a film score. The third act gets a little messy and maybe reveals its hand a bit too soon, but the performances, cinematography, and music keep this a hugely entertaining Western.

5. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

A debut feature film rarely showcases a filmmaker’s defining style and personality as confidently as Reservoir Dogs did. Made on a modest budget, Tarantino’s first movie follows a diamond heist that goes wrong, although the actual robbery is never shown. 

Instead, the film moves between the surviving criminals’ warehouse hideout and flashbacks that slowly reveal how the operation fell apart. This narrative device tells viewers exactly what kind of storytelling Tarantino likes—the mechanics of the crime matter less than the people and the air of suspicion involved, and the conversations that expose them. Who needs to see how the robbery went when the aftermath is this much more entertaining?

The opening scene is also a perfect example of the filmmaker’s approach to dialogue. The characters talk about everyday nonsense with the confidence of people who have known one another for years.

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Calling Pulp Fiction Tarantino’s magnum opus is hardly an original observation, but its reputation as a fan favorite is well deserved. The film takes a collection of Los Angeles crime stories and rearranges them into a nonlinear puzzle, and allows characters to disappear from the narrative only to return in unexpected places. 

Thanks to this, Vincent Vega can abruptly die in the middle of the story, and an encounter in a diner that occurs early in the film’s chronology can become its final scene. The structure isn’t all that easy to pull off, but the movie does it. 

John Travolta’s career-reviving performance as Vincent, Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules, Uma Thurman’s Mia, and Bruce Willis’s increasingly desperate Butch form a cast that understands the film’s rhythm instinctively. 

Other Tarantino films may surpass it in individual sequences or performances, but only some capture so many of its highs at once. 

3. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Few Tarantino films contain as many scenes that could stand alone as masterclasses in sheer tension as Inglourious Basterds. Christoph Waltz’s Landa is a major reason so many of these scenes work, but Mélanie Laurent, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Brad Pitt, and the rest of the ensemble are equally memorable in their own ways.

You might not realize that the film is around 70% non-English. German, French, and Italian are all naturally woven into the dialogue. The tavern sequence (with Michael Fassbender’s character) is especially effective since the characters’ ability to pass as someone they’re not depends on getting small linguistic and cultural details right.

Instead of playing out like a standard World War II drama, the movie subverts expectations by letting the characters rewrite history in an explosive finale inside a movie theater, and ends on a fittingly high note. 

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Anyone expecting your usual fast-moving Tarantino movie might find Once Upon a Time in Hollywood surprisingly patient and tame in comparison. Much of the film follows actor Rick Dalton and his stunt double, Cliff Booth, through an ordinary stretch of life (and its mundane tasks) in late-1960s Los Angeles. 

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt have terrific chemistry, with Rick’s insecurity and Cliff’s unshakable cool creating a friendship that feels genuine. 

The film’s recreation of 1969 Hollywood is pretty detailed, from its billboards and radio broadcasts to the television shows and movie theaters spread across the city. 

Just like with Inglourious Basterds, the movie eventually rejects the historical record in favor of a revisionist ending, turning the Manson family into the targets of a violent finale that completely pays off. 

1. Django Unchained (2012)

Django Unchained is Tarantino’s absolute best. Here, he’s operating with the confidence of a filmmaker who knows exactly how to make a scene land. Its story of a formerly enslaved man teaming up with a bounty hunter to rescue his wife from a plantation owner has the makings of a grand Western adventure, but the film’s greatest scenes are often the individual encounters. 

The writing is also among Tarantino’s strongest. The film also borrows heavily from the Italian Western tradition, beginning with Luis Bacalov’s theme and drawing on the visual language of Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 classic, Django. 

Its soundtrack is particularly interesting. Rather than having a traditional score, it combines older Western compositions with blues, soul, and even contemporary hip-hop. The modern tracks might seem an odd fit on paper, but they give the film an energy that fits with its revisionist approach to history. When “100 Black Coffins” starts playing, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting choice.