Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked

Though it failed to come anywhere close to matching the box office grosses or accolades of Pulp Fiction, released three years prior, Tarantino's third film is an understated, underrated gem that some critics today consider to be among the director's best works (or even his greatest work). As Tarantino did for John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, he helped revive the careers of Pam Grier and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown—which serves as an ode to 1970s "blaxploitation" cinema where Grier first became a star—and both actors would go on to collect Golden Globe nominations. Jackie Brown is also unique in Tarantino's filmography in that it's an adaptation of a novel: Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch.

"You savor every moment of Jackie Brown. Those who say it is too long have developed cinematic attention deficit disorder. I wanted these characters to live, talk, deceive and scheme for hours and hours." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Filmed in 70mm despite spending the majority of its runtime in a single room, this wintry 2015 western finds eight strangers gathered together to wait out a storm, only for things to turn rather murdery for everyone. While not ranking among the director's best works, it does feature the first western score from legendary composer Ennio Morricone since 1981—and it is somehow the only Morricone film score ever to win an Academy Award. An alternate version of the film now lives on Netflix as a four-episode miniseries featuring roughly 25 minutes of additional footage.

"At three hours, this Western whodunit can feel like too much of a good thing. But Tarantino writes like a flamethrower. His incendiary dialogue feels like profane poetry. And the dude thinks big." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

It took six years for Tarantino to follow 1997's Jackie Brown with another feature, though his next project was so big that it had to be divided into two films. (While it has never been officially released, a combined 215-minute supercut called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair that also makes numerous changes to the content of the first part was screened at Cannes in 2004 and does occasionally play at L.A.'s New Beverly Cinema, which Tarantino owns.) Both parts find Uma Thurman's "The Bride" seeking revenge against a group of assassins—in this movie, including Lucy Liu's Yakuza leader O-Ren Ishii and Vivica A. Fox's Vernita Green.

"The film may be bloody, but it's also bloody gorgeous: a grandly fetishized epic of cinematic aggression. It's a tale of vengeance that hinges on Tarantino's love of ferocity as spectacle -- his immersion in action and exploitation, his addiction to the jazzy catharsis of junk-film kicks." —Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Titled after a 1978 Italian film (The Inglorious Bastards) but not a remake or adaptation, Tarantino's 2009 hit is a World War II action-adventure that deviates from true events to depict a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Nominated for eight Oscars (including Tarantino's second directing nomination), Basterds features a terrific cast led by Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Mélanie Laurent, and Eli Roth. But it made a star (and an Oscar winner) out of then-unknown Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who first appears in the extended opening interrogation scene that features what might be Tarantino's best writing to date.

"Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a consummate Hollywood entertainment--rich in fantasy and blithely amoral." —J Hoberman, Village Voice

Released (in the U.S.) and reviewed—and thus scored—as one film, Grindhouse actually consists of two separate features (including one by Robert Rodriguez) supplemented by bonus material like fake trailers and advertisements. Tarantino co-produced the entire thing, but his directorial contribution is Death Proof, a 113-minute horror film starring Kurt Russell as a murderous stuntman.

Tarantino did have a hand in one other anthology film, directing one of the four segments of 1995's Four Rooms: "The Man From Hollywood," based on a Roald Dahl story. (That release is excluded from our ranking since he was responsible for such a small portion of the overall film and the segments were not scored individually.)

"I suspect that Death Proof will throw some of its director's admirers for a loop, though it may be the most revealing thing Tarantino has yet done -- a full-throttle expression of a singular artistic temperament disguised, like so many gems of grindhouses yore, as a glittering hunk of trash." —Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly

Tarantino wrote, directed, and even co-starred in his 1992 debut feature, a talky and violent thriller about a heist gone wrong that quickly became a cult classic. The director originally intended to make it on his own for a miniscule budget, but actor (and eventual star) Harvey Keitel signed on as a producer after reading the script, in turn attracting more funding and other talent (Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen), and the film eventually screened at Sundance, Cannes, and TIFF before making its way to theaters in the fall. Audiences at the time didn't know what to make of the often-comedic violence—especially a drawn-out torture scene (famously set to the Stealers Wheel tune "Stuck in the Middle With You") that caused walkouts in multiple theaters.

"If Quentin Tarantino's gritty, bone-chilling, powerfully violent new film, Reservoir Dogs, doesn't pin your ears back, nothing ever will...[It's] as caustic as battery acid. It's brutal, it's funny and you won't forget it. Guaranteed." —Hal Hinson, The Washington Post

Tarantino's highest-grossing release to date is this 2012 revisionist western/revenge thriller (like Inglourious Basterds, titled in honor of an Italian film, in this case 1966's Django) that stars Jamie Foxx as a slave who teams with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz, reuniting with the director after Basterds) to track down and capture or kill the Brittle brothers. Leonardo DiCaprio also stars in a rare villain role. Waltz won his second Oscar for his performance, as did Tarantino (for his screenplay).

"In 'Django,' Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet." —Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

The last (for now) and best of the Kills Bill finds Uma Thurman's The Bride continuing to avenge her near-killing by targeting the remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, ultimately culminating in a face-off with the group's leader, the titular Bill (David Carradine). Over the past 15 years (including as recently as this month), Tarantino has hinted at a third (and even a fourth) installment, but at the moment there are no concrete plans to continue the story.

"The film succeeds by expertly melding the two stages of Tarantino's career. The rambling Tarantino of 'Jackie Brown' and 'Pulp Fiction' is evident in every lovingly crafted and delivered monologue, each leisurely paced scene and long take. The more action-oriented, fight-intensive Tarantino reappears in the viscerally exciting bursts of ultra-violence that punctuate the stretches of dialogue." —Nathan Rabin, A.V. Club

If Tarantino follows through on his plans to make his potential upcoming Star Trek film his final feature, this 2019 Cannes hit represents his penultimate film, both in its timing, and—right now, at least—our ranking by Metascore. The director's best-reviewed feature in 15 years (and first film not to be released by the Weinstein brothers, for obvious reasons) is set in the film industry in late-1960s Los Angeles, stars Tarantino veterans Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and features Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, Dakota Fanning as Squeaky Fromme, and Damon Herriman as Charles Manson—though don't let those familiar names fool you into thinking that you know the story, as Tarantino once again rewrites history to suit his purposes.

"It sits at the mature end of Tarantino's work, bringing his tongue-in-cheek storytelling together with exquisite craft and killer lead performances from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. And yet, it's still very much a Tarantino film, trading in genuine emotion one minute, unapolegetically silly the next." —Dave Calhoun, TimeOut

Tarantino's second feature is a triptych of three crime shorts that remains to this day the director's best film in the eyes of many fans as well as the best-reviewed release in his filmography. For better and worse, Pulp Fiction revived the flagging career of star John Travolta, but it also made Tarantino himself a star. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes—which gave distributor Miramax the confidence to open the indie film in wide release, which paid off handsomely—and collected seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and best screenplay (the latter becoming Tarantino's first Oscar win, shared by Roger Avary).

"It is an exhilaration from beginning to end. It's the movie equivalent of that rare sort of novel where you find yourself checking to see how many pages are left and hoping there are more, not fewer." —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle