Quentin Tarantino, one of the largest and most influential directors of his time, has officially released his personal top 20 movies.
If you're looking to take a deep dive into what he likes, this list is, as expected, filled with violent and horror films that potentially influenced his filmmaking methods. Here's where to watch them all online!
1. Black Hawk Down (2001) by Ridley Scott
"I liked [Black Hawk Down] when I first saw it, but I actually think it was so intense that it stopped working for me, and I didn't carry it with me the way that I should've [...]," Tarantino said, "But I think it's a masterwork, and one of the things I love so much about it is [...] this is the only movie that actually goes completely for an Apocalypse Now sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling, and I think it achieves it."
Who would question that Tarantino's number one favorite would be a war movie? Specifically, the gritty war film based on Mark Bowden's novel, which depicts the chaotic 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, where US soldiers (including Rangers and Delta Force) got trapped in a mission to capture Somali warlord Aidid's lieutenants.
Purchase or Rent: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV
2. Toy Story 3 (2010) by Lee Unkrich
The eight-time Academy Award winner put Toy Story 3 as his number 2, which he describes as something "remarkable", considering how "perfect" the ending was to the trilogy.
"That last five minutes ripped my f***ing heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I'll start crying and get choked up [...] It's just remarkable. It's almost a perfect movie," he said.
Tarantino added, "I think people never nail the third film of a trilogy. I think the other one is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to me, and this is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of animated films. This is the greatest end of a trilogy."
Streaming Platforms: Disney+
3. Lost in Translation (2003) by Sofia Coppola
"I fell so much in love with Lost in Translation that I fell in love with Sofia Coppola and made her my girlfriend [laughs]," Tarantino said during the interview, "[Lost in Translation] was like it was out of a Jane Austen novel. I didn't know her well enough to get together on my own, but I kept going to events [...] I spoke to Pedro Almodóvar about this, and we both agreed it was such a girlie movie, in such a delicious way."
The Pulp Fiction helmer added, "I hadn't seen such a girlie movie in a very long time, and I hadn't seen such a girlie movie like that be so well done."
Lost in Translation essentially follows two lonely Americans living and striving for life in Tokyo, with a movie star slowly fading from the industry and a young college graduate, who form an unlikely connection together.
Purchase or Rent: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV
4. Dunkirk (2017) by Christopher Nolan
Dunkirk, a war movie based on a true story in 1940, in which Allied troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, is another film that Tarantino initially "didn't like" but warmed up to it after a few more times of rewatching.
"What I now love about it is that I feel there's a real mastery to it, and I came around to it watching it again and again and again," Tarantino explained, "The first time, it's not like it left me cold — it was so kind of gobsmacking, I didn't really know what I saw, it was almost too much, and then the second time I saw it, my brain was able to take it in a little bit more, and then the third time and the fourth time, it was just like, wow, it just blew me away."
Streaming Platforms: HBO Max/Max, Netflix
5. There Will Be Blood (2007) by Paul Thomas Anderson
Ruthless oilman Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) builds an oil empire in early 20th-century California, clashing with Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a charismatic preacher, over land and souls, all while Daniel's adopted son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), becomes a pawn in his conquest to rise above it all.
Tarantino had nothing but praise for There Will Be Blood, "Daniel Day-Lewis. The old-style craftsmanship quality to the film. It had an odd Hollywood craftsmanship without trying to be like that. It was the only film he's ever done, and I brought it up to him, that doesn't have a set piece. The fire is the closest to a set piece."
He added that it would've made it to his #1 or #2, had it not been for the "giant flaw" he saw in it: "[Dano] is weak sauce, man. He is the weak sister. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. He's just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest f***ing actor in SAG [laughs]."
Streaming Platforms: Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video
6. Zodiac (2007) by David Fincher
"When I first watched Zodiac, I wasn't that into it, and then it started playing the movie channels, and the first thing I knew, watching 20 minutes of it, 40 minutes of it, and I realized this is a lot more engaging than I remember it being, and it kept grabbing me in different sections, so I decided to watch this goddamn thing again, and it was a whole different experience from that point on," Tarantino said.
Zodiac is the name of a serial killer who stalks San Francisco residents in the late 1960s and 1970s. Investigators (Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards) and reporters (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr.) turned this mission into an obsession with wanting to unmask the killer's identity and bring him to justice.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
7. Unstoppable (2010) by Tony Scott
"It's one of my favorite last movies of a director. I've seen it four times, and every time I see it, I like it more," Tarantino recalled, upon placing Unstoppable as his top 7. "If you asked me years ago, I would have put Man on Fire on the list, but Unstoppable is one of the purest visions of Tony's action aesthetic, the two guys are great together, and it gets better and better."
As Tarantino puts it, Unstoppable is "one of the greatest monsters of our time," in which an unmanned train roars out of control, leading to countless human lives being taken, bringing an environmental disaster along its way. Tarantino believes it's "stronger than Godzilla, stronger than those King Kong movies."
Streaming Platforms: Hulu, Disney+
8. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) by George Miller
If there's one reason Tarantino almost missed out on Mad Max: Fury Road, it's this: "I was actually not going to see it for the simple reason that in a world where Mel Gibson exists, and he's not playing Max? I want Mad Mel!"
Tarantino added, "Then I saw it. The great stuff is so great, and you're watching a truly great filmmaker; he had all the money in the world and all the time in the world to make it exactly as he wanted."
Years after civilization collapsed, the tyrannical Immortan Joe enslaves apocalypse survivors inside the desert fortress. It's one of the most iconic films that made Mad Max the franchise it is today, in which they try to outrun the ruthless warlord and his henchmen in a deadly high-speed chase through the Wasteland.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
9. Shaun of the Dead (2004) by Edgar Wright
Shaun of the Dead is another classic in the parody movies category; the movie follows 30-something loser Shaun, who ends up leading when the town gets suddenly overrun with zombies.
"My favorite directorial debut, even though he did a cheapie debut movie that he doesn't like to talk about [...] I loved how much he loved the Romeo universe he recreated," Tarantino said, "The script is really terrific, it's one of the most quotable films on this list, I still quote the line 'the dogs don't look up.'"
Despite the parody movie's nature, Tarantino refuses to believe it's a spoof of zombie movies: "It's a real zombie movie, and I appreciate the distinction."
Streaming Platforms: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video
10. Midnight in Paris (2011) by Woody Allen
Midnight in Paris, to Tarantino, was not so much about the screenwriter traveling to the past and learning about the Jazz Age icons, as much as the director tried to gauge whether he liked Owen Wilson or not throughout the film.
"I really can't stand Owen Wilson," Tarantino admitted, "I spent the first time watching the movie loving it and hating him. The second time I watched it, I was like, 'ah, okay, don't be such a prick, he's not so bad.' Then the third time I watched it, I found myself only watching him."
Streaming Platforms: Amazon Prime Video
11. Battle Royale (2000) by Kinji Fukasaku
Battle Royale does somewhat deal with similar themes and elements shown in The Hunger Games, except this dystopian world involves a class of Japanese students being sent to a remote island to kill each other.
"I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn't sue [Hunger Games author] Suzanne Collins for every f***ing thing she owns," Tarantino said when he guested on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast, where he unveiled his top 20 movies:
"They just ripped off the f***ing book. Stupid critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called Battle Royale, so the stupid book critics never called her on it — they talked about how it was the most original f***ing thing they'd ever read."
Streaming Platforms: Amazon Prime Video
12. Big Bad Wolves (2014) by Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado
Tarantino had nothing but praise for Big Bad Wolves, "This has got a fantastic script and a similar storyline to Prisoners [...] they handle it with guts and balls — you know the American movie wouldn't do that [...]."
Big Bad Wolves centers on three men: a suspect who manages to escape being arrested due to a lack of evidence, the father of the girl who was brutally murdered, and a cop who would stop at nothing to get the answers.
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
13. Jackass: The Movie (2002) by Jeff Tremaine
Jackass: The Movie is a comedic documentary, an entirely different genre from what Tarantino's tastes usually revolve around, but it made it on his top 13!
From boys in panda suits to romping through Tokyo in the name of fun, the Academy-winning director hails this as one of the funniest movies he's ever seen.
"This was the movie I laughed at the most in these last 20 years," Tarantino recalled he had 'never laughed' at something from beginning to end since Richard Pryor. "As I was making Kill Bill, I thought this movie was so f***ing funny I had to show it to the crew. So we found a print, watched the movie, and just died."
Purchase or Rent: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV
14. The School of Rock (2003) by Richard Linklater
Another oddball on this list is The School of Rock, but there's just something about Jack Black and the Battle of the Bands that tickled Tarantino's funny bone.
"It was a really fun time at the theaters. It was a real fun, fun, fun screening," Tarantino said, "I do think this one had the explosion of Jack Black combined with Rick Linklater and Mike White—that made it special [...] this is as close to Bad News Bears as we ever got."
Streaming Platforms: Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+
15. The Passion of the Christ (2004) by Mel Gibson
It's not all about blood and gore, sometimes, even something as religious as The Passion of Christ snuck its way on Tarantino's list of Top 20s, but probably not quite the same reason why religious people liked it.
"I was laughing a lot during the movie. Not because we were trying to be perverse, laughing at Jesus getting f***ed up—extreme violence is just funny to me—and when you go so far beyond extremity, it just gets funnier and funnier," Tarantino added, "Mel did a tremendous directorial job. He put me in that time period. I talked to Mel Gibson about this, and he looked at me like I was a f***ing nut."
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
16. The Devil's Rejects (2005) by Rob Zombie
As the title implies, the Devil works hard, but the psychopathic Firefly family works bloodier. The Devil's Rejects follows two members of the clan, Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), who managed to flee from the home raid to keep their murder spree numbers coming.
Tarantino happened to have had a blast and applauded the performance altogether, "This rough Peckinpah—cowboy—Manson thing [from Zombie]—that voice didn't really exist before [in House of 1000 Corpses], and he refined that voice with this movie [...] Peckinpah wasn't part of horror before this. He melded it with sick hillbillies, and it's become a thing now."
Streaming Platforms: HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video
17. Chocolate (2008) by Prachya Pinkaew
"Here's a movie you probably never heard of [...]," Tarantino starts, "People getting f***ed up in the most spectacular of ways [...] they trained this 12-year-old girl for four years to star in this movie [...] this is some of the greatest kung-fu fights I've ever seen in a movie."
Zen is the product of a liaison between her Thai mother and a Japanese gangster, who wasn't aware he even had a daughter. As she grew up, diagnosed as being autistic, the condition enhanced her abilities to become one of the greatest martial arts practitioners out there. You'll have to stream the movie if you want to find out more!
Purchase or Rent: Amazon Prime Video
18. Moneyball (2011) by Bennett Miller
Based on a true story, Moneyball is one of those stories that dreamed of taking on the system.
Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, who assembles the team. Forced to make his team on a tight budget, Beane would have to outsmart the richer clubs with his limited resources.
"Brad Pitt's performance was one of my favorite star performances of the last 20 years—where a movie star came in and reminded you why he was a movie star and just carried the movie on his shoulders."
Purchase or Rent: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV
19. Cabin Fever (2003) by Eli Roth
Who would've thought that a simple vacation in the mountains would lead to one of the creepiest experiences seen on the big screens?
Cabin Fever follows Bert, the college student, who mistakenly shoots a local man with a skin infection in the woods. The local man ended up in the reservoir, infecting the water supply, soon bringing karma to Bert and his friends, unable to stop the contagious, flesh-eating disease.
"There's something so charming. Eli's sense of humor, sense of gore—it just really, really works," Tarantino said, "People kind of forget how tense it is in the first half because it gets so genuinely funny in the last 20 minutes [...] Hostel might be his best movie, but this is my favorite."
Streaming Platforms: Amazon Prime Video
20. West Side Story (2021) by Steven Spielberg
"This is the one where Steven shows he still has it," Tarantino said, "I don't think Scorsese has made a film this exciting [this century]. It revitalized him [...] I couldn't believe I liked the lead [Ansel Elgort] as I didn't like him in anything else."
Love at first sight leads to two teens, Tony and Maria, falling in love at a high school dance in 1957 New York City, despite the warring Jets and Sharks between two rival gangs vying for their territory of the streets.
Streaming Platforms: Amazon Prime Video
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