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!
NOTE: This article will be updated once the first half of his top 10 movies gets released. For now, check out his top 11-20!
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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