We often say that Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest film experts currently working. I myself mention this often in articles for HobbyCine, because I believe the director of pulp Fiction It is a legacy encyclopedia of the seventh art.
And I’ll say more: I believe that Tarantino not only has knowledge of the industry that would make any AI seem ridiculous in a real-time debate, but he also demonstrates this ability in the visual and sound spheres, as he never tires of demonstrating in his brief but fascinating filmography.
So… when they tell me that Quentin Tarantino made a ranking of your 20 favorite films of the 21st centuryI clap my hands and run to take a look to see what hidden gem this man saw and can discover me. Yes, we critics leave a lot of things out because, today, between films and series, we have something called life, and we don’t have enough time for everything.
Returning to the subject, Quentin Tarantino shared in one of his visits to the podcast Bret Easton Ellis your personal selection of the 20 best films from this first quarter of the century.
It has everything, which isn’t surprising from someone who comes from it, but it really surprises me that, with some honorable exceptions that go very far to the limit, the feature films mentioned are quite mainstream.
What are Quentin Tarantino’s 20 favorite films of this century?
Blockbusters, well-known directors or films that, for one reason or another, went viral at the time, adorn the list that Quentin Tarantino shared with the podcast.
It’s normal to find directors like Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan or Ridley Scott, but it would certainly have been nice to find works by less established filmmakers who also have highly commendable work. Look, this is the ordered list Tarantino shared:
- Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)
- Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
- Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
- Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
- Wells of Ambition (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Zodiac (David Fincher)
- Unstoppable (Tony Scott)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
- Zombie Party (Edgar Wright)
- Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
- Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku)
- Big Bad Wolves (Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado)
- Jackass the Movie (Jeff Tremaine)
- School of Rock (Richard Linklater)
- The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson)
- The Devil’s Renegades (Rob Zombie)
- Chocolate (Prachya Pinkaew)
- Moneyball: Breaking the Rules (Bennett Miller)
- Cabin Fever (Eli Roth)
- West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)
Several aspects stand out, starting with the absence of a non-English film in the top 10. The first is Japanese battle royale in eleventh place. Not long ago, Tarantino described “stupid“to literary critics who were fascinated at the time by the novels of the hunger games.
He did this by defending, precisely, battle royale and the novel from which it is inspired, disdaining literary criticism and highlighting that “They wouldn’t watch a Japanese movie like Battle Royale or they would have to“.
And, as I’ve been saying, it’s surprising that most, if not all, of the films are reasonably well-known. The “rarest” would be Chocolatewhich went viral in 2008, and Cabin feverwhich is perhaps the worst of the entire team, but how he directed Eli Rothand he and Tarantino are very close friends, well, free promotion. But it’s not an unknown film.
Honestly, I expected to be more surprised.
I don’t think Tarantino’s list is bad, mind you: almost all of these films are authentic films or, at least, references in their genre. Yes, Jackass: The Movie may not change anyone’s life paradigm, but it’s a type of cinema that exists and has spawned its own painful trend.
And of course a list of favorite films is the most personal thing in the world, and I won’t be the one to criticize Quentin Tarantino for his tastes, but I expected something more.
I was sure about movies like Toy Story or Battle Royale, because Tarantino talked about them a lot, but I was also hoping that the director would choose one of those movies that don’t go to theaters, almost no one knows about, and then suddenly you see it and it’s the best thing since the invention of pizza.
Of course you already know how this happens: you ask a lot of people the same question from one year to the next and they give you a radically different answer. Quentin Tarantino doesn’t seem to be one of them, but you never know. Anyway, less podcast and more clarification on what will be the tenth film with which he will “end” his directorial career. You made us nervous, Quentin.