Every movie year of the 1990s, ranked

If you’ve seen any legitimate percentage of posts on this blog, you will be aware that I love ranking stuff. I also love movies from the 90s. I also love the concept of the best movie years. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit on this sooner. Anyway, since it’s been 20 years and everyone’s reminiscing about it, the question of “is 1999 the greatest movie year ever?” has been asked a lot. The question I ask back is- is it even the greatest movie year of the decade? Maybe. Read to find out.

10- 1991

Essential films: The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Cape Fear, Beauty and the Beast, The Fisher King, Point Break, Boyz n the Hood, Barton Fink, Thelma and Louise, JFK, My Own Private Idaho, Bugsy, The Doors, Naked Lunch, Jungle Fever

The Silence of the Lambs is the big one here. After that, it kinda peters out. There’s a reason it became just the third film to sweep the big 5 oscar categories. Besides that, there’s Judgement Day, wildly considered to be one of the greatest sequels and action movies of all time. Barton Fink is one of the Coens’ most under appreciated works. Cape Fear is one of the all time greatest remakes and features an elite De Niro role. Oliver Stone had a big year with JFK and The Doors. There’s stuff from Spike Lee, David Cronenberg, the late John Singleton, Kathryn Bigelow, and Gus van Sant. That’s about it, which is still pretty strong considering how easily it’s the worst year on this list

Best Film: The Silence of the Lambs. How many films can spawn a legendary line that isn’t even in the movie, not even as a misquote?

9- 1992

Essential films: Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs, Malcolm X, A Few Good Men, A League of Their Own, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Scent of a Woman, Basic Instinct, Aladdin, Batman Returns, Wayne’s World, The Crying Game, The Player, My Cousin Vinny, Candyman, Howard’s End, Chaplin, Alien 3.

Despite being one of the weakest of the 90s, some great stuff came out of 1992. Lauded films by Spike Lee, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola (well at least it’s lauded in relation to most of his other stuff) were released. The best picture winner was Eastwood’s Unforgiven, which has been held up as one of his greatest works. A pair of famous quotes (“Coffee is for closers” and “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”) and Danny Devito’s Penguin round out the reasons that this is still a great year. But the major thing here is the beginning of the career of one Quentin Tarantino. He broke onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs, an era-defining work and still one of his best films. Another career, that of the great David Fincher, began as well with Alien 3, albeit less auspiciously. You’ll see more of him on this list, though.

Best film: Reservoir Dogs, even leaving the influence of it out of it.

8- 1996

Essential films: Fargo, Scream, Independence Day, The English Patient, The People vs Larry Flynt, From Dusk Till Dawn, Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Trainspotting, Space Jam, Sling Blade, The Birdcage, Mars Attacks, Happy Gilmore, Romeo + Juliet, Swingers, The Rock, Bottle Rocket, Hard Eight, The Cable Guy, Black Sheep

1996 is notable because there’s a lot that’s entered popular culture due to sheer ridiculousness: see Burton’s Mars Attacks, Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler vehicles The Cable Guy and Happy Gilmore, and of course, Space Jam. This is a great year, not because of the great films, but because of the interesting ones. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is one of the weirder Shakespeare adaptations out there, and it also helped launch the career of Leonardo DiCaprio, The Rock is Michael Bay before the Michael Bay-ness of it all got to his head, The Birdcage is a Mike Nichols comedy about a gay couple, played by Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, From Dusk Till Dawn stars George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, The People vs Larry Flynt is a movie by Milos Forman starring Woody Harrelson as a porn producer. The Mission: Impossible franchise started here, which is worth something, and Trainspotting launched the careers of Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor. Cuba Gooding Jr won an oscar for Jerry Maguire. This year also saw the debuts of not one, but two legendary auteurs with the last name of Anderson. Paul Thomas’ Hard Eight and Wes’ Bottle Rocket are similarly shoved towards the bottom of their respective outputs today, but they mark the arrival of tremendous talent. The true greatness of this year lies in The Coen Brothers’ dark masterpiece Fargo and Wes Craven’s seminal (for better or for worse) Scream. Both movies are unique and original in tone (well, Scream was until they made 3 sequels and a million unofficial remakes) and carry this year.

Best Film: It’s Fargo, but the temptation to go with Scream just because is hard to resist.

7- 1993

Essential films: Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, The Piano, The Fugitive, True Romance, Demolition Man, Mrs. Doubtfire, Groundhog Day, Dazed and Confused, Philadelphia, A Bronx Tale, Carlito’s Way, The Age of Innocence, Short Cuts, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Coneheads, Super Mario Bros.

The inclusion of legendary classics Coneheads and Super Mario Bros help 1993, but despite these enduring masterworks, the year belongs to Stephen Spielberg. The man made his greatest, most soul-crushing work and one of his most exhilirating, dinosaur-oriented classics in the same year. That’s incredible. He deservedly took home Best Picture and Best Director for Schindler’s List, miraculously beating out Coneheads auteur Steve Barron (I had to look that one up). This year also features the likes of Robert De Niro’s directorial debut A Bronx Tale, Altman Resurgence staple Short Cuts, Jane Campion’s acclaimed historical drama The Piano, and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, which is notable for being one of the only Linklater films set over a rational period of time. True Romance is fascinating: written by Quentin Tarantino, directed by Tony Scott, and starring the likes of Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper (who’s also Bowser in Super Mario Bros.), Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Samuel L Jackson, Christopher Walken, and James Gandolfini. Scorsese and Daniel Day Lewis teamed up to adapt Edith Wharton. Leonardo DiCaprio earned his first critical attention for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Groundhog Day is one of the funniest movies ever and it’s one of three contenders for the best Bill Murray performance (Caddyshack and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). I left a lot out of that write up, but at least I got to make my jokes about the Super Mario Bros movie.

Best Film: Super Ma- Schindler’s List. I meant Schindler’s List.

6- 1998

Essential Films: Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, The Big Lebowski, American History X, The Truman Show, Rushmore, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Antz, A Bug’s Life, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Shakespeare in Love, Blade, Out of Sight, There’s Something About Mary, Pi

1998 is a year of doubles. Two famous war films in Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. Two movies about space rocks coming to destroy earth with Armageddon and Deep Impact. Two talking ant movies in A Bug’s Life and Antz. That’s a strange list. Darren Aronofsky also debuted with Pi and Edward Norton established himself as a force to be reckoned with in American History X. Steven Soderbergh made one of his most renowned films in Out of Sight. Rushmore is the first true Wes Anderson film and still one of his best. It also gave us the line “OR they?”, which is a gift to mankind. The Truman Show features one of the most prominent Jim Carrey Dramatic Roles and also Ed Harris. The guy who directed There’s Something About Mary also did the most recent best picture winner, so blech. Now here are, in rough order, the top 10 quotes from The Big Lebowski, with no explanation.

10- What do you mean I brought it bowling, dude? I didn’t rent it shoes. I’m not buying it a f**ing beer. He’s not taking your f**ing turn, dude.

9- Is this your homework, Larry?

8- Nice marmot.

7- Obviously, you’re not a golfer.

6- Eight year olds, dude.

5- Mr Treehorn treats objects like women, man.

4- Careful man, there’s a beverage here.

3- You want a toe? I can get you a toe.

2- It’s a league game, Smokey.

1- He fixes the cable?

Best Film: Lebowski. If you’d say Saving Private Ryan, which is truly a great film, then that’s just like, your opinion, man. Sorry.

5- 1990

Essential films: Goodfellas, Miller’s Crossing, King of New York, Misery, The Godfather part III, Ghost, Dances With Wolves, Edward Scissorhands, Tremors, Jacob’s Ladder, Total Recall, Home Alone, Pretty Woman, Wild at Heart

Before I get to the fact that this is indisputably the greatest year in gangster movie history, let’s go over the other stuff. Misery is a great adaptation of an incredible book that features some of the best casting (and acting) of all time. Edward Scissorhands is one of the Burton-est Burton movies, which is a good thing. Wild at Heart won David Lynch the Palme d’Or. And now on to the gangster movies. Goodfellas is maybe the best movie in the history of the genre, in addition to being perfect in every single possible way and the best movie in the history of the world (I like this movie). King of New York is a wonderfully bats**t piece of absolute art that I also love and will totally write more about. For now I’ll leave it at this- it treats Christopher Walken as a leading man, which is rare but awesome, it’s the most stylized damn thing in the universe, which is also awesome, and I spent the entire day after I first saw it wondering if it was actually that good or if I was just tired. I decided that it is, in fact, that good. Miller’s Crossing is the third major gangster movie, which is the Coens’ only foray into the genre. It’s brilliant, complex, and it contains a scene of Albert Finney gunning people down from a burning building while Danny Boy plays. A perfect film. The final major gangster movie is, of course, The Godfather III, which is significant in that it is a Godfather movie. The renaissance of such a fantastic genre is what carries 1990 to its position, but it’s kept here by the rest of the year.

Best Film:

4- 1997

Essential films: Titanic, L.A. Confidential, Good Will Hunting, Boogie Nights, Happy Together, Jackie Brown, Face/Off, Con Air, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Lost Highway, Amistad, Gattaca, Scream 2, Grosse Pointe Blank, As Good as it Gets, Batman and Robin, Starship Troopers, Men in Black

Titanic won every Oscar known to man and made 6 trillion dollars. Whatever. On to the good stuff. L.A. Confidential is history’s greatest police movie (I will absolutely fight anyone on this). Boogie Nights is history’s greatest porn movie (by which I mean movie about porn. I also don’t foresee having to fight anyone on this one). Happy Together is one of Wong Kar-Wai’s darkest films, and also one of his most haunting and excellent (if you don’t know that name, learn it- he’s gonna come up a lot in the upcoming paragraphs). Jackie Brown is admittedly minor Tarantino, but it’s still an excellent film. Lost Highway is admittedly minor Lynch, but it also contains these two scenes so all is forgiven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdIlLn52Oak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDilD3wAxt8

Austin Powers is one of the funniest movies ever made. Scream 2 is the only valid horror sequel. Con Air and Face/Off harken back to an era when action movies had intriguing premises. Batman and Robin gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze.

Best film: Boogie Nights. It’s Anderson’s best work, and as much as I love L.A. Confidential, I love Boogie Nights slightly more.

3- 1995

Essential films: Seven, Heat, The Usual Suspects, Braveheart, Toy Story, Apollo 13, Clueless, 12 Monkeys, Casino, Billy Madison, Leaving Las Vegas, Jumanji, Tommy Boy, Before Sunrise, Fallen Angels, Sense and Sensibility

Or, The Year That The Academy Shafted The Actual Best Movies And Opted For An Insane Best Picture Slate That Included Freaking Babe. That was the original title, but they thought it was too long and so they changed it to 1995. For real, Seven, The Usual Suspects, and Heat were all famously shut out of the category, so they had to give it to Mel Gibson. Toy Story would’ve been a better choice, by a lot. 1995 also contained 12 Monkeys, a Terry Gilliam movie based on a famous experimental short film composed of still images. Casino is the one bad Scorsese movie, but the muffin scene is funny so there’s that. Linklater kicked off his legendary Before trilogy with Before Sunrise. Wong Kar-Wai made Fallen Angels, which is essentially a sequel/continuation of Chungking Express that also happens to be awesome. Tommy Boy is so good. Seven is Fincher’s first real movie, and contains one of the best endings ever. The Usual Suspects is weird to talk about now, given director Bryan Singer and star Kevin Spacey, but it really is a great movie. Billy Madison is the best Adam Sandler comedy.

Best film: Seven. Pitt’s performance in the finale might be the best acting of his career.

2- 1994

Essential films: Pulp Fiction, Chungking Express, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption, Leon: The Professional, The Lion King, Clerks, Forrest Gump, Natural Born Killers, Dumb and Dumber, The Mask, Ed Wood, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

This is a lot of people’s pick for the greatest movie year ever, and that’s not at all a crazy statement- it’s certainly up there. The sheer quality of the stuff towards the top solidifies it in the top 5 or so. It does kinda peter out after the first few, but it maintains quality enough to get to this point. Pulp Fiction and Chungking express are singular, inimitable masterworks from some of the greatest auteurs of all time. The Shawshank Redemption owns. Quiz Show also owns. Leon contains the best Gary Oldman performance. Forrest Gump… is here. The Lion King is one of the greatest Disney movies (and arguably the second greatest Shakespeare adaptation, after Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood). This was also the year Jim Carrey made it big, with the trifecta of Dumb and Dumber, The Mask, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Best Film: Pulp Fiction. But man, it’s tempting to go with Chungking.

1- 1999

Essential films: Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Beau Travail, The Matrix, American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, All About My Mother, The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Office Space, Magnolia, Bringing Out the Dead, The Green Mile, The Short Story, The Insider, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Yeah, this is the winner. The Matrix changed Sci-Fi forever, The Sixth Sense launched the career of M Night Shyamalan (which only Haley Joel Osment can see now OOOOOOH BURN), Office Space is hilarious, and Being John Malkovich is a glorious piece of gonzo awesomeness that is one of my favorite movies ever. Spectacular work in foreign films as well- the legendary Claire Denis delivered Beau Travail, her masterpiece, and Pedro Almodovar was in top form with All About My Mother, one of his warmest, sweetest films and a straight up classic. Acclaimed films from directors such as Mann, PTA, Scorsese, and Lynch. The first Star Wars prequel came out. The Blair Witch Project is bad but it started a trend of a zillion other bad movies (found footage horror is a cancer) and made a ton of money because it lied to market it so I guess it’s Culturally Significant.

The two key films to understanding 1999 are American Beauty, the year’s best picture winner about how everyone sucks but everyone is also good at heart and so they all go to heaven, and Fight Club, David Fincher’s cult classic about a society gone to hell. I’ve written at length on my feelings on American Beauty and its falsehoods, misconceptions, and general crappiness, and I probably will again. The thing that gets me about these two films is society’s conception of them. Fight Club is seen by many as something endorsing the kind of actions seen in the film (both by people who want to see it that way and by people who are disgusted by it). American Beauty seems like it’s making fun of its subjects, until it becomes clear that it’s actually supporting them (why does this movie have to suck so much it makes me sad). The movie that is actually a satire gets no credit for it and the one that’s depressingly not is considered as such. And that’s the one that took best picture. Weird year. But an important one.

Best Film: There’s so much here and a lot to be said for and against it all. So let’s call it South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.

Every Quentin Tarantino movie, ranked

Quentin Tarantino shouldn’t be a household name.

His films are brutally violent and insanely profane. His influences are mainly films that the average person has never heard of, and he borrows from every last one of them. His dialogue-driven films stand out in an era when box office titans are comprised of explosions and chase scenes (although Tarantino can do that well, too). A major component of his body of work is including songs that nobody’s ever heard of. He shouldn’t have any sort of mass following.

Yet he does. He’s one of the only auteur directors that still drives people to the theater in droves. And with good reason. His films are flashy and alluring, he attracts major talent (Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc.), and he’s just a straight-up cinematic genius. All of the aforementioned songs nobody has heard never of immediately become super popular. Individual moments, lines, and images from his filmography have become imbedded into popular culture. He deserves his fame simply because he’s just that good. He’s so good, in fact, that he’s never made a bad film. And that is where we begin in this ranking of all 9 Quentin Tarantino films. (Only counting directed films, so no True Romance or From Dusk Till Dawn. Kill Bill counts as one film. Spoilers ahead).

9- The Hateful Eight

Again, there’s no bad Tarantino film. There’s a bad half of one, however. The first half of The Hateful Eight serves one purpose, and it’s to get all of its characters into one place. That’s it. That’s half of a close to three hour movie. Now, that’s not to say that the first half is a total failure. It looks fantastic, and it’s incredibly well acted, especially on behalf of Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Bruce Dern. The reason that the movie itself isn’t bad is the second half. From the halfway point on, The Hateful Eight is so great that you almost forget how slow the first half is. Characters die at an alarming rate and every death comes out of nowhere. The tension built up in the first half pays off big time as everything comes to a head in a masterwork of tension. Most importantly, it’s an essentially Tarantinoesque film. It’s very dialogue driven and features almost all of his recurring actors, such as Jackson, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Zoe Bell, among others. And Ennio freakin’ Morricone did the score! But still, something had to be last.

8- Death Proof

It is perhaps my most unpopular opinion on Tarantino’s films that Death Proof is actually really good. It’s especially good for what it is, which is an intentionally cheap and sleazy tribute to the grindhouse movies of the seventies. And it works absolutely perfectly as that. It’s sleazy as hell and twice as gritty. It’s brutally violent and super cheap (which, again, is by design). It all comes together perfectly as a brilliant storm of pure cinematic bliss. The key to the whole thing, however, is Kurt Russell in one of his career best performances. His psychotic Stuntman Mike is one of the greatest villains in the Tarantino canon, and he’s the reason that what otherwise wouldn’t work works. It’s one of the greatest performances in all of Tarantino’s movies, and it’s so much fun (but also really guilt-inspiring) to watch him exact works of sheer evil and psychosis spanning both parts of the movie, the only thing tying both acts together. Both car scenes are masterful. The first, at the conclusion of the first half, is a brilliant scene, combining Tarantinoesque tension and elements of slasher horror to create something so brutal yet so utterly fantastic. The second, the climactic chase scene that runs for pretty much the entire fourth quarter of the film, is a work of pure technical precision. Tarantino directs the chase masterfully, and it’s fun to see him work outside of his typical comfort zone in trying (and succeeding) to craft an action sequence. Death Proof is not without its shortcomings, though. The third quarter of the film is just kinda nothing, and the premise really limits what it can be by design. Not a masterpiece, but it’s truly great and likely his most underrated film.

7- Jackie Brown

Tarantino’s films are their own genre, but yet they all seem to pay tribute to others. Reservoir Dogs is a heist movie, Pulp Fiction is an homage to the titular works, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight are westerns, Inglourious Basterds is a war movie, Kill Bill is like 19 different ones and Death Proof is a grindhouse film. Jackie Brown is Tarantino’s contribution to the early-70s blaxploitation genre, even going so far as to cast the biggest star of the movement in the title role. Pam Grier is phenomenal, but Jackie Brown (the film) is complicated enough that she’s not really the main character. Samuel L Jackson’s charismatic gun nut Ordell Robbie steals the show, Robert DeNiro’s (!) depraved, burnt-out Louis and Bridget Fonda’s sardonic Melanie play major roles, and Michael Keaton’s agent Ray Nicolette is… there. And of course, there’s Robert Forster (who earned Jackie Brown’s only oscar nomination for this role) as bail bondsman Max Cherry, who delivers the fifth best performance in this movie. The issue with this film isn’t that there’s too much going on, it’s that it isn’t handled well. Tarantino is adapting here, from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch. Watching Jackie Brown, it’s visible that it’s not entirely his work. It’s definitely a Tarantino film, but it’s not all there. Nevertheless, Jackie Brown can be fantastic at times. Jackson’s car-trunk assassination of one of his henchmen is a stellar scene, and his AK-47 monologue is so much fun. The plot is delightfully twisty and complex, and it has the vague feel of an Ocean’s 11-type heist thriller. It runs a little long and, unlike Pulp Fiction (which shares the runtime down to the minute), feels like it. Jackie Brown falls short of masterpiece status, but it’s still pretty great.

6- Django Unchained

We’re in the truly great stuff now. Everything from this point on, including Django, is a masterpiece, and it’s ridiculous that a film of this quality, a film that features Christoph Waltz as a bounty hunting dentist, falls on the bottom half of this list. Jamie Foxx’s fantastic lead role as the title character is overshadowed by some of the best performances in any Tarantino movie, on behalf of Waltz, Samuel L Jackson, and Leonardo DiCaprio (more on that one in a little bit). It’s a brilliant redemption story, and it contains one of the finest (and bloodiest) scenes in Tarantino’s filmography in the Candieland Massacre. It’s nothing short of an epic, something that might’ve been made by Sergio Leone or David Lean if they were buried in the pet sematary and came back more disturbed and violent. It’s also far more exhilarating and fun than any movie about slavery has any right to be, in kind of an Inglourious Basterds-type way. As for DiCaprio’s role, it’s one of his career best and it’s a shame he wasn’t even nominated for an oscar for it. His vindictive plantation owner, Calvin Candie, is nothing short of terrifying as he menaces over every single frame he’s in with conniving faux-properness. Django’s quest is probably the most compelling Tarantino has ever crafted, as the audience is with him all the way in the quest to find his wife. Django Unchained comes together in the kind of way that all of Tarantino’s best films do, and it’s certainly one of them.

5- Kill Bill

It’s one film. This is not negotiable. It’s one story and Vol. 2 picks up at the conclusion of Vol.1. It works best as a complete, glorious, 4-hour whole. The Bride is the second best Tarantino character (the best has yet to come on this list), and she’s played with masterful determination and sorrow by Uma Thurman. None of the main villains aren’t fleshed out (especially the eponymous one). In a feat incredibly rare for something of its length, not a single scene feels out of place. The house of blue leaves scene is one of my absolute favorite scenes in cinematic history, and Bill’s death is one of the greatest death scenes ever constructed. It’s a first-order epic, and everyone either loves or hates it. I’m a full-on devotee to the “love” side. It spans pretty much every genre, zigzagging from a Samurai film to anime to a western to a sort of exploitation horror-type thing (the box). The cliffhanger at the end of volume 1 is one of the best, and it’s scientifically impossible to watch it without immediately watching volume 2 (trust me, I know science and stuff). It’s impeccable, awesome, and brilliant. It’s the film that Quentin Tarantino would make if given an infinite budget and access to any actor he could want. How Thurman and David Carradine didn’t get oscar consideration baffles me.

4- Reservoir Dogs

Where it all started. Reservoir Dogs launched a half-dozen careers (including QT’s), revitalized a couple more (Harvey Keitel and Lawrence Tierney) and firmly entrenched itself into cinematic history. It’s one of the all time greatest independent films, and it’s an independent film to its very core (although it doesn’t really feel like it). It’s so famously low-budget that the iconic suits were provided for free by a crime film fan and the other clothes worn by the characters were the actors’ own. There’s so many iconic scenes, such as the opening diner scene (Like a Virgin and Steve Buscemi’s tipping monologue in the same scene), the slow-mo opening credits scene (one of the greatest opening credits sequences ever) and of course, that one. Michael Madsen’s psychotic lunatic torturing a cop to Stealer’s Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle with You is many things, including the greatest needle drop ever, possibly Tarantino’s finest scene, and the beginning of one of the greatest filmmaking careers of the modern era because, let’s face it, without it the film wouldn’t have been as big of a success. Reservoir Dogs is another one that just comes together perfectly, combining stellar performances, spectacular writing, and tension that you can cut with a knife on every single watch. Reservoir Dogs is a pop culture landmark and a cinematic masterwork, and it doesn’t even manage to crack Quentin Tarantino’s top 3 films.

3- Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood

Tarantino’s latest is one of his absolute best, which is odd considering how much it diverges from his other work. It’s far less urgent and tense, it progresses slowly, and it takes a far more humane and tender approach to its characters. (What could be construable as spoilers approaching) Its revisionism is done with glee, similar to Basterds and Django, but there’s a softer edge to it. These characters, for all of their outward projections of toughness and machismo, care about each other. But yet for all of Hollywood’s rarities, it couldn’t have been made by anyone else. It meanders and often stands still, but it contains sequences of tension unparalleled even in his own filmography. The Spahn Ranch sequence is one of his absolute best- it felt to me reminiscent of Basterds’ basement bar scene. And the climax is as shocking, violent, and brilliant as anything he’s ever done. Overall, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is essential Tarantino. It’s a completely unforgettable masterpiece. The further removed I am from my first viewing, the more I feel that this placement is right. Who knows? After further viewings, it might be even higher.

My full review of this film is here.

2- Inglourious Basterds

This was unbelievably close to taking the top spot. It’s another one of Tarantino’s latter-career revisionist history epics, an oddly specific genre he would return to for Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight (and, as it turns out, Once Upon a time in Hollywood). Basterds seems to get better with every rewatch, as every one of the aspects that makes it great holds up. Brad Pitt is at his best, Michael Fassbender is ridiculous in his two or three (not so brief) scenes, Christoph Waltz (duh) turns in an all time performance, and god it’s so much fun to watch Hitler’s skin slide off of his head. The climactic theater scene is incredible and it’s still not the best scene in the film. The half hour basement bar scene is possibly the greatest thing Tarantino has ever done, and it’s a masterclass in screenwriting, acting, and tension (soooo much tension). It’s so much fun, brilliant on a technical level, and unexpectedly funny (Hugo. Stiglitz.). It’s worth noting that Mike Myers is in it, and also Winston Churchill is played by Rod Taylor, who happens to be the male lead in Hitchcock’s The Birds (this isn’t necessary information, I just want as many people to know as possible). And now the time has come to talk about Waltz. His Nazi Hans Landa is disarmingly courteous and sophisticated, and he views his work as just that: work. He’s conniving, he’s terrifying, and worst of all- he’s charming. He’s Tarantino’s greatest character, period. He’s an all time great villain, and the secret to the whole thing. The opening scene at the farmhouse is one of the best acted ever, and it would work as a short film on an oscar-worthy level. Inglourious Basterds is perfect. It just might be Tarantino’s masterpiece.

1- Pulp Fiction

Shocker, right? There’s a reason that Pulp Fiction is consistently hailed as Tarantino’s masterpiece, and it’s that it’s simply one of the greatest films ever made. Endlessly rewatchable and quotable, Pulp Fiction is another one that has totally ingrained itself into pop culture. It features one of the all time best death scenes (Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face), is absolutely hilarious, (He hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up his ass…, also Marvin’s aforementioned demise). It’s Christopher Walken at his absolute best, if only for one scene (similar to his role in Annie Hall). Harvey Keitel is at a similar best in his iconic turn as The Wolf. Any number of scenes have become iconic, from the jackrabbit slim’s twist contest to the scene in Brent’s apartment (try to pick a favorite between “SAY WHAT AGAIN” and “ENGLISH, MOTHERF***ER”). Bruce Willis is in peak form, as are (obviously) Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta. The final scene in the diner stands out as one of the most well-written in all of Tarantino’s films. Don’t even get me started on the theory that the briefcase contains Marsellus Wallace’s soul. There’s too much to talk about with Pulp Fiction and most of it has been said already, so suffice it to say that it’s a masterwork that works ceaselessly throughout its entire runtime. As close as Inglourious Basterds may be, this is the obvious number one. In the 25 years since its release, Tarantino has never topped it, nor has anyone else (with the exception of maybe Barry Jenkins with Moonlight). Tarantino’s career is as illustrious as anyone’s, and this is the film that epitomizes that. I’ve been writing for two hours now, so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go home and have a heart attack.