The best and worst Quentin Tarantino movies (including 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood')

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Leonardo DiCaprio. Brad Pitt. Margot Robbie. How many stars can you spot in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood?”
USA TODAY

You’d probably never want to be in a Quentin Tarantino film, where the chances of getting suddenly shot in the face are inordinately high, but you always know when you’re watching one.

There’s the blood and ultraviolence, for starters. And the cursing, of course. Plus the protagonists who don’t lean heroic. And the deep cuts of the soundtracks, some funky and others just cool. And all that style. But most importantly, a consistent sense of quality.

It’s true, the movies in Tarantino’s eclectic oeuvre – including the writer/director’s latest, “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” – range from decent to legendary. Over the past 27 years, that means nary a stinker in the bunch.

Here’s how his star-studded “Once Upon A Time” – which reteams the auteur with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in 1969-era Los Angeles – stacks up against his other films:

Review: ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’ is a fairy tale only Quentin Tarantino could tell

Margot Robbie: Actress reveals she felt ‘enormous sense of responsibility’ portraying Sharon Tate

10. ‘Kill Bill: Volume 2’ (2004)

There is a huge quality gap between the spectacular first “Bill” and the just-OK second, with action traded for chattiness in the kung fu sequel. The Bride (Uma Thurman) hunts down the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad responsible for her near-death experience, including former lover Bill (David Carradine). Bonus points for some satisfying third-act reveals and the rather cool Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.

9. ‘Jackie Brown’ (1997)

The only Tarantino film based on outside source material – in this case, Elmore Leonard’s 1992 book “Rum Punch” – “Jackie Brown” is a homage to blaxploitation films of yesteryear with a great cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton and Robert De Niro. But it’s Pam Grier, as a 40-something flight attendant who smuggles money on the side, who’s truly dynamite in a welcome return back to the big screen.

8. ‘Death Proof’ (2007)

Part of the “Grindhouse” double feature (with Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror”), “Proof” goes to some intriguing places in mashing up genres, from slasher tropes to feminist empowerment. And “Proof” also gives us the rare Kurt Russell supervillain: Stuntman Mike is a serial killer who chases women and murders them using his “death-proof” car. That is until he messes with a trio of female friends (Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms) who fight back in an equally vicious manner.

7. ‘Django Unchained’ (2012)

Tarantino gave Southern slavery and racism the spaghetti Western treatment with a noteworthy team-up: Freedman Django (Jamie Foxx) and dentist bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) take down sibling outlaws in Tennessee before heading to Mississippi to find Django’s wife. The super-violent and brutal death matches between slaves are hard to watch, but DiCaprio’s smooth and sinister plantation owner Calvin J. Candie is an over-the-top villain to savor.  

6. ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)

From gangsters discussing Madonna’s musical catalog in the beginning to the bloodshed and betrayal later, Tarantino’s first feature film showed glimpses of the referential and nonlinear storytelling that would soon put him on the map with “Pulp Fiction.” The cast is also excellent, from Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel to Tim Roth and Michael Madsen, as well-dressed crooks in dire straits.  

5. ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’ (2019)

Tarantino’s love letter to the LA where he grew up in the 1960s finds the tale of a fading TV star (DiCaprio) and his stunt double (Pitt) intersecting with the fate of up-and-coming actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). While somewhat staid considering the auteur’s usual work, he conjures some magic re-creating the changing culture of the time and unleashes his male leads – especially DiCaprio – for a couple of knockout performances.

4. ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)

Tarantino goes the Western route again but this time with a bunch of blizzard-bound ne’er-do-wells stuck in a cabin for a murder-mystery potboiler. From a couple of post-Civil War bounty hunters (Jackson and Kurt Russell) to an unhinged fugitive (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a loquacious executioner (Tim Roth), they’re a morally questionable crew and you can’t trust a one. In other words, the kind of folks Tarantino does best.

3. ‘Kill Bill: Volume 1’ (2003)

There aren’t a lot of pure heroes in Tarantino’s films, but Thurman’s The Bride is the closest – and one an audience easily gets behind, thanks to the actress’ natural charisma, her circumstances (getting shot in the head on her wedding day) and the unholy hell she unleashes in a Bruce Lee jumpsuit. The Toyko action sequence pitting a sword-wielding Bride against any army of Yakuza henchmen (and a schoolgirl with a deadly ball and chain) is all-time stuff, yet Tarantino ventures outside the box, too, like with an animated backstory for Bride foe O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu).

2. ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009)

Tarantino makes his war picture that’s just as much a revenge fantasy, and one that playfully uses a David Bowie song before a vengeful woman (Melanie Laurent) torches a theater full of Nazis. While maybe not the most historically accurate World War II film, “Basterds” is one of the most pleasurable and fun – depending on your point of view – with Pitt as the leader of a team of German-scalping soldiers and Christoph Waltz as one of the more rascally and despicable villains in the director’s rogues’ gallery.

1. ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)

We don’t get many completely game-changing movies anymore, but those who watched this in a movie theater 25 years ago – once they wrapped their head around all the intertwining stories and character interactions – knew it was something truly special. The iconic indie film made stars again of John Travolta and Bruce Willis and launched Thurman and Jackson into pop-culture prominence. Its memorable lines also become an immediate part of the lexicon (and had everybody quoting from the Book of Ezekiel for the first time in forever), and the movie overall was just crazy enough to work on a mainstream level. Now if only QT would tell us what exactly was in that golden briefcase …

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