Every Quentin Tarantino Film Ranked, According To Metacritic

For the past several years, the dialogue surrounding filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's career has been about his planned exit from it. He wants to end on a strong note and leave the audience wanting more. And as such, Tarantino has insisted, numerous times, that his 10th directed film will be his last.

Back when he first said this a little over a decade ago, it didn't mean much. He was only on his seventh film (he considers Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 to be a single film), and he usually takes five or more years between projects. But now here we are, nine films deep into the man's career, and we have one film left before he reaches his self-imposed limit.

In early 2024, Variety reported that Tarantino's 10th film would be The Movie Critic, based partly on the career of famed critic Pauline Kael. In April 2024, the film had reportedly been shelved. Whatever takes its place as Tarantino's final word will be subject to the same sort of hype and pressure.

For this list, we included two feature films that he wrote (or co-wrote) but did not direct: True Romance and From Dusk Till Dawn. We omitted one short film that he wrote and directed, but was part of a larger anthology called Four Rooms: "The Man From Hollywood."

However you feel about Tarantino's 10-film approach, one thing is certain: The man rarely misses. Here is every Quentin Tarantino film ranked, according to Metacritic.

Metacritic Score: 48

Tarantino wrote this gangster-turned-horror movie about two homicidal brothers who hold a family hostage, sneak across the Mexican border, and fight a disgusting horde of stripper zombies. But it might be most famous for its mid-movie music sequence, in which Salma Hayek seduces the audience with a hip-swaying table dance.

Metacritic Score: 59

Prior to directing his debut feature Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino sold a different script, True Romance, for $50,000. A love story about a comic-book-store clerk (Christian Slater) who meets and falls in love with a sex worker (Patricia Arquette), Tarantino considers this his most autobiographical film. Tony Scott directed the film and reordered its scenes to make it chronological.

Metacritic Score: 62

Tarantino's third film was inspired by Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch. It remains the only time that Tarantino bought the rights to and adapted someone else's work. The lead eponymous role was played by Pam Grier, a blaxploitation legend most famous for her roles in Coffey and Foxy Brown.

Metacritic Score: 68

A long, meandering yarn of a film, The Hateful Eight runs two hours and 53 minutes long and has an all-star cast, including Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Michael Madsen. It's a Western with a lot of dialogue and exposition--it would work equally well as a stage play--and it builds to an explosive, final confrontation. The Hateful Eight was later re-released as a limited TV series on Netflix.

Metacritic Score: 69

There are two main plot threads in this WWII narrative--one of a French Jewish woman taking revenge on the Nazis, and the other of American Jewish soldiers scalping Nazis.This is also the movie that brought Christoph Waltz, who plays Colonel Hans Landa to mainstream attention, and was his first collaboration with Tarantino.

Metacritic Score: 69

The first half of Kill Bill is a quick, bloody romp, with very little dialogue but lots of kinetic, wire-fu action. Tarantino is notoriously old-school, and most of the visual tricks, even the ones in the climactic House of Blue Leaves sequence, were accomplished with practical effects.

Metacritic Score: 77

Originally released as one half of a Grindhouse double feature (along with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror), Death Proof contains one of the finest car chase scenes ever filmed, largely due to the efforts of Zoe Bell, a stuntwoman who plays a fictionalized version of herself.

Metacritic Score: 81

Taratino's "Southern" is set in the antebellum South. Escaped slave Django (Jamie Foxx) attempts to save his wife (Kerry Washington) from evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Samuel L. Jackson has a supporting role as Stephen, the house slave from hell.

Metacritic Score: 81

Tarantino's directorial debut established everything that he was about: hilarious expository dialogue, lively camera work, and a cautionary tale about honor among thieves. After a diamond heist goes horribly wrong, a group of "professional" criminals realizes that one of them is secretly a cop. The most infamous scene, where Mr. Blonde dances to Stealers Wheel while torturing a kidnapped cop, was Tarantino's first controversy in a career full of them.

Metacritic Score: 83

The second half of Kill Bill is the more dialogue-heavy of the two, with less Hong Kong influence and more Spaghetti Western influence. Fewer fountains of blood, more panoramic vista shots. The Bride (Uma Thurman) crosses the remaining names off her kill list and then goes after Bill (David Carradine) himself, but not before being buried alive in a "Texas funeral."

Metacritic Score: 84

Set in 1969, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is about an aging actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stuntman (Brad Pitt), and it weaves in the real story of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and the Manson Family murders. Like Inglourious Basterds, this is not about historical accuracy. It's more about wish fulfillment--the kind of wish fulfillment you can only get in a creative medium like film.

Metacritic Score: 95

A modern classic by any standard, Pulp Fiction influenced filmmakers for years to come. It led to a rediscovery of '70s cinema. It restarted John Travolta's career, and it gave Samuel L. Jackson his finest role. It combined violence and humor in a way that few other movies have. It has so many quotable lines, so many memorable moments in its two hours and 34 minutes, that it feels like it's much shorter than it actually is.

Some films require years for people to fully acknowledge their brilliance. But Pulp Fiction was recognized at the peak of its notoriety, and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994. It remains Tarantino's finest directorial effort. Time will tell if his 10th film comes close to topping it.