We've rounded up the life, top-rated films, and little-known facts about Quentin Tarantino, an American film director, actor, and screenwriter who won two Oscars.
Who is Quentin Tarantino?
American film director, actor, and two-Oscar-winning screenwriter Quentin Jerome Tarantino is known as one of the independent filmmakers of the '90s for breaking his films beyond Hollywood clichés. Reflecting his deep knowledge of both art-house cinema and popular culture in his films, Tarantino gained a great reputation in a short time with his courageous non-linear story flow, dialogues, and bloody violent scenes in the early 1990s.
Quentin Tarantino: His Life, Works, and Unknowns
Born on March 27, 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tarantino began his education at a Christian school in Los Angeles but dropped out at the age of sixteen to join the James Best theater group to learn acting.
Tarantino, who wrote his first script Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit at the age of 22, worked in small acting jobs during this period. With the encouragement of the American filmmaker Lawrence Bender, whom he met at a Hollywood party, he wrote Reservoir Dogs, a heist movie that was heavily covered in blood.
Reservoir Dogs
Tarantino, who made a name for himself after his success with the movie Reservoir Dogs, turned down many offers and focused on working on the Pulp Fiction script. Tarantino won the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival with his new film Pulp Fiction, which contains a complex fictional flow and scenes of violence, and returned from the Oscars with the Best Original Screenplay award. He also served as the chairman of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in the following years.
Quentin Tarantino, who has many films and television series in which he appears as both a director, screenwriter and actor, has 17 films directed, 23 films written, and 9 films produced.
Top 9 Quentin Tarantino movies
Reservoir Dogs, 1992 (IMDb: 8.3)
It is Tarantino's first film that he directed and wrote himself and tells the story of a robbery with a bloody ending. Also, Tarantino stars in the movie as Mr. He played the character of Brown. The film is considered to be the pioneer of the director's style with its bloody violent scenes, complex dialogues, and fragmented editing.
Pulp Fiction, 1994 (IMDb: 8.9)
Ranked 8th on the IMDB Top 250 movies list with a score of 8.9, the cult film was written by Tarantino and co-written with Roger Avary. The film follows young lovers Honey Bunny and Pumpkin, who have just entered the world of crime, two crime gangsters Vincent Vega, Jules, and their boss's beautiful wife, Mia, and a brave boxer who refuses to cheat and cross paths. Pulp Fiction was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It also returned from the 1994 Cannes Film Festival with the Palme d'Or.
From Dusk Till Dawn, From Sunset to Dawn, 1996 (IMDb:7.2)
On a journey to Mexico's free environment, the Gecko brothers commit a heist in Texas. Just in case, they keep a priest and his family as hostages. When they go to the door of a Mexican bar for a date, they are unaware of what will happen to them.
Jackie Brown, 1997 (IMDb: 7.5)
The film, which Tarantino created inspired by Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch and the 70s cult TV series Foxy Brown, is another Tarantino classic with its crime and violent scenes. The film tells the story of a stewardess named Jackie Brown who is caught between the police and a gun dealer and her struggle for half a million dollars lost.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2003 (IMDb: 8.1) and Vol.2, 2004 (IMDb: 8.0)
The movie, which has a comic-book atmosphere, stands out with its exaggerated action scenes. The movie, which tells the story of revenge, in which we watched Uma Thurman as the Bride, was originally prepared as a single movie, but it was divided into two films because it was too long. Both films are considered Quentin Tarantino's fourth film.
Death Proof, 2007 (IMDb: 7.0)
The film, which is a tribute to the serial killer films of the 1970s, is about a mentally ill stunt man targeting and killing women with his indestructible car, which he describes as a reinforced "death-proof" in the movies.
Inglourious Basterds, 2009 (IMDb: 8.3)
Tarantino's highest-grossing production at the opening, the film returned with awards from both the Academy Awards and Cannes. Set during the Second World War, Inglourious Basterds tells the story of Shosanna, who lost her family in the war, and her paths cross in Paris with Jewish Lieutenant Raine, who organized her own soldiers against the Nazis, and a German actress.
Django Unchained, 2012 (IMDb: 8.4)
Written and directed by Tarantino himself and translated as Unchained in our country, a multi-award winning western, Slave Django's German bounty hunter Dr. He describes his hunting adventure with King Schultz. The film, which did not debut as well as Inglourious Basterds in the opening, is Tarantino's highest-grossing film overall.
The Hateful Eight, 2015 (IMDb: 7.8)
Another Tarantino western, The Hateful Eight centers around 8 strangers seeking shelter in a stagecoach during a blizzard in post-Civil War Wyoming. When the script was leaked during the production phase of the movie, the director thought of canceling the movie, but then he continued the project by revealing the script to the public.
Once Upon Time… in Hollywood, 2019 (IMDb: 8.2)
The film, which was released in our country on Friday, August 23, made its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and attracted great attention. The film, which tells the struggles of successful TV actor Rick Dalton and his stuntman Cliff Booth to enter the movie industry, is connected to the Manson murders with the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends by the Charles Manson cult.
Quentin Tarantino's Style and Inspiration
Tarantino, one of the directors of Sundance, the independent film academy founded by Robert Redford, has been one of the names that paved the way for independent cinema. He has produced films that will be accepted as soon as seen with his fragmented fiction, violent scenes, popular culture references, and blending of different genres into one film.
Little Known Facts About Quentin Tarantino
Following the completion of his ninth movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino has announced that he will retire after his tenth movie. After Tarantino turns sixty, he wants to put the cinema aside and focus on writing novels.
Quentin Tarantino makes references to the Netherlands in every movie. While Reservoir Dogs starts with the song "Little Green Bag" by a Dutch band called George Bakker Selection, Jackie Brown talks about Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, the Ordell character played by Samuel L. Jackson. The famous hit of Kill Bill, Beatrix, is named after the queen of the Netherlands.
Tarantino, who never uses real brand products in his films, plays Kill Bill: Vol. In the scene where Emilio prepares a sandwich in movie 2, BIMBO brand bread, which is very popular in Mexico, is used.
Tarantino, who has been arrested twice for unpaid parking tickets, says that this has had a very positive effect on his work, while at the same time he often expresses anger that he went to jail for poverty.
Natural Born Killers, the second major project that he wrote the script for, has an important place in the rise of Tarantino's career. However, Tarantino says that he can't even stand watching this movie until the end. The director thinks that Olivier Stone did not understand his script well and did not interpret it well.
The nostalgic vehicle used in the Pulp Fiction movie, the Chevelle Malibu, is Tarantino's own car, and this vehicle was stolen during the filming and was found under a normal police check 16 years later.
Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained, is the only character Tarantino has truly hated among the villains he has created. He explains his hatred this way: “I normally like bad guys no matter how bad they are, but I've always hated Candie.”