Quentin Tarantino revealed his top ten movies of the 21st century, with a war film leading the list.
The Pulp Fiction director, 62, named Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001) as the best film of the current century while appearing on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast on Tuesday.
Tarantino shared his admiration for Scott’s war epic, inspired by the real ordeal of a downed Black Hawk crew in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.
‘I liked it when I first saw it, but I actually think it was so intense that it stopped working for me, and I didn’t carry it with me the way that I should’ve,’ he shared.
He went on to watch the film a few more times, referring to the film as a ‘masterwork.’
‘This is the only movie that actually goes completely for an Apocalypse Now sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling, and I think it achieves it.’
The filmmaker went on: ‘It keeps up the intensity for 2 hours 45 minutes, or whatever it is, and I watched it again recently, my heart was going through the entire runtime of the movie; it had me and never let me go, and I hadn’t seen it in a while.’
‘The feat of direction is beyond extraordinary,’ he added of the movie, which stars Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Eric Bana.
Black Hawk Down also featured a number of actors who were early in their careers including, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom and Jason Isaacs among others.
The movie received four Academy Award nominations and won two for Best Film Editing and Best Sound.
Scott’s legendary directing career also includes Gladiator (2000), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), and Kingdom of Heaven (2005).
Tarantino’s best movie list also surprisingly included Lee Unkrich’s animated movie Toy Story 3 in second place.
At number three was Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, followed by another war film, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
He named Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood in fifth place, followed by David Fincher’s Zodiac, and Tony Scott’s Unstoppable.
The last three films on his list were George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road at number eight, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris in the last spot.
Meanwhile Tarantino referred to his second pick, ‘Toy Story 3’, as an ‘almost perfect movie.’
‘That last five minutes ripped my f*****g heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I’ll start crying and get choked up,’ he shared, adding, ‘It’s just remarkable.’
As for his fourth pick, Nolan’s Dunkirk, Tarantino said he didn’t actually like it when he first saw it.
‘What I now love about it is that I feel there’s a real mastery to it, and I came around to it watching it again and again and again,’ he said.
‘The first time, it’s not like it left me cold — it was so kind of gobsmacking, I didn’t really know what I saw, it was almost too much.’
‘And then the second time I saw it, my brain was able to take it in a little bit more, and then the third time and the fourth time, it was just like, wow, it just blew me away.’
Tarantino previously shared his 11 to 20 picks, which went as follows: Kinji Fukasaku’s ‘Battle Royale’ at number 11, followed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s ‘Big Bad Wolves’, Jeff Tremaine’s ‘Jackass: The Movie’, Richard Linklater’s ‘School of Rock’, Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’, Rob Zombie’s ‘The Devil’s Rejects’, Prachya Pinkaew’s ‘Chocolate’, Bennett Miller’s ‘Moneyball’, Eli Roth’s ‘Cabin Fever’, and Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ at number 20.
Speaking about Battle Royale, Tarantino pointed out the similarities between the film, based on Koushun Takami’s 1999 novel of the same name, and The Hunger Games franchise.
He accused Hunger Games writer Suzanne Collins of copying Takami’s novel.
‘I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every f*****g thing she owns,’ Tarantino said.
‘They just ripped off the f*****g book! Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called “Battle Royale,” so the stupid book critics never called her out on it. They talked about how it was the most original thing they’d ever f*****g read. As soon as the film critics saw the film they said, “What the f**k! This is just “Battle Royale” except PG!”‘
Tarantino became a household name with his iconic films Pulp Fiction (1994) and Reservoir Dogs (1992), before later cementing his legacy with masterpieces like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
