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Tarantino Says These Are The Top 20 Movies Of The 21st Century And The Selection Is… Odd

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - August 14th 2026, 21:30 GMT+2

West side story 2021 cropped processed by imagy — 20. West Side Story (2021)

Placing Steven Spielberg’s lavish musical at number 20 is already a curveball, but Tarantino’s explanation makes it stranger: he argued that Spielberg had rediscovered his spark and even found the film more exciting than anything Martin Scorsese had made this century. Under the grand choreography, Tony Kushner’s screenplay sharpens the Jets–Sharks conflict and gives Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose plenty of room to command the screen. Apparently, Tarantino can enjoy a dance battle without anyone reaching for a samurai sword. | © 20th Century Studios

19. Cabin Fever (2002)

Eli Roth’s feature debut begins as a nasty little survival story: five friends rent a woodland cabin, only to discover that the local threat is a flesh-eating infection rather than the usual masked killer. Tarantino loves how the first half builds genuine tension before the movie’s grotesque sense of humor takes over, and he considers it his personal Roth favorite—even while conceding *Hostel* may be the better film. Charming is not the obvious word for *Cabin Fever*, which is precisely why he used it. | © Lionsgate

Cropped Moneyball — 18. Moneyball (2011)

Baseball statistics rarely sound like movie-star material, yet Brad Pitt turns spreadsheets, trades, and on-base percentage into a quietly magnetic character study. As Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, he tries to build a competitive team on a fraction of his rivals’ budgets, with Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand supplying the numbers. Tarantino singled out Pitt’s performance as a reminder of what old-fashioned star power can accomplish: he carries an unusually talky sports drama without needing a heroic final at-bat. | © Columbia Pictures

Chocolate 2008 cropped processed by imagy — 17. Chocolate (2008)

Here is the deep cut most readers will need to look up. Prachya Pinkaew’s Thai martial-arts showcase follows Zen, a young woman with autism who absorbs fighting techniques through observation and then collects old debts to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment. JeeJa Yanin trained for years and performed demanding stunts in her screen debut, while the end-credit outtakes reveal how little padding stood between ambition and injury. Tarantino considers its fights among the finest martial-arts sequences he has ever seen. | © Sahamongkol Film International

The devils rejects msn — 16. The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

Rob Zombie stopped treating the Firefly clan like carnival monsters and dropped them into a sun-scorched outlaw movie, where their flight from Sheriff Wydell becomes uglier with every mile. Tarantino responded to that collision of horror, 1970s road cinema, and Sam Peckinpah-style Western brutality, arguing that Zombie forged a voice here that did not previously exist in the genre. Calling it one of this century’s finest films is debatable; denying its greasy, nihilistic personality is much harder. | © Lionsgate

The Passion of the Christ Jim Caviezel — 15. The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Mel Gibson’s recreation of the final hours before Jesus’ crucifixion remains exhausting, controversial, and almost punishingly graphic. Tarantino’s reaction was not exactly Sunday-school approved: the violence became so extreme that he and his friends found themselves laughing and groaning at its sheer excess. That did not stop him from praising Gibson’s direction, particularly the physical detail and immersive atmosphere that make ancient Jerusalem feel frighteningly immediate. It is a sincere religious epic viewed through the sensibility of a lifelong exploitation-film obsessive. | © Icon Productions

Cropped school of rock 2003 — 14. School of Rock (2003)

Richard Linklater directing Jack Black from a Mike White script is one of those combinations that looks obvious only after it works. Black’s fraudulent substitute teacher turns a rigid classroom into a rock band, but the movie earns its finale by taking the children’s abilities and insecurities seriously. Tarantino compared its unruly team spirit to *The Bad News Bears* and remembered the theatrical screening as pure communal fun. No blood, no revenge, just a bass lesson—and somehow it still cracked his top 15. | © Paramount Pictures

Jackass The Movie 2002 cropped processed by imagy — 13. Jackass: The Movie (2002)

Plot is optional when Johnny Knoxville and company launch themselves into shopping carts, fight trained opponents, and turn terrible judgment into a feature-length event. Tarantino said no movie in the previous two decades had made him laugh harder; during production on *Kill Bill*, he even arranged a print screening for the crew. That enthusiasm explains why this proudly disreputable stunt collection outranks more respectable cinema. Film history occasionally wears a tuxedo, and occasionally it returns a rental car after entering it in a demolition derby. | © Paramount Pictures

Big Bad Wolves 2013 cropped processed by imagy — 12. Big Bad Wolves (2013)

This Israeli revenge thriller starts with a murdered child, a suspended detective, an enraged father, and a teacher who may or may not be guilty. It locks the men in a basement and lets torture, suspicion, and pitch-black comedy contaminate one another. Tarantino praised the screenplay for taking risks that a comparable American production would probably soften, and he had already called it the best film of its year. Its cruelest trick is making certainty feel less reliable with every turn of the screw. | © United King Films

Cropped Battle Royale — 11. Battle Royale (2000)

The numbering develops a small problem here: Kinji Fukasaku’s film opened in Japan in 2000, so it misses the 21st century by one year under the strict calendar definition. Tarantino clearly did not care. Its premise—an entire school class forced by the government to kill one another on an island—still hits with ferocious speed, adolescent panic, and political anger. He also used the occasion to renew his accusation that *The Hunger Games* borrowed far too heavily from it. Subtle diplomacy was never on the menu. | © Toei Company

Midnight in Paris 2011 cropped processed by imagy — 10. Midnight in Paris (2011)

Woody Allen’s time-travel fantasy sends a frustrated screenwriter wandering into 1920s Paris, where literary icons and artistic legends keep exposing his weakness for a romanticized past. Tarantino’s relationship with the movie followed its own three-act structure: he loved the film but disliked Owen Wilson, tolerated Wilson on a second viewing, then discovered he was watching largely for him on the third. That reversal suits a comedy built around learning that every supposedly golden age eventually disappoints someone living inside it. | © Gravier Productions

Shaun of the dead msn — 9. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg understood that zombie rules become funnier when everyone follows them seriously. Shaun is not parodying an apocalypse from a safe distance; he is trying to repair his relationship, rescue his mum, and reach the pub while London genuinely collapses around him. Tarantino loves that distinction, along with a script quotable enough to linger long after the gore. The comedy works because the undead matter, the heartbreak lands because the jokes do, and the cricket bat handles everything in between. | © Working Title Films

Mad Max Fury Road — 8. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Tarantino initially resisted George Miller’s return to the wasteland for one stubborn reason: Max was no longer played by Mel Gibson. The praise eventually wore him down, and what he found was action filmmaking operating at industrial scale without losing its handmade madness. Tom Hardy may carry the name, but Charlize Theron’s Furiosa drives the story, the war rig, and most of its emotional force. Even on a list this argumentative, placing this two-hour vehicular fever dream in the top ten feels almost conventional. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

Unstoppable 2010 cropped processed by imagy — 7. Unstoppable (2010)

A runaway freight train becomes a movie monster in Tony Scott’s hands—no teeth required, just thousands of tons of steel, hazardous cargo, and enough momentum to erase a town. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine ground the chaos as railway workers attempting a dangerous rescue, while Scott keeps the machinery loud, legible, and moving. Tarantino considers it one of the purest expressions of the director’s action style and says it improves with every viewing. Calling the train tougher than Godzilla is ridiculous—until it moves. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Zodiac — 6. Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher turns an unsolved serial-killer case into a study of people slowly surrendering their lives to questions that may never be answered. Police work, newsroom procedure, coded letters, and dead ends replace the usual detective-story payoff, with Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith drifting deepest into obsession. Tarantino was underwhelmed on first viewing, then kept catching sections on television until the film’s meticulous grip became impossible to ignore. His eventual verdict—a mesmerizing masterwork—proves that even his rankings sometimes require several rewatches. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped there will be blood — 5. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Paul Thomas Anderson builds an American epic from oil, faith, ambition, and two men determined to dominate every room they enter. Daniel Day-Lewis makes Daniel Plainview both magnetic and monstrous, while Jonny Greenwood’s abrasive score turns industrial progress into approaching doom. Tarantino admired the film’s old-school craftsmanship and narrative confidence enough to place it fifth, then blamed Paul Dano for keeping it out of the top two—a spectacularly harsh opinion that started an argument almost as intense as the movie itself. | © Paramount Vantage

Cropped dunkirk 2017 — 4. Dunkirk (2017)

Christopher Nolan divides the Dunkirk evacuation across land, sea, and air, then gives each strand a different clock: one week, one day, and one hour. The structure turns history into a tightening mechanism, aided by large-format imagery, practical spectacle, and Hans Zimmer’s relentlessly anxious score. Tarantino admitted that the first viewing overwhelmed him more than it impressed him; repeated watches revealed the control underneath the noise. Apparently, one Nolan timeline was never going to be enough for a convert this gradual. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

Cropped Lost in Translation — 3. Lost in Translation (2003)

Two lonely strangers meet inside a Tokyo hotel and form a bond that Sofia Coppola wisely refuses to label too neatly. Bill Murray’s fading actor and Scarlett Johansson’s uncertain newlywed spend much of the film talking, wandering, or simply sharing silence, yet their emotional dislocation fills every frame. Tarantino loved it so intensely that his admiration spilled over into courting Coppola herself. That personal footnote is juicy, but the ranking makes sense on craft alone: mood becomes plot, restraint becomes chemistry, and karaoke becomes temporary shelter. | © Focus Features

Cropped Toy Story 3 — 2. Toy Story 3 (2010)

Third installments are supposed to arrive tired, overstuffed, and suspiciously interested in merchandising. Lee Unkrich instead sends Woody, Buzz, and the gang to Sunnyside Daycare, where abandonment anxiety gradually transforms a colorful escape comedy into something perilously close to mortality. Tarantino called it nearly perfect and ranked its ending among cinema’s great trilogy finales; he also admitted that describing those final minutes can make him cry. For once, the famously hard-boiled director and every parent in the theater were emotionally defeated by a cardboard box. | © Pixar Animation Studios

1. Black Hawk Down (2001)

Ridley Scott drops the audience into the Battle of Mogadishu and barely permits a full breath afterward. What begins as a U.S. military raid becomes a prolonged urban nightmare after two Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, with the enormous ensemble functioning less as a collection of heroes than as bodies trapped inside relentless machinery. Tarantino’s appreciation grew through repeat viewings until he saw the direction as an extraordinary feat, praising its sustained intensity and *Apocalypse Now*-scale ambition. Number one is a surprise; his reasoning is not. | © Columbia Pictures

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Quentin Tarantino has spent decades turning movie opinions into a contact sport, so his ranking of the 20 best films of the 21st century was never going to behave itself. The list jumps between critical darlings, shameless crowd-pleasers, and choices seemingly engineered to start an argument. Whether it feels inspired or completely unhinged depends on your tolerance for Tarantino being Tarantino, but nobody could accuse him of borrowing the internet’s usual answers.

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Quentin Tarantino has spent decades turning movie opinions into a contact sport, so his ranking of the 20 best films of the 21st century was never going to behave itself. The list jumps between critical darlings, shameless crowd-pleasers, and choices seemingly engineered to start an argument. Whether it feels inspired or completely unhinged depends on your tolerance for Tarantino being Tarantino, but nobody could accuse him of borrowing the internet’s usual answers.