Quentin Tarantino names his 10 favorite movies of…
Quentin Tarantino has revealed his top 10 favorite movies of the twenty first century, and some of his selections got here as a welcome shock.
The famed director named Ridley Scott’s 2001 struggle movie “Black Hawk Down” as the best film of the past 25 years during a new episode of “The Bret Easton Ellis” podcast launched Tuesday.
“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,” Tarantino, 62, said of “Black Hawk Down.”
Quentin Tarantino at the Burbank International Film Festival on Sept. 28, 2025. Getty Images
Ty Burrell and Jeremy Piven in “Black Hawk Down.” ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Since then, I’ve seen it a couple of times, not a bunch of times, but I think it’s a masterwork, and one of the things I love so much about it is that 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,” he continued.
The “eliminate Bill” director added that the movie, which follows SSG Matt Eversmann (Josh Hartnett) and SPC John “Grimesey” Grimes (Ewan McGregor) amid the US army’s disastrous 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, efficiently manages to “keep up the intensity for 2 hours 45 minutes.”
“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,” Tarantino explained. “The feat of direction is beyond extraordinary.”
Quentin Tarantino at the Vista Theater in Hollywood, California, on Nov. 19, 2025. Getty Images for Epic Games
Gregory Sporleder and Josh Hartnett in “Black Hawk Down.” ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
The “Pulp Fiction” filmmaker’s top 10 record was rounded out by Lee Unkrich’s “Toy Story 3,” Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation,” Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be visible injury,” David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable,” George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Edgar Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”
“That last five minutes ripped my f–king heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I’ll start crying and get choked up,” he said of “Toy Story 3” and why he considers it both an “almost perfect movie” and the second-best flick of the twenty first century. “It’s just remarkable.”
Although “Dunkirk” got here in at No. 4 after “Lost in Translation,” Tarantino admitted that he wasn’t a fan of the World War II movie when it was launched in 2017.
Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear, John Morris’ Andy and Tom Hanks’ Woody in “Toy Story 3.” ©Buena Vista Pictures/courtesy E
Quentin Tarantino named “Toy Story 3” his second-favorite movie of the twenty first century. ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
However, his emotions about the film have since modified.
“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,” the “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” director shared.
“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,” he added of “Dunkirk.”
Fionn Whitehead in “Dunkirk.” ©Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection
Quentin Tarantino named “Dunkirk” his fourth-favorite movie of the last 25 years. ©Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection
As for “There Will Be visible injury,” Tarantino confronted backlash for saying that the 2007 period drama would have been increased on his record if it weren’t for Paul Dano, 41, in the lead roles of Paul and Eli Sunday.
The “hostilityful Eight” filmmaker declared that Anderson’s film, which scored Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar, “would stand a better chance to be in No. 1 or No. 2 if it didn’t have a big giant flaw in it, and the flaw is Paul Dano.”
“I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance,” he added of Dano’s twin roles. “I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be visible injury.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Paul Dano in “There Will Be visible injury.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Tarantino beforehand revealed his top 11 through 20 favorite movies of the twenty first century during another episode of “The Bret Easton Ellis” podcast launched last month.
Those 10 movies included Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” at No. 11, adopted 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 No. 20.
Quentin Tarantino attends the premiere of “The Perfect Gamble” in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 12, 2025. Getty Images
Bill Murray in “Lost in Translation.” ©Focus Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
The “Django Unchained” director made headlines for declaring the putting similarities between Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” and writer Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” sequence.
“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every f–king thing she owns,” he charged. “They just ripped off the f–king 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,” Tarantino added. (*10*)
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