Quentin Tarantino is one of the world's best-known filmmakers, and he's famous for his body of work as a writer, producer, and director as well as for his outspoken personality. His movies have a distinctive style and take some inspiration from kung-fu movies, spaghetti westerns, and contemporary action films.Tarantino has plenty of his own ideas and has put his own stamp on modern movies, with creations like Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained changing the face of Hollywood and getting all kinds of love from fans and critics alike. Even those who would sneer at the violence or gore that his movies are famous for depicting give him due credit for going there instead of sugar-coating or sanitizing action movies for the sake of a PG-13 rating.
6 Game Of Death (1978)
It would be too easy to list every Bruce Lee movie here and call it a day, so this iconic actor's "yellow jumpsuit" role goes first to make room for less obvious entries. The most obvious reference Tarantino makes to this movie appears in Kill Bill Vol. 1, in which the character of The Bride embarks on a path of bloody revenge in the same tracksuit that directly references Lee's costume in Game of Death.
The kung-fu movies of the 1960s inspired several of Tarantino's films, with the stunts and camera work often using the same techniques to make actions sequences fluid, swift, and brutal. Tarantino's movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood got some negative attention for its portrayal of the actor in that time period, with Lee's daughter Shannon being one of the most vocal critics.
5 Seven Samurai (1954)
Here's another entry that's almost too easy, as many directors trace their greatest inspirations back to the films of legend Akira Kurosawa. This specific title is so popular that it's been adapted into a variety of movies, the most famous example being The Magnificient Seven, an American western that was released in 1960 and is likely another of Tarantino's favorites.
Tarantino uses many of the tropes and story points from this particular movie in his own work. The Hateful 8 and Inglorious Bastards follow the "team of misfit underdogs working covertly slightly outside of the law" template to appeal to the viewer's sympathy and interest. Even the use of setting and shot composition in many of Tarantino's movies can be traced back to this movie from Kurosawa.
4 Battle Royale (2000)
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​​​​​​In 2011, Quentin Tarantino made a video that named his favorite 20 movies from 1992 to 2009, and Battle Royale is one at the very top of the list. Viewers will recognize actor Chiaki Kuriyama in one of the leading roles, and Tarantino liked her so much he cast her as Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill Vol.1.
Battle Royale mixes a few genres. It's a dystopian thriller-horror film, and the plot involves the Japanese government kidnapping high school students and pitting them against each other in fights to the death. It could be a simple and fun premise on its own, but there's a lot of character drama and intrigue going on at the same time as a vicious game of survival is taking place in the foreground, something that's also omnipresent in a lot of Tarantino's work.
3 The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966)
Tarantino loves his spaghetti westerns, and anyone who has seen his movies recognizes the style, form, and especially the musical choices that pay tribute to the genre. Anyone who has seen Django Unchained or The Hateful 8 understands the effect of a slow march through a stark landscape to an uncertain and dangerous future, and that comes right from the movies of Sergio Leone.
There are other movies from this category that are also among Tarantino's favorites, such as A Fistful Of Dollars and the original Django. They share some of the same distinctive designs and features that include music, long shots of landscapes juxtaposed with quick, dramatic zoom-ins, and limited but poignant use of dialogue.
2 Coffy (1978)
In 1997, Quentin Tarantino released a movie called Jackie Brown that was a tribute to this character and the movie that takes her name. It even starred the same actor. Other movies that feature badass female protagonists like Kill Bill and Death Proof take their inspiration from Coffy.
Coffy is a demure and compassionate nurse by day, but by night she hunts the heroin dealers that permanently damaged her kid sister with their bad junk, and she'll stop at nothing to get to these people. We're talking about drug dealers and mob bosses here, so they aren't exactly easy targets, and Coffy ends up destroying them all with a shotgun and a sweater dress anyway. It's not just her fearless use of firearms either, but the way she outsmarts her targets is also a joy to watch.
1 El Mariachi (1992)
The first movie in what's colloquially known as "The Mexico Trilogy" is entitled El Mariachi, and it was independently produced but eventually attracted the attention of Colombia Pictures. This is why the next two movies in this trilogy have a bigger budget and improved star power.
The style and storyline are similar to Tarantino's own work, and that might be due to the fact that Quentin Tarantino is friends with the director, Roberto Rodriguez. The stunts were on a whole other level, which is one of the ways that Rodereguiz makes his work unique from those of his peers. Speaking of which, Tarantino had a hilarious cameo in the second movie in the trilogy, Desperado.