Quentin Tarantino just named his own masterpiece (again)

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE Quentin Tarantino movie? Because Tarantino himself certainly does.

In an August 15 interview with the fan podcast The Church of Tarantino, hosted by “Scott K.” and recorded in Pam’s Coffy (owned by the renowned filmmaker in Los Angeles), Tarantino sat down for a two-hour interview spanning his career. At one point in the episode, Tarantino offered up his thoughts regarding which of his movies he thinks is his all-time best and which is his personal favourite.

“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is my favourite, Inglourious Basterds is my best,” Tarantino told Scott K. He then named the Kill Bill duology as the movies “I was born to make.”

“But I think Kill Bill is the ultimate Quentin movie,” Tarantino said. “Like nobody else could’ve made it. Every aspect about it is so particularly ripped, like with tentacles and bloody tissue, from my imagination and my id and my loves and my passion and my obsession. So I think Kill Bill is the movie I was born to make, I think Inglourious Basterds is my masterpiece, but Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is my favourite.”

Tarantino’s tune has changed slightly since 2022, when he appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show and named Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood his best film. Regardless, the new podcast is a must-listen for any Tarantino nut, with the director unloading an unbelievable amount of insight about his artistry and career. For example, he revealed he abandoned The Movie Critic, a long-gestating project that was once poised to be his next and final film, due to overwhelming similarities with Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. (He also has a different script for The Movie Critic as an eight-episode television series.)

“I wasn’t really excited about dramatising what I wrote when I was in preproduction, partly because I’m using the skill set that I learned from Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” he said. Converting Los Angeles into 1960s-era Hollywood sans CGI “was something we had to pull off” for Once, but doing it again for The Movie Critic posed no such challenge.

Said Tarantino: “There was nothing to figure out. I already kind of knew, more or less, how to turn L.A. into an older time. It was too much like the last one.”

Tarantino also took jabs at other podcasters and pundits who claimed he is “paralysed with fear” over making sure his last movie is his greatest. “Trust me, I’m not paralysed with fear,” he remarked. “The thing about The Movie Critic is that I really, really like it. But there was a challenge that I gave to myself when I did it, and I think you’ll appreciate this: Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make it an interesting movie?” (Okay, I’ll say it: Harsh! He’s not wrong, but damn.)

While everyone debates which movie in any director’s canon is their greatest, it’s rare for a director to sound off on their own oeuvre. It’s even more fascinating that Tarantino is eager to reappraise his later movies, which from his point of view were probably made with more learned expertise than his earlier films. But as great as Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood are, for my money, they don’t touch what should actually be named his greatest movie: Pulp Fiction The Hateful Eight.

This story originally appeared on Esquire US.