Bear with me here. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) turned 20 years old this week, and I wanted to celebrate. Having already ranked Tarantino's films in a previous post, I decided to switch things up - inspired by satirical website Hard Drive's articles such as Every Christopher Nolan movie ranked by when my Mom tapped out watching them and Every Hayao Miazaki Movie ranked by how mad he'd be to find out you had sex during it, I've grown fascinated with the idea of silly and arbitrary factors to rank something by. So, here is how I personally would rank the 10 feature films Mr. Tarantino has directed - if the reasoning of the ranking were alphabetical order.
1. Death Proof (2007)
Death Proof, Tarantino's contribution to the Grindhouse double feature, was without a doubt the hardest one to rank based on alphabetical order: the film is sometimes marketed as Grindhouse: Death Proof, and sometimes just Death Proof. If I went with the former, it would be ahead of the likes of Django Unchained, as there's just no getting around the fact that G comes after D. However, the mere Death Proof is the more common title, so I went with it.
2. Django Unchained (2012)
Beginning with the same letter as Death Proof, this revisionist western takes things to the Mexican-stand-off of comparing the second letters in both titles, with just a few key letters of the Latin alphabet separating the 'E' and the 'J', thus placing Tarantino's 2012 film right here in my ranking.
3. Inglorious Basterds (2009)
This film's title is often misspelled, as only true fans and observant readers will know the purposeful misspelling of 'Bastards' as 'Basterds'. However, this does not affect the film's placement in my alphabetical order ranking, as it is the only Tarantino film to have a title beginning with 'I', so placing it third was quite a no-brainer.
4. Jackie Brown (1997)
Clocking in as the very next letter from the previously mentioned 'I', 'J' is the tenth letter in the alphabet and the opening act for the title of Tarantino's somewhat underrated crime flick Jackie Brown. The title has a very 'early in the alpbahet' energy to it, with the very second letter being an 'A' and the next word starting with a 'B', but there's no getting around the rules saying that this title would be placed after Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds on a library book shelf.
5. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
This one is ahead of the next instalment (true Tarantino enthusiasts might guess which one it will be) only very barely - just by one numeral after the two-word title and the shortened 'volume' indicator. You see, Tarantino happens to have a film with the exactly same title, except...
6. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
...the number is '2' instead of '1', implying the sequelic nature of this 2004 release. So, yes, in the closest call of today's list, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 very barely beats its predecessor. A tough, splitting-hairs call, this one.
7. Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood (2019)
Quentin's newest feature film may have won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Production Design, but on this list, those factors make little difference. The letter 'O' kicks off the second half of the alphabet song in Finnish, while belonging to the endgame of the first half in the English version (growing up in a bilingual family, it took me a good while to learn the rhythmic and structural differences in these two mostly similar versions of the song). So, it makes sense that the film beginning with the word 'Once' finds itself here, a little over halfway through.
8. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Tarantino's most-appreciated and honestly best film might top most rankings, but in this particular one, it can't reach either extreme. Beginning with a 'P', it would have an okay chance of being placed near the very end of the countdown, but as the filmmaker has made movies that start with the letters 'R' and 'T', there's just no getting around the fact that Pulp Fiction can't always come out on top. Don't tell Samuel L. Jackson - he might get angry.
9. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Nearing the end here, we somewhat ironically have the first feature film directed by Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs begins with a resounding 'R', therefore earning its placement right here.
10. The Hateful Eight (2015)
Today's final pick is a somewhat controversial ranking, because some people belong to the school of thought that a prefix such as 'The' shouldn't be taken into account when ranking something by alphabetical order. With such a logic, The Hateful Eight would go by the 'H' and be placed between Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds. Still, I decided to include the 'The', therefore putting this film at the very last place.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for my top 10 favorite episodes of the Netflix original series Sex Education (2019-2023), which recently aired its final season.
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