Taya Gray/The Desert Sun, Palm Springs Desert Sun via Imagn Content Services, LLC
Quentin Tarantino is letting his thoughts on modern cinema be known. And they ain’t pretty.
In a recent op-ed, Quentin Tarantino — the acclaimed writer/director of films such as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — blasted modern Hollywood as being a “flavorless sausage factory” that’s rife with “flaws, implausibilities, audience pandering, miscast performers or just plain stupid s—.”
Quentin Tarantino ripped modern movies in a scorched-earth op-ed that called Hollywood a “flavorless sausage factory”
Tarantino specifically highlighted as the issues he has with modern cinema arising after the 2020 pandemic.
“Since the pandemic, for me anyway, it seems almost impossible for a new movie to come out that I don’t pick to death. Flaws, implausibilities, audience pandering, miscast performers or just plain stupid s— usually torpedoes every new movie coming out of the flavorless sausage factory that used to call itself Hollywood. These days, the entire concept of what is a movie is more inclined to inspire contempt in me than generosity,” Tarantino wrote in Sight & Sound.
“I’ve seen movies I liked since – West Side Story (2021); Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 and 2 (both 2024), a few others, but nothing that really held me in its grip and swept me away to the magical land of enjoyment that I use to visit regularly and was the reason I loved movies above all other artforms. These days I’d rather read a book.”
One move that Tarantino saw recently that he did enjoy, though? Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s The Rip, which hit Netflix earlier this year.
“The film is an exciting cop thriller with a novel premise that manages to deliver the goods in really clever ways,” Tarantino wrote. “The whole package worked for me: Carnahan’s direction, the splendid cast, the look of the film (courtesy of cinematographer Juan Miguel Azpiroz) — but the real powerhouse component of this splendid collection is the sensational screenplay by Carnahan and Michael McGrale.”
While Tarantino has a right to his opinion and is obviously more qualified than most to give it, the natural response from fans of his work is likely something along the lines of: then quit holding yourself to this self-imposed 10-movie rule and get back in the director’s chair.
Tarantino’s last film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, was released in theaters in 2019. Given that he clearly won’t be releasing a new film this year, that means there will have been an 8-year (and counting) gap between his movies, which is the longest interval between films in his career.
He has, however, written the script for the upcoming David Fincher-directed The Adventures of Cliff Booth — a Brad Pitt-starring sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — which will be released in theaters on November 25 before hitting Netflix on December 23. He’s also working on a play, The Popinjay Cavalier — described as a swashbuckling comedy set in 1930s Europe — which will premiere on London’s West End in 2027.