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Acclaimed Oscar-winning writer and director Quentin Tarantino has unveiled his top 10 movies of the 21st century, and his choices are unsurprisingly full of surprises. Not surprises in terms of obscurity, though, but general reputation.
While the list is pretty out there in regards to what are usually considered to be the best movies of the century — with the exception of There Will Be Blood, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Zodiac — it’s also entirely predictable as it relates to Quentin Tarantino’s tastes.
As for some of his more surprising choices, while the likes of Midnight in Paris, Dunkirk, Shaun of the Dead, and Lost in Translation are widely well-regarded, they also seldom pop up on top ten lists.
The biggest surprises of the list, however, are a pair of films directed by the Scott brothers: the late action master Tony Scott and the living legend Ridley Scott.
Tarantino slotted in Tony Scott’s final film, 2010’s Denzel Washington and Chris Pine-starring Unstoppable, at #7, and Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down at #1 overall. While both are obviously great movies, they’re also rarely named as the best work of the century from the Scotts.
Since 2000, Tony directed Spy Game, Man on Fire, Domino, Deja Vu, and The Taking of Pelham 123, while Ridley has helmed Gladiator, Hannibal, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven, A Good Year, American Gangster, Body of Lies, Robin Hood, Prometheus, The Counselor, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Martian, Alien: Covenant, All the Money in the World, The Last Duel, House of Gucci, Napoleon, and Gladiator II.
Quentin Tarantino names his top ten films of the 21st century, puts Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down at #1 overall
Perhaps most surprising of all, though, is that the notoriously aggrandizing QT didn’t name one of his own films on his top 20 list. Tarantino’s top 10 movies of the 21st century is as follows, via The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast.
10. Midnight in Paris , directed by Woody Allen
“I really can’t stand Owen Wilson. I spent the first time watching the movie loving it and hating him. The second time I watched it, I was like ‘ah, okay, don’t be such a pr*ck, he’s not so bad.’ Then the third time I watched it, I found myself only watching him.”
9. Shaun of the Dead, directed by Edgar Wright
“My favorite directorial debut even though he did a cheapie debut movie he doesn’t like to talk about […] I loved how much he loved the Romero universe he recreated. The script is really terrific, it’s one of the most quotable films on this list, I still quote the line ‘the dogs don’t look up.’ It’s not a spoof of zombie movies, it’s a real zombie movie, and I appreciate the distinction.”
8. Mad Max: Fury Road , directed by George Miller
“I was actually not going to see it for the simple reason that in a world where Mel Gibson exists, and he’s not playing Max? I want Mad Mel! Weeks and weeks and weeks passed, and people kept talking about how great it was, and Fred, my editor, was saying, ‘I’m serious, you gotta do it.’ Then I saw it. The great stuff is so great, and you’re watching a truly great filmmaker; he had all the money in the world and all the time in the world to make it exactly as he wanted.”
7. Unstoppable, directed by Tony Scott
“It’s one of my favorite last movies of a director. I’ve seen it four times, and every time I see it, I like it more. If you asked me years ago, I would have put ‘Man on Fire’ on the list, but ‘Unstoppable’ is one of the purest visions of Tony’s action aesthetic, the two guys are great together, and it gets better and better. It’s one of the best monster movies of the 21st century. The train is a monster. The train becomes a monster. And it becomes one of the greatest monsters of our time. Stronger than Godzilla, stronger than those King Kong movies.”
6. Zodiac , directed by David Fincher
“When I first watched ‘Zodiac,’ I wasn’t that into it, and then it started playing the movie channels, and first thing I knew, watching 20 minutes of it, 40 minutes of it, and I realized this is a lot more engaging than I remember it being, and it kept grabbing me in different sections, so I decided to watch this goddamn thing again, and it was a whole different experience from that point on. I found myself, every six or seven years, watching it again, and it’s a luxurious experience that I give myself over to […] mesmerizing masterwork.”
5. There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
“Daniel Day-Lewis. The old-style craftsmanship quality to the film. It had an old Hollywood craftsmanship without trying to be like that. It was the only film he’s ever done, and I brought it up to him, that doesn’t have a set piece. The fire is the closest to a set piece. This was about dealing with the narrative, dealing with the story, and he did it fcking amazingly. ‘There Will Be Blood’ would stand a good chance at being #1 or #2 if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it … and the flaw is Paul Dano. Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, but it’s also drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander. [Dano] is weak sauce, man. He is the weak sister. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest fcking actor in SAG [laughs].”
4. Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan
“Another film that I didn’t initially like […] 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 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.”
3. Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola
“I fell so much in love with ‘Lost in Translation’ that I fell in love with Sofia Coppola and made her my girlfriend [laughs]. I courted and wooed her, and I did it all in public; it was like it was out of a Jane Austen novel. I didn’t know her well enough to get together on my own, but I kept going to events […] I spoke to Pedro Almodóvar about this, and we both agreed it was such a girlie movie, in such a delicious way. I hadn’t seen such a girlie movie in a very long time, and I hadn’t seen such a girlie movie like that be so well done.”
2. Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich
“That last five minutes ripped my f*cking heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I’ll start crying and get choked up […] It’s just remarkable. It’s almost a perfect movie. And we don’t even get to talk about the great comedy bits, which are never-ending. I think people never nail the third film of a trilogy. I think the other one is ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ to me, and this is ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ of animated films. This is the greatest end of a trilogy.”
1. Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott
“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 […] 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 […] 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. It keeps up the intensity for 2 hours 45 minutes, or whatever it is, and 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. The feat of direction is beyond extraordinary.”