Fans of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has placed highly on most fans’ revised rankings of his filmography.
But taking into everything the Tarantino oeuvre has to offer — Django Unchained, which examined the ugliest chapter of U.S. history through the lens of a spaghetti western. So, here are five reasons why Pulp Fiction is Tarantino’s best film, and five why it could be Django Unchained.
Pulp Fiction: It’s The Perfect Cocktail Of Tarantino’s Cinematic Influences
Quentin Tarantino has seen a lot of movies. He’s probably some kind of world record holder, but he’s too busy watching every movie ever made to look into it. As a result, his approach to filmmaking has been influenced by a very disparate range of styles, from Sergio Corbucci’s revisionist westerns to the Shaw Brothers’ kung fu movies.
Whereas Django Unchained is more or less only influenced by other westerns, Pulp Fiction is a crime movie with the perfect cocktail of Tarantino’s cinematic influences: Elmore Leonard’s novels, Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, Howard Hawks’ screwball comedies, the crime films of Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Melville, etc.
Django Unchained: It Was Tarantino’s First Spaghetti Western
Tarantino’s filmmaking has been heavily inspired by the techniques used in spaghetti westerns since the very beginning. He has even referred to Pulp Fiction as “a modern-day spaghetti western.” But Django Unchained — his seventh film — was his first foray into the genre.
When Q.T. made his own western (although he considers Django to be a “southern,” which is more accurate to its setting), he finally got to use all the cinematic tricks he’d transferred over to other genres in the genre they actually came from.
Pulp Fiction: The Plot Takes Wildly Unpredictable Turns
There are a couple of unexpected turns in Django Unchained, like Dr. Schultz killing Calvin Candie, but the shape of its story follows a predictable formula.
Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, takes sharp left turns out of nowhere, like Mia overdosing on Vincent’s heroin, or Butch and Marsellus getting tied up in a basement to become sex slaves, or Vincent shooting Marvin in the face. Whenever you think you can guess where a storyline is going, it takes a wildly unpredictable turn in a completely different direction.
Django Unchained: The Action Scenes Are Gloriously Cinematic
Aside from maybe explosive squibs that exaggerate the bloodshed, and cinematography jacked from every great action movie ever made, Tarantino’s action scenes are spectacular.
In Django in particular, from the Candyland massacre (arguably the film’s centerpiece) to the KKK ambush, the action scenes are gloriously cinematic.
Pulp Fiction: It Defined An Era Of American Cinema
While Fight Club and American Beauty could both stake a claim for the title of definitive American movie of the ‘90s, robbed and pillaged the history of cinema to deliver an ironic take on familiar tropes and storylines.
Generation X’s nihilism oozes out of the film’s focus on the minutiae of everyday life. Tarantino’s sophomore effort was the boldest version of what ‘90s movies were trying to do.
Django Unchained: It Has Both A Great Hero And A Great Villain
Most traditional stories have a hero and a villain. Pulp Fiction isn’t a traditional story, so it has no discernible heroes or villains. But Django Unchained is a traditional story — it has the structure of a fairy tale — and it has in Django a hero that everyone can root for, and in Calvin Candie, a villain that everyone can root against.
This might sound simple, but depressingly few Hollywood movies bother to do the bare minimum. Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio brilliantly bring their characters to life, with Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson providing strong as a secondary hero and a secondary villain, respectively.
Pulp Fiction: Every Single Scene Is Iconic
Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained have similar runtimes (154 minutes for the former and 165 minutes for the latter). The crucial difference is that, while Pulp Fiction doesn’t feel a second too long, Django could’ve trimmed about 20 minutes of material.
In Pulp Fiction, every scene — from the showdown at Brett’s apartment to the Jack Rabbit Slim’s dance contest to the pawn shop to the overdose to “The Bonnie Situation” — is memorable and iconic in some way. In Django, a few unforgettable scenes stand head and shoulders above their lesser peers.
Django Unchained: The Characters Are Emotionally Engaging
While Pulp Fiction’s characters are undeniably memorable, they’re not emotionally engaging. Pulp Fiction’s overdose scene is riveting, but do we really care if Marsellus Wallace has Vincent Vega whacked? We go along for the ride, but we’re not necessarily emotionally invested in the characters.
Django Unchained, on the other hands, has emotional investment in spades. In Django, we really care if Broomhilda gets to escape Candyland, or if Dr. Schultz gets killed, or if Django is put back in chains. The actors (particularly Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington) humanize their characters, which helps the stakes to feel real.
Pulp Fiction: It Was Made By A More Excited Filmmaker
When Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, he was a hotshot young renegade who’d taken the film industry by storm with his independent debut feature. For his sophomore outing, producers were writing him a blank check.
He didn’t have to Reservoir Dogs; he could really spread his wings and make whatever movie he wanted. Pulp Fiction is the work of an enthusiastic young filmmaker, bursting at the seams with creativity and potential.
Django Unchained: It Was Made By A More Experienced Filmmaker
When Tarantino made Django Unchained, he was 20 years and six movies into his directing career (or seven movies in, if you count Kill Bill as two).
Pulp Fiction was a vital stage in Tarantino’s learning curve, but he helmed Django Unchained at the height of his filmmaking powers.
