While people all over the world love to share their Top 10 lists each year, Quentin Tarantino is taking the process a step further by naming Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down as the best movie of the 21st century, saying Scott’s “feat of direction is beyond extraordinary.” Tarantino said as much during an interview on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast (via World of Reel). During the spot, Tarantino broke down his Top 10 list of films throughout the 21st century, which you can see for yourself below, but he also lobbed some BRUTAL criticism at Paul Dano’s performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.
Tarantino names his Top 10 Films of the 21st Century
The list includes Lee Unkrich’s “Toy Story 3” (#2), Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (#3), Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” (#4), Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” (#5), David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (#6), Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” (#7), George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” (#8), Edgar Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” (#9) and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” (#10).
I was shocked to discover that Quentin Tarantino and I have similar tastes in movies. No joke, if I were making this list, Toy Story 3, Mad Max: Fury Road, Shaun of the Dead, and Midnight in Paris would appear on my checklist.
Tarantino describes his admiration for Black Hawk Down
“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,” Tarantino said about selecting Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down as his top pick. “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.”
Tarantino on the emotional gut punch of Toy Story 3
Tarantino also explained his second pick, Toy Story 3, saying Pixar’s show-stopping prequel left him an emotional wreck: “That last five minutes ripped my fucking heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I’ll start crying and get choked up […] It’s just remarkable.”
Tarantino didn’t care for Dunkirk when he first saw it
Interestingly, Tarantino says he didn’t like his fourth pick, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, when he first saw it. It’s funny how certain films can grow on you with time.
“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,” he said. “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.”
QT’s rips Paul Dano’s There Will Be Blood performance
P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood made fifth place on Tarantino’s list, and he admits that he would have placed it higher if it weren’t for one major flaw (or at least what he perceives as a flaw), Paul Dano’s performance as Eli Sunday. “‘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.
Ouch….
What do you think about Quentin Tarantino’s Top 10 of the 21st Century film list? What are your Top 10 films of the 21st century? Let us know in the comments section below.
