Tarantino movies in order: Quentin Tarantino Universe

Key Takeaways

Tarantino’s films fall into two mini-universes: Realer than Real and Movie Movie, linking characters and stories.
The TCU operates uniquely, with some of his movies, like Kill Bill, being films that characters in his other movies, like Pulp Fiction, would go see.
From Django Unchained to Kill Bill to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino creates an interconnected cinematic universe.

Quentin Tarantino is perhaps the most critically acclaimed director of our generation. His films tend to be standalone features filled with violence and adult content. They’re box office smashes that only properties like Marvel could rival. While, at first glance, Tarantino’s movies don’t have much in common with the summery popcorn hits of the MCU or even the Star Wars Universe, there is one way they are similar: They’re all part of a cinematic universe of interconnected films that weave together a larger story.

There are two separate mini-universes that Tarantino’s films fall into, called Realer than Real and Movie Movie.

The TCU, or the Tarantino Cinematic Universe, is something Tarantino talked about in the past. His films have connections that bind them together. At the same time, the TCU operates differently than most cinematic worlds. There are two separate mini-universes that Tarantino’s films fall into, called Realer than Real and Movie Movie.

Here is how Tarantino describes Realer than Real and Movie Movie: “There’s the Realer than Real Universe, alright, and all the characters inhabit that one. But then there’s this Movie universe. . . From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill, they all take place in this special Movie universe. So, basically, when the characters of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, when they go to the movies, Kill Bill is what they go to see. From Dusk Till Dawn is what they see.” Basically, the Movie Movie universe is filled with movies that the characters in Tarantino’s movies would go see.

Tarantino recently scrapped a film that sounds like it would’ve explored this concept much more. The Movie Critic, was slated to be Tarantino’s 10th and final film, until it was unceremoniously scrapped before filming was slated to start filming later this year. The film was supposed to center around a film critic in the late 1970s of Tarantino’s Realer than Real universe that would’ve interacted with characters from previous Tarantino movies, including Brad Pitt’s character Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter even shared a rumor that Tom Cruise was in talks to appear in the film.

We’ve broken down the best TCU viewing order, with films from the Realer than Real Universe and Movie Movie Universe. Tarantino has either written, produced, or directed all these movies. (Our order leaves out Jackie Brown because it’s the only film he based on prior source material.)

WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW.

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The Realer than Real Universe

The Realer than Real Universe is essentially the universe that started Tarantino’s film career. It includes his first few grounded crime films, like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. It also includes his later works that revolve around alternate history. For instance, the character of Django starts a slave rebellion in the film Django Unchained, but he does so a full two years before the Civil War even starts. In Inglourious Basterds, Hitler is murdered in 1944 instead of committing suicide a year later. And, in Once Upon a time… in Hollywood, the Manson murderers show up at character Rick Dalton’s house rather than Sharon Tate’s. This all leads to the present day — a more comfortable time with violence — with films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.

Tarantino’s other movie universe, the “movie, movie.” universe, features films that the characters in the “Realer than Real” universe would go and see while not committing horrible acts on one another.

1 Django Unchained

Django escapes slavery and sets out to find his wife

Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Run Time: 165 minutes

Django Unchained is about Django, naturally, who is played by Jamie Foxx. In the film, we see Django freed from slavery by the bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), and the two begin to work together before they agree to head to Candyland, a plantation in South Carolina owned by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin Candy. Here, the duo hope to free Django’s still-enslaved wife.

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2 The Hateful Eight

A group of strangers attempts to ride out a blizzard together

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Run Time: 168 minutes

Sometime during the aftermath of the Civil War, John “The Hangman” Ruth, who is played by Kurt Russell, is forced into a stagecoach stopover by a blizzard. He’s with his latest catch, the outlaw Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). While there, the pair is joined by a group of six strangers, including former Union officer Marquis Warren turned bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson) and Confederate militiamen turned sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), and no one is sure who can be trusted.

There are a few subtle connections hidden in The Hateful Eight that link to other Tarantino films. The most overt is Tim Roth’s English Pete Hicox. He is related to Michael Fassbender’s character, Archie Hicox, in Inglourious Basterds.

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3 Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino’s alternate ending for World War II

Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent
Run Time: 153 minutes

A group of Jewish soldiers infiltrate Nazi-occupied France during World War II and soon learn of an upcoming movie premiere that will have the entire Nazi leadership, including Hitler, in attendance. This film sets off an alternate timeline in human history, as it shows Hitler and every other higher-up Nazi murdered in a movie theater. This ultimately gives cinemas a type of holy reverence in the TCU, but it also leads to the American public becoming comfortable with the extreme violence and gore in films, a theme in the TCU’s Movie Movie Universe.

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4 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Hollywood’s golden age, Tarantino style

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent
Run Time: 153 minutes

Tarantino’s latest film follows actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), during the 1960s in Hollywood. They’re both struggling, but just next door lives Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, who, in real life, was murdered in 1969 by the Manson family.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood feels like it could be part of our real history — aside from some minor differences in the way the 1950s and 1960s movies are pictured in the film itself. They’re shown to be loaded with violence. For instance, there’s a movie scene Dalton shoots where he torches a group of Nazi commanders with a flamethrower.

There’s a subtle detail in the Bounty Law western that makes Dalton famous, too. In that movie, Dalton plays a bounty hunter known for killing outlaws. These film roles influence Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth so that neither man has any second doubts about using some of that Movie Movie universe violence in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, especially on those who they feel deserve it.

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5 True Romance

A killer couple goes on a road trip

True Romance (1993)

Director: Tony Scott
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper
Run Time: 120 minutes

True Romance is the first film on our list that was not directed by Tarantino, but the film was written by him before Tony Scott directed it. It follows Christian Slater’s Clarence as he falls in love with a hooker named Alabama. He kills her pimp, and the two of them run off to California.

The film shows an important connection between Inglourious Basterds and the overall TCU because it features a character — Lee Donowitz, played by Saul Rubinek — who is a major film producer in the story. He’s also the son of Donny Donowitz, or the Bear Jew, a character in Inglourious Basterds who killed Hitler.

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6 Reservoir Dogs

A bank-heist gone wrong

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen
Run Time: 99 minutes

This is Tarantino’s feature-length debut. It’s all about the aftermath of a heist gone wrong. Six criminals are hired by mob boss Joe Cabot to steal diamonds, but after the police arrive impossibly early, they realize there must have been an informant among them.

Reservoir Dogs connects to the TCU in a few different ways — the biggest of which involves a certain briefcase we’ll discuss in Pulp Fiction. But another big connection is with the previous film on our list: Mr. White mentions working with a girl named Alabama, a not very common name in mid-90’s Los Angeles.

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7 Natural Born Killers

Two sadistic killers go on a rampage

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone
Writers: David Veloz, Richard Rutowski, Oliver Stone (screenplay); Story by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr.
Run Time: 119 minutes

Here’s another film that Tarantino wrote but didn’t direct. Natural Born Killers follows the story of Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis), both of whom are sadistic serial killers that go on a murder spree claiming 52 victims. The film’s main connection to the TCU comes via the media and American public, making cult heroes out of serial killers, once again showing how the public is desensitized to extreme violence.

Oliver Stone directed the film, using Tarantino’s script, but the two didn’t work well together. Tarantino’s original script had Robert Downey Jr’s role of a journalist who helps the murderous couple rise to fame in order to help his own career was a much larger part of the film. This led to Tarantino being highly critical of the movie on its release. Oliver Stone has blamed Tarantino for sinking the film ever since by speaking badly of it just before its release.

There’s also a little Easter Egg found in Tom Sizemore’s Detective Jack Scagnetti. He is related to Mr. Blonde’s parole officer, Seymour Scagnetti, in Reservoir Dogs.

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8 Pulp Fiction

The film that won Tarantino his first Oscar

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson
Runtime: 154 minutes

Pulp Fiction tells the story of a group of unsavory characters over a few days in Los Angeles. It’s the final film in Tarantino’s Realer than Real Universe, and it also won Tarantino his first Oscar, for Best Original Screenplay. Pulp Fiction is loaded with Easter Eggs that connect it to all the other TCU movies.

For instance, John Travolta’s Vincent Vega is the brother of Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs. Also, one theory states the mysterious briefcase — that we never get to see inside — is apparently filled with gems from the heist in Reservoir Dogs. This film also connects to the TCU’s Movie Movie Universe, through Uma Thurman’s character of Mia Wallace and the pilot she worked on… but more on that in our Kill Bill summary, below.

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The Movie-Movie Universe

This is where the Tarantino Cinematic Universe switches from the Realer than Real Universe to the Movie Movie Universe. All the films in Movie Movie Universe are about things that characters in the Realer than Real Universe would go to see during a night out to the movies.

Characters in these movies aren’t directly connected; no random relatives pop up in different movies, as we saw with the Vega, Donowitz, and Scagnetti characters in the Realer than Real universe. Instead, the films are connected through TCU Easter eggs (like the mention of a Big Kahuna Burger in Death Proof, or a character smoking Red Apple cigarettes in From Dusk till Dawn and Planet Terror).

They’re also a departure from reality. They’re movies packed with vampires and zombies and Uma Thurman successfully fighting through 88 people with a Katana. There is, however, one distinct way that films in the Movie Movie Universe connect to the Realer than Real Universe.

Is Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction actually Beatrix in Kill Bill? We’ll get to that.

9 Dusk till Dawn

Tarantino and George Clooney kidnap a family and drag them to a vampire bar

From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel
Run Time: 108 minutes

Quentin Tarantino wrote and starred in this film directed by Robert Rodriguez. It follows the Gecko Brothers — Seth (George Clooney) and Richard (Tarantino) — who are attempting to flee the country. They abduct the Fuller family and attempt to use them to sneak across the Mexican border. But once they make it to the bar where they’re supposed to meet their contact, they find it infested with vampires.

There are two sequels to this film, and they’re technically on this movie order list, but they aren’t required viewing, From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, and From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter. Tarantino’s production company, A Band Apart, produced both, and they’re supposed to serve as films that Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs would go see when he’s not severing off ears.

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10 Grindhouse: Death Proof and Planet Terror

An old school double feature

Grindhouse: Death Proof and Planet Terror (2007)

Director: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez
Writers: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Josh Brolin
Run Time: 105 minutes (Planet Terror) and 113 minutes (Death Proof)

Tarantino wrote and directed Death Proof. It tells the story of Mike (Kurt Russell), a stuntperson who murders women by getting into accidents with his car, which has been retrofitted to protect him from violent impacts. But Mike meets his match in the form of a stuntwoman named Zoe and her friends.

Tarantino also served as a producer on Planet Terror. It’s a Robert Rodriguez film, released alongside Death Proof as a double feature known collectively as Grindhouse. They were both designed to resemble old-school exploitation films. Planet Terror specifically focused on what happens after the release of a deadly toxin, called Project Terror, which turns the residents of a small Texas town into blood-crazed zombies.

Tarantino himself has said Grindhouse is in the Movie Movie Universe.

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11 Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2

A female assassin out to take down her former lover

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writers: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu
Run Time: 111 minutes (Vol. 1) and 136 minutes (Vol. 2)

Kill Bill introduces us to a pregnant bride named Beatrix, played by Uma Thurman. She’s shot in the head on her wedding day and spends four years in a coma before waking and seeking vengeance upon Bill and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, of which she used to be a member. Now, to tie this all up together, we need to go back to Jack Rabbit Slim’s scene in Pulp Fiction…

In that film, Uma Thurman’s character (Mia Wallace) describes a failed TV pilot known as Fox Force 5. It’s a team of the most dangerous women in the world, including a blonde leader, a Japanese Kung Fu master, a black demolitions expert, a french woman who specialized in sex, and herself, Mia, the most dangerous woman in the world with a knife. Notice the connection there?

That’s where this all leads: Kill Bill is a reworked version of the Fox Force 5 pilot, which Mia Wallace described in Pulp Fiction from the Realer than Real Universe. But, in the Movie Movie Universe, that TV pilot has been turned into two Kill Bill movies. And Uma Thurman isn’t playing the character of Beatrix; she’s playing Mia Wallace, from Pulp Fiction, who’s finally got her big break as Beatrix in Kill Bill.