Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has been out doing press for “Cinema Speculation,” a recent collection of film essays he penned and which is currently available to buy.
During his rounds, he stopped by Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show where he was asked to pick his best film. Tarantino dubs his most recent effort with 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as his best work.
That film pulled in $374 million worldwide along with landing ten Oscar nominations, including a win for Brad Pitt in the supporting actor category. Talking about picking his best film, he says:
“For years people used to ask me stuff like that, and I would say something like, ‘Oh, they’re all my children.’ I really do think ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is my best movie.”
His pick comes as he tells Roger Avary’s Video Archives Podcast this week that he views the modern movie era as tying with the 1980s and 1950s for the “worst in Hollywood history”:
“Even though the ’80s was the time that I probably saw more movies in my life than ever – at least as far as going out to the movies was concerned – I do feel that ’80s cinema is, along with the ’50s, the worst era in Hollywood history. Matched only by now, matched only by the current era!”
Tarantino says “the [films] that don’t conform” are “the ones that stand out from the pack” in terms of current cinema. The filmmaker has long been a critic of the current dominance of superhero movies.
