Quentin Tarantino has consistently demonstrated that independent filmmaking can achieve significant industrial success while maintaining artistic integrity without obliging to studio demands and MCU-like franchise formats. The auteur filmmaker has largely influenced contemporary cinema as a proponent of distinctive voices, establishing that their originality can compete throughout the global marketplace.
Tarantino’s amalgamation of violence, dialogue, and nonlinear storytelling has led to a filmography that spans over three many years, with each release generating significant cultural impact and industrial success. Here’s a comprehensive rating of all Quentin Tarantino’s theatrical releases based on worldwide box office performance.
1. Django Unchained (2012)
- Worldwide Gross: $426 Million
- Rotten Rating: 87%
- Streaming On: Netflix
Plot: This revisionist history is about during American Civil War and sees a freed slave teaming with a German bounty hunter to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner within the antebellum South. As per Box Office Mojo a violent confrontation between history, suspense, and revenge, Django Unchained stands as Tarantino’s highest-grossing film up to now with a gross of $426 million worldwide, combining his trademark Western elements with serious social commentary.
The film’s unflinching examination of American slavery, paired with its genre entertainment elements, had made it the 18th highest-grossing R-rated film on the time of its release, that rank since having reduced to thirty eighth.
2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
- Worldwide Gross: $377.4 Million
- Rotten Rating: 86%
- Streaming On: Netflix
Plot: Tarantino’s latest cinematic affair up to now, this comedy-drama stars Leonardo Dicaprio as a fading actor and Brad Pitt as his stunt double as they navigate change in 1969 Hollywood. One other film experimenting with history and fiction, OUATIH crosses paths with real-life figures including Sharon Tate, Bruce Lee, and the Manson Family, while exploring themes of fame, friendship, and the top of industry’s Golden Era.
A nostalgic tribute to Hollywood’s golden age earned, Box Office Mojo reports Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gathered $377.4 million worldwide, out of which a whopping $142.5 got here out of North American box office. Alongside Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, it was a rare blockbuster in late 2010s to not have ties to a longtime film series.
3. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
- Worldwide Gross: $321.4 Million
- Rotten Rating: 89%
- Streaming On: JioHotstar
Plot: A chapter in an alternate history of World War II, the film’s titular group of Jewish-American soldiers conduct guerrilla warfare against Nazi forces in occupied France, who’re led by Hans Landa, one among cinema’s best villains. Their mission intersects with a young French woman’s own plot for revenge against Landa and the Germans who killed her family.
Inglourious Basterds grossed $321.4 million globally and have become Tarantino’s highest-grossing film at the moment, in accordance with Box Office Mojo. The historical thriller demonstrated Tarantino’s ability to tackle weighty historical subjects while maintaining his signature style, along with earning Christoph Waltz an Academy Award for his supporting performance.
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Worldwide Gross: $213.9 Million
- Rotten Rating: 92%
- Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video
Plot: The cult classic, that won Tarantino his first Academy Award, Pulp Fiction needs no introduction. The plot sees multiple interconnected stories follow various Los Angeles criminals, including two hitmen, a boxer, and a gangster’s wife, as their lives intersect in unexpected ways. The film fundamentally altered the course of independent cinema’s industrial potential, as its cultural impact extends far beyond its financial success.
In line with Box Office Mojo, Pulp Fiction earned an astounding $213.9 million at the worldwide box office during its initial run, scarcely missing out on 1994’s top 10 blockbusters behind Clear and Present Danger ($215.9 million) — the closest Tarantino has ever come to the chart.
5. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)
- Worldwide Gross: $180.9 Million
- Rotten Rating: 85%
- Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video
Plot: Starring Uma Thurman as a former assassin awaking from a four-year coma, Kill Bill became an instantaneous success. The audience were left enchanted by the Bride’s flashbacks of her unborn child, witnessing her embark on a methodical campaign of revenge against each member of the team that betrayed her.
Quentin Tarantino’s first feature of the twenty first century, Kill Bill demonstrated his prowess of genre filmmaking, introducing his vision pertaining to martial arts cinema with Western and exploitation elements. The stylized violence and international solid appealed to global audiences, as Kill Bill: Volume 1 collected $180.9 million at worldwide box office, as Box Office Mojo reports.
6. The Hateful Eight (2015)
- Worldwide Gross: $161.2 Million
- Rotten Rating: 74%
- Streaming On: Lionsgate Play
Plot: The Hateful Eight begins with eight strangers looking for shelter at a distant inn amid a blizzard, where suffocating interactions await them. As they realize one amongst them shouldn’t be who they claim to be, they increasingly turn out to be paranoid and hateful, advancing the screenplay to rework right into a violent murder mystery.
Tarantino’s chamber piece approach brought a deliberate departure from his previous epics with its confined setting. The whodunit roadshow strategy led to The Hateful Eight earning $54 million on the domestic and $107 million in international markets, grossing $161.2 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.
7. Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
- Worldwide Gross: $154.1 Million
- Rotten Rating: 84%
- Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video
Plot: The Bride continues her quest for vengeance against the remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, ultimately confronting Bill himself. The film explores her past relationship with Bill and the tragic events that set her on this path of retribution.
This conclusion to the Kill Bill saga emphasized character development and emotional depth over the primary volume’s motion sequences. The film’s philosophical approach to violence and redemption resonated with audiences looking for substance alongside spectacle, though it achieved barely lower box office returns than its predecessor, grossing $154.1 million in worldwide markets (in accordance with Box Office Mojo).
8. Jackie Brown (1997)
- Worldwide Gross: $39.6, 74.7 Million
- Rotten Rating: 88%
- Streaming On: Apple TV+
Plot: This adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel centers across the titular flight attendant who becomes entangled in a dangerous game between federal agents and arms dealers, and decides to depend on her intelligence and cunning to survive while playing all sides against one another.
Tarantino’s ability to work inside established source material was materialized along with his predilection to flaunt violence with the film’s mature themes. His follow-up to Pulp Fiction, this stylistic evolution, nevertheless, received less industrial attention, ending up with a final worldwide gross of $39.6 million (per Box Office Mojo), though some sources suggest this number could possibly be as high as $74.7 million.
9. Death Proof (2007)
- Worldwide Gross: $31.1 Million
- Rotten Rating: 67%
- Streaming On: Lionsgate Play
Plot: In an unusual feat, Death Proof accompanied Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror at box office in Grindhouse double-feature, and this time the audiences were only required to pay for one. The 2 together made $31.1 million in theater rentals, all of it coming from international markets, as Box Office Mojo reports.
Its plot unfolds as a predatory stunt driver stalks young women in skimpy clothes along with his death-proof automobile, turning his vehicle right into a weapon of terror. The film witnesses two groups who turn out to be targets of this deranged killer, with the second group of strong young women ultimately beating the daylights out of the middle-aged man.
10. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
- Worldwide Gross: $2.9 Million
- Rotten Rating: 90%
- Streaming On: Apple TV+
Plot: This debut feature established Tarantino’s popularity inside independent cinema circles, reintroducing the Latest Hollywood Era notion that groundbreaking storytelling could prevail over modest budgets. Reservoir Dogs earned a modest $2.9 million at box office, just about all of it stateside, per Box Office Mojo.
Reservoir Dogs revolves across the aftermath of a failed diamond heist, a gang gathers at a warehouse to find out which member betrayed them to the police. A framework of flashbacks and present-day tensions eventuates, spotlighting the events that led to their predicament.
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