Quentin Tarantino, like all former video store clerks, loves to talk about movies. So as 2025 makes its way to a close, the filmmaker has been assembling his list of the 20 greatest movies of the 21st century, capped off by the reveal of his top 10 on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast. As recapped by World of Reel, Tarantino set himself the rule of only one movie per director, and picked Ridley Scott’s war epic Black Hawk Down as his favorite of the millennium to date.
While movies 11-20 on Tarantino’s list included more world cinema, including Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale and Prachya Pinkaew’s Chocolate (“a movie you probably never heard of… People getting fucked up in the most spectacular of ways…”), his top 10 all come from well-established Western filmmakers, including Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Tony Scott’s Unstoppable, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.
In terms of Christopher Nolan, Tarantino’s a Dunkirk fan, ranking it fourth on his list (“I feel there’s a real mastery to it, and I came around to it watching it again and again and again”). In at number three is Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (“I hadn’t seen such a girlie movie in a very long time, and I hadn’t seen such a girlie movie like that be so well done”), followed by Toy Story 3 (“This is the greatest end of a trilogy”) in the penultimate slot. He praised his number one pick, Black Hawk Down, as “the only movie that actually goes completely for an Apocalypse Now sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling.”
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In 2020, Tarantino had previously declared David Fincher’s The Social Network to be the greatest movie of the 2010s, saying then that “It’s number one because it’s the best, that’s all! It crushes all the competition.” This year, though, he names Zodiac as his favorite Fincher film (ranking it at six on his list), noting that while he wasn’t initially hooked by it, he decided to give it another watch after catching various sections on cable movie channels. “It was a whole different experience from that point on. I found myself, every six or seven years, watching it again.” Tarantino, like all film nerds, is allowed to change his mind with the passing of time (and additional viewings).
While Tarantino’s tenth and promised final film remains a question mark, he’s certainly keeping busy: He and Fincher are currently collaborating on the upcoming Netflix sequel to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, with Fincher now directing Tarantino’s script for The Adventures of Cliff Booth. Plus, this week fans will get to enjoy the epic re-release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, in theaters beginning December 5th — and Tarantino’s even got an idea for a Kill Bill prequel.
Quentin Tarantino’s Top 20 Films of the 21st Century
20. West Side Story
19. Cabin Fever
18. Moneyball
17. Chocolate
16. The Devil’s Rejects
15. The Passion of the Christ
14. School of Rock
13. Jackass: The Movie
12. Big Bad Wolves
11. Battle Royale
10. Midnight in Paris
09. Shaun of the Dead
08. Mad Max: Fury Road
07. Unstoppable
06. Zodiac
05. There Will Be Blood
04. Dunkirk
03. Lost in Translation
02. Toy Story 3
01. Black Hawk Down