Tarantino's Favourite Films
A few days ago we added an original Italian movie poser for Sergio Leone's seminal 1966 Western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to our collection of original movie posters.
My father stills tells the story of a young 1970's Adam 'sleep-walking' down the stairs to sit and watch the entire movie on our little black and white TV, before 'sleep-walking' back to bed.
Unsurprisingly, I am not the only fan of the movie and photographing the poster reminded me of a list I had seen a few years ago of Quentin Tarantino's favourite films.
Guess which one was at the top?
There are some big blockbusters there, even an added one at number eleven!
But also, perhaps, some less familiar choices, including...
Rio Bravo is a 1959 Howard Hawks' Western starring John Wayne, Dean Martin and singer Ricky Nelson. In 2014 it was added to the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry due to its "cultural, historical or aesthetic significance".
His Girl Friday is another Howard Hawks movie but in a testament to his virtuosity, quite a different one. Released in 1940 and adapted from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 play 'The Front Page' it stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in a screwball romantic comedy that frequently appears in 'Greatest American Comedy' lists. (This movie is now in the public domain and you can watch it here.)
The 1972 Jeong Chang-hwa Hong Kong martials arts movie "Number One First In the World" is known as both Five Fingers of Death and King Boxer in the English speaking world. A predecessor to Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" it is credited with spearheading the 1970's kung-fu movie craze.
Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo is a 1943 war film based on Lajos Biro's 1917 play 'Hotel Imperial'. Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff and Erich von Stroheim star in an Oscar nominated tale that inspired the real-life Allied Operation Copperhead, in which a close double of General Montgomery appeared around the Mediterranean in the days prior to D-Day to convince German Intelligence that a north European attack was not imminent.
The influence of the list on Tarantino's own back catalogue is evident.
Which films would make your top ten?
Adam and the Art of the Movies team.
