Tarantino's Trash List: These 7 Films are a Complete Waste of Your Life
Famous filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has been known to have strong opinions about movies, and he's not shy about sharing them very vocally and very publicly.
In a series of interviews over the years, Tarantino has revealed some of his least favorite films; some are simply not worth watching, and some have left the filmmaker with a sense of bitter disappointment.
1. The Matrix Reloaded & The Matrix Revolutions
Bet pretty much everyone can agree with Tarantino on this one. The Matrix sequels, Tarantino said, ruined the mythology of the original Matrix and moved it down on his list of the best movies of all time (and to think that once upon a time The Matrix was actually second on that list!)
"But even though it did ruin the mythology for me and actually moved the original 'Matrix' down on my list — frankly, I just can't think about it the same way I did before — it didn't obliterate it entirely."
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
In a 1992 interview for LA Weekly, Tarantino criticized Twin Peaks movie for being too self-indulgent and said that he has no desire to see another David Lynch movie until he hears something different.
"If all you do is these little art films for 10 years for a million or two dollars, you're going to climb up your own ass," Tarantino said about Lynch, adding that he actually really loved his work – that is, before Fire Walk with Me came out.
3. Natural Born Killers
Tarantino wrote the script for Natural Born Killers (1994), but has not been able to watch the movie from start to end. He said that Oliver Stone fundamentally misunderstood his story, and rewrote portions that made the film's characters unbelievable to Tarantino.
"One of the things about that script, in particular, was that I was trying to make it on the page," he said on The Moment podcast in 2021 (h/t Slash Film). "So when you read it, you saw the movie. And it's like why didn't [Stone] do at least half of that? It was done for him!"
4. The Town
Now, admittedly, this is a weird reason to be somewhat disappointed with a movie, but still, Tarantino just went there. In 2015, he criticized the "phony" casting in The Town (2010), saying that everyone in the film is just too gorgeous (except for Jeremy Renner, who is still pretty good-looking), so naturally, The Town just couldn't hold up next to much more realistic-looking The Fighter.
"When you see David O. Russell cast those sisters, and you see Ben Affleck cast Blake Lively, you can't compare the two movies. One just shows how phony the other is."
5. Stripes
Being likable isn't always a good thing, and that's exactly the problem Tarantino had with Bill Murray's string of feel-good movies in the '80s. Tarantino called out some of Bill Murray's biggest works, specifically Stripes (1981), for having a predictable redemption arc for the protagonist. Here's the problem in a nutshell, in Tarantino's own words:
"If you did make a movie about a f---g bastard, you could bet that f---g bastard would see the error of their ways and be redeemed in the last twenty minutes. Like for example, all of Bill Murray's characters."
6. The Hunger Games
Tarantino famously took issue with The Hunger Games franchise, which he says blatantly copied the Japanese movie Battle Royale, one of his all-time favorite films.
"I'm a big fan of the Japanese movie Battle Royale, which is what Hunger Games was based on," Tarantino explained in a 2022 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! "Well, Hunger Games just ripped it off. That would have been awesome to have directed Battle Royale."
7. Halloween II
Tarantino criticized the twist in Halloween II (1981) that reveals Michael and Laurie are related, calling it a "yanked idea" and saying that there's something far scarier about Michael going through Haddonfield and it's just her.
"The sequels were horrible," Tarantino said in a 2019 Consequence of Sound interview. "They're like fruit from a poison tree because Laurie is not the brother of the Shape."