How to Watch Every Quentin Tarantino Movie in Order

As one of the most acclaimed directors of an entire generation, fans have been flocking to every Quentin Tarantino film since the man revolutionized the industry with the release of his sophomore film, Pulp Fiction. QT’s films are conceived from the bottom up in a design that only Tarantino could devise. Even though none of his movies have ever been directly related to one another, each can be seen as part of a more remarkable narrative tapestry.

Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic universe comprises two distinct parts, each informing upon the other. Finding the proper way to watch these films isn’t as simple as viewing them in the order of their release. Instead, each film QT has made is set during a specific era of world history and communicates both backward and forward, creating surprising links between the universe’s characters and timeline. Here’s how to watch every Quentin Tarantino movie in order.

How Do Quentin Tarantino’s Movies Connect?

The Only Thing Realer Than Real Are Movies

Quentin Tarantino has separated his cinematic universe into two fairly distinct parts, “The Realer Than Real World Universe” and the “Movie Within a Movie Universe.” During a conversation with an Australian news outlet in 2017, Tarantino described how his two creations work in tandem with one another, saying,

“There’s the Realer than Real Universe, alright, and all the characters inhabit that one. But then there’s this Movie universe… From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill, they all take place in this special Movie universe. So, basically, when the characters of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, when they go to the movies, Kill Bill is what they go to see. From Dusk Till Dawn is what they see.”

Recently, Tarantino has begun to blur the lines between these two universes a little bit more. His latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, heavily incorporates both universes into its narrative. Most of the film’s story takes place in “The Realer Than Real World Universe,” while other sections, composed of Rick Dalton’s many acting roles, comprise sections of the “Movie Within a Movie Universe.”

The film meant to serve as Tarantino’s tenth (and final) motion picture, The Critic, was supposed to explore the filmmaker’s shared universe in an even more literal fashion, which would have seen the film’s central character, a film critic, interacting with creations from the “Movie Within a Movie Universe.” Unfortunately, Tarantino called the film off and is now searching for a suitably epic way to bring his directing career to an end. In the meantime, let’s see if we can’t forge a narrative throughline across all of Tarantino’s incredible movies.

Django Unchained is the Starting Point for The QT Cinematic Universe

Time Period: 1858

In Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx’s titular character rises like a phoenix, breaking the chains of slavery that bind him with the help of bounty hunter King Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz. From there, the two men band together to free Django’s wife from the South Carolina plantation owner Calvin Candy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

As the starting point for Quentin Tarantino’s shared universe, Django Unchained isn’t bogged down by much in the way of continuity outside frequent Easter Eggs buried in many characters’ surnames. It’s also possible that a heroic historical figure like Django might have seen his legend increase in the years to come, thus inspiring later QT protagonists like Major Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight to become bounty hunters.

The Hateful Eight Gave Us a Taste of the Past

Time Period: 1877

Set nearly twenty years after Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight is a Western that takes place in the aftermath of the American Civil War with John “The Hangman” Ruth, played by Kurt Russell, escorting a stagecoach carrying Jennifer Jason Leigh’s outlaw Daisy Domergue. When a blizzard threatens to impede their progress, they wait for the storm to end at a stagecoach stopover, where six strangers, none of whom can be trusted, join them.

Much like in Django Unchained, the character names in The Hateful Eight provide ties to other characters and stories in the Quentin Tarantino universe. This is especially true for Tim Roth’s character, Pete Hicox, whose lineage is tied to that of Lt. Archie Hicox from Inglourious Basterds.

Inglourious Basterds Reimagined History on an Epic Scale

Time Period: 1941-1944

Quentin Tarantino’s highly acclaimed World War II film Inglourious Basterds follows a group of Jewish soldiers who infiltrate Nazi-occupied Europe and learn of an upcoming German film premiere that will have the entire Nazi leadership, including Adolf Hitler, in attendance. This then becomes the first of two notable times that QT decided to rewrite history when the film’s central team of heroes succeeds at their goal by taking down Hitler and burning the theater to the ground.

Only Quentin Tarantino would devise an entire film around the idea of humanity finally getting its long-deserved revenge against Adolf Hitler in the confines of a cinema. One of the men who leads that charge, Sgt. Donny Donowitz likely winds up inspired enough to join the movie business because decades later, his son (or grandson), Lee Donowitz, winds up a movie producer in True Romance.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Provided One Famous American Celebrity a Happy Ending

Time Period: 1969

Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, sees actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (played by Brad Pitt), navigate 1960s Hollywood when the former’s career has finally begun to enter a downslide. While Dalton struggles to reinvigorate his career, his next-door neighbor, Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie), has no idea that Charles Manson and his infamous family are slowly encroaching upon their neighborhood and way of life.

For the most part, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels very true to our actual world history. Then, the film’s final few minutes blow everything we think we know about the past out of the water as Manson’s family finds themselves experiencing a very different fate than the one they did in real life. Based on the (not so subtle) reference to the death of Hitler in one of Rick Dalton’s war movies, it’s also safe to say that the Führer’s demise led to American entertainment in Tarantino’s universe being even more violent and dramatic than it is in ours.

Reservoir Dogs Brought QT’s Universe to a More Contemporary Setting

Time Period: 1992

Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut is about the aftermath of a failed bank heist going from bad to worse. A mob boss hires six criminals to nab a series of diamonds. When cops arrive on the scene early, the criminals realize that someone in their group must be an informant and pick one another off systematically until no one’s left standing.

References to future QT films are plentiful in Reservoir Dogs. Everything from Michael Madsen’s Mr. Blonde, otherwise known as Vic Vega, being the brother to John Travolta’s Vincent Vega, as well as Mr. White having previously worked with a girl named Alabama, who’s likely the same Alabama from True Romance. Rumor even suggests that at one point, Tarantino considered having the diamonds from this film’s heist sequence as the contents of the infamous briefcase in Pulp Fiction. However, QT eventually scrapped the idea to allow for more ambiguity.

Pulp Fiction Changed Storytelling Forever

Time Period: 1992

While telling the story of a collection of unsavory characters over a few days in Los Angeles, Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, is loaded with Easter Eggs and serves as the linchpin of QT’s greater universe. As each of the film’s memorable cast of characters ends up on a collision course with one another that some won’t walk away from, Tarantino takes every chance he gets to layer this film with references to earlier (and later) projects.

Some of those connections have already been referenced, like the Vega brothers and the contents of Pulp Fiction’s briefcase. There are also slightly more subtle allusions, like Mia Wallace’s seemingly throwaway line about being part of a television pilot, which sounds suspiciously like the plot of Kill Bill. This outcome is even more ironic today, considering the rash of imitators this film produced in the 1990s.

Jackie Brown’s Ties to Other QT Projects Are Undefined

Time Period: 1995

Jackie Brown is the only film by Quentin Tarantino to be adapted from a preexisting work, and as such, it doesn’t fit as seamlessly with the rest. The film tells the story of a flight attendant, played by Pam Grier, who gets busted by the ATF while smuggling money for her boss but winds up devising a plan to turn the tables on the cops and the robbers.

Ostensibly set in the same year it was produced, Jackie Brown is the only film Tarantino has directed thus far that he hasn’t connected with the rest of his creations. That’s because, according to QT, he believes this movie is set in an “Elmore Leonard” universe, the author of the original novel that Jackie Brown was based on. Of course, nothing in the movie suggests it isn’t set somewhere in QT’s cinematic universe, and as such, it slides in fine right next to Pulp Fiction.

Four Rooms Is QT’s Most Forgotten Work

Time Period: 1995

Although it’s often forgotten, Four Room was an anthology film directed by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Allison Anders, and Alexandre Rockwell. QT’s segment, titled “The Man from Hollywood,” sees Tarantino having fun with his image, starring as a Hollywood director who engages in a (not so friendly) wager with a few associates involving a hatchet, a lighter, and a finger.

Short, sweet, and funny, “The Man From Hollywood” doesn’t directly relate to any of QT’s other films, but it’s certainly in keeping with the vision of Hollywood he later fleshed out in films like Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Kill Bill Became the Culmination of Everything Tarantino Was Building Towards

Time Period: 1999-2003

If Pulp Fiction was the foundation for Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic universe, Kill Bill is where he finally let loose and brought everything together. After Mia Wallace describes the premise of a pilot titled “Fox Force 5” during the Jack Rabbit Slim sequence in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino would use the same actress, Uma Thurman, to bring the story to life, slightly altered and updated into the life and times of Beatrix, otherwise known as The Bride.

Kill Bill features every character Mia Wallace mentioned during that infamous scene nearly a decade earlier. The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad comprises a blonde leader, a Kung Fu master, a demolitions expert, a woman who isn’t afraid to utilize her sensuality as a weapon, and, of course, the most dangerous woman in the world with a knife in the form of the Bride. Some intrepid fans might even want to read the entirety of Kill Bill as a meta-film in which Mia Wallace finally landed the role she had sought for so long. That’s the joy of QT’s cinematic universe; interpreting it is half the fun.

Death Proof Brings QT’s Universe to a Rollicking End

Time Period: 2007

One-half of the larger anthology film Grindhouse, Death Proof tells the story of Stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russell, a charismatic psychopath who murders his victims by crashing into them repeatedly with his retrofitted stunt car that protects him from the violence of each impact. Unfortunately for Mike, he finally meets his match in the form of another stuntwoman named Zoe and her friends.

Designed from the bottom up as an old-school exploitation horror film, Death Proof is less concerned with referencing other Quentin Tarantino films and hellbent on generating the same kind of tension-filled aesthetic as its partner story, Planet Terror, directed by QT’s good friend, Robert Rodriguez. That being said, the film holds a notable spot in QT’s canon as it currently serves as the termination spot for Tarantino’s cinematic universe. Technically speaking, we haven’t seen anything happening in QT’s universe since Zoe and her friends stopped Mike’s murderous rampage.

In What Order Were Quentin Tarantino’s Movies Released?

Over Four Decades of Hits

Now that you know how to watch Quentin Tarantino’s movies chronologically, here’s a refresher on the order in which they were released, just in case you’d like to experience them that way.

Looking at that list, it’s pretty clear that Quentin Tarantino intuitively realized that by starting his career with stories set in contemporary America, he could work in reverse, filling in the blanks of the universe he was looking to fashion. For that reason, perhaps more than any other, few cinematic universes are as compellingly rendered as QTs.