Quentin Tarantino Reveals His Pick For The Greatest Movie Ever Made

Talking about the “greatest” of all time is always a subjective matter, but for some reason we can’t quite put our fingers on — maybe it has to do with the fact that he himself is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time — Quentin Tarantino talking about one such flick automatically lends it some objective autonomy. So, if you were ever curious about what movie the director of such acclaimed titles such as Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained and Pulp Fiction would nominate as his “greatest of all time,” you seem to be in luck today.

In a recent appearance on the ReelBlend podcast, the Reservoir Dogs creator got passionate about a certain flick from Steven Spielberg that came out in the ‘70s. Tarantino hailed the movie the greatest that has ever been made, though there’s a catch.

“I think Jaws is the greatest movie ever made. Maybe not the greatest film. But it’s the greatest movie ever made. And then there are other movies that can get in its rarefied air. But as far as a movie, there’s no making it better than Jaws. There’s no ‘better’ than Jaws. It is the best movie ever made. And it shows how badly timed most movies made before Jaws were.”

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Tarantino further claims that he isn’t trying to be a snob with those distinctions. He sees blockbuster flicks such as Jaws as just another form of cinema.

“What I meant by that, to one degree or another, is that Spielberg and a lot of his cohorts grew up seeing those kinds of movies in the theater. Henry Levin’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, he’s gonna run to go and see that. Richard Fleischer’s Fantastic Voyage. He’s going to run and go see it. Gordon Douglas’s Them! He’s going to run and go see. Now… most of them weren’t directed that well. They were assignments given to journeyman directors who did their best with them. As opposed to Spielberg, who was like, no, this is exactly the kind of movie he likes. This is exactly the kind of movie he was put on earth to make. And he’s going to make it, within an inch of his life, as effective as it possibly can be.”

In layman’s terms, Tarantino is the biggest cinema geek to ever live. And we are more than glad to have had the chance to bear witness to its era-defining creative offsprings.

Photo by Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images for RFF

Talking about the “greatest” of all time is always a subjective matter, but for some reason we can’t quite put our fingers on — maybe it has to do with the fact that he himself is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time — Quentin Tarantino talking about one such flick automatically lends it some objective autonomy. So, if you were ever curious about what movie the director of such acclaimed titles such as Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained and Pulp Fiction would nominate as his “greatest of all time,” you seem to be in luck today.

In a recent appearance on the ReelBlend podcast, the Reservoir Dogs creator got passionate about a certain flick from Steven Spielberg that came out in the ‘70s. Tarantino hailed the movie the greatest that has ever been made, though there’s a catch.

“I think Jaws is the greatest movie ever made. Maybe not the greatest film. But it’s the greatest movie ever made. And then there are other movies that can get in its rarefied air. But as far as a movie, there’s no making it better than Jaws. There’s no ‘better’ than Jaws. It is the best movie ever made. And it shows how badly timed most movies made before Jaws were.”

Click to zoom 

Tarantino further claims that he isn’t trying to be a snob with those distinctions. He sees blockbuster flicks such as Jaws as just another form of cinema.

“What I meant by that, to one degree or another, is that Spielberg and a lot of his cohorts grew up seeing those kinds of movies in the theater. Henry Levin’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, he’s gonna run to go and see that. Richard Fleischer’s Fantastic Voyage. He’s going to run and go see it. Gordon Douglas’s Them! He’s going to run and go see. Now… most of them weren’t directed that well. They were assignments given to journeyman directors who did their best with them. As opposed to Spielberg, who was like, no, this is exactly the kind of movie he likes. This is exactly the kind of movie he was put on earth to make. And he’s going to make it, within an inch of his life, as effective as it possibly can be.”

In layman’s terms, Tarantino is the biggest cinema geek to ever live. And we are more than glad to have had the chance to bear witness to its era-defining creative offsprings.