Directors Who Dominate: Quentin Tarantino

Directors who dominate: No, I’m not talking about directors who demand complete control of everything happening on their set. Well, it’s possible I am talking about those types of directors, as the guy I’m talking about has written the screenplay for every film he’s ever directed (and has acted in most of them). Of course I am talking about the quintessentially awesome, Quentin Tarantino (Oh yes, you can bet I am going to be thinking of Q words for this entire article… are you already sick of my quips?).

When I use the phrase “directors who dominate”, I mean it in the sense of him (or her) dominating Flickchart. Tarantino is easily one of the most dominating directors on my personal Flickchart, and on Flickchart’s global rankings. Let’s take a look at where he stands:

Global Rankings:

• Pulp Fiction: #4
• Reservoir Dogs: #21
• Kill Bill Vol. 1: #22
• Kill Bill Vol. 2: #100
• Jackie Brown: #206
• Inglourious Basterds: #439
• Death Proof: #906

That’s:

• 1 film in the top 5
• 3 films in the top 25
• 4 films in the top 100
• 5 in the top 250

I could keep quantifying Tarantino’s global rankings, but you get the picture. Of course, my personal rankings are a bit different as I am a Tarantino nut:

• Inglourious Basterds: #17
• Kill Bill Vol. 2: #18
• Pulp Fiction: #19
• Reservoir Dogs: #26
• Jackie Brown: #101
• Kill Bill Vol. 1: #109
• Death Proof: #117

Tarantino’s filmography does not fall below 117th place on my list. One might consider this quizzical considering I have over 900 movies on my Flickchart, but it’s not like I’m trying to meet a quota of having a certain amount of different directors in my top 100.

So why is Tarantino so highly placed on my list and on the global charts? His films have spawned countless knock-offs, creating tons of films that have been inspired by Tarantino. It’s hard to guess just how many filmmakers he has inspired. Whether you’re a film buff, or even just an average joe, you know Tarantino; and you probably have seen one of his movies. Tarantino’s work transcends the box office, transcends festival awards, and transcends the Academy. Everyone can find something they like in a Tarantino movie; whether it be the performances he pulls from his actors, the sense of place and realism of his characters, or his always mind-blowing soundtracks.

Perhaps what I wrote at the beginning of the article is completely true? Tarantino does dominate everything about his movies. When you watch one of his movies, it basically oozes Tarantino. Once you’ve seen your first Tarantino film, you will always be able to point out Tarantino-inspired moments in other films. You will always remember when Tarantino revitalized a given actor’s career. You will always remember the first time you heard that song – was in a Tarantino movie.

Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino’s most dominating film: it wins 77% of it’s matchups.

Here’s one final statistic to showcase Tarantino’s dominance. If you take each Tarantino film and calculate its percentage of total Tarantino rankings (for example, Pulp Fiction is 25% of Tarantino’s rankings on Flickchart), and then calculate what it’s win percentage is (Pulp Fiction is 30% of Tarantino’s wins on Flickchart), you can give the correct weights to his films depending on their percentages. What is this final score? It is the percentage of times Tarantino wins, weighted by the films that have been seen by the most users. So finally we arrive at 70%. 70% of the time that a Tarantino film comes up in a Flickchart matchup, it wins. Who is more dominating than that?

This post is part of our User Showcase series. You can find William as EquityDiversity on Flickchart. If you’re interested to submit your own story or article describing your thoughts about movies and Flickchart, read our original post for how to become a guest writer here on the Flickchart Blog.