Every Time Quentin Tarantino Has Appeared In His Own Movies, Ranked

When it comes to director trademarks, Alfred Hitchcock started a trend in which he gave himself a cameo in most of his movies. Other filmmakers followed in his steps, as Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips, and Francis Ford Coppola have all given themselves cameos, but Tarantino took it one step further.

Tarantino actually went to acting school before he was an acclaimed director, and sometimes it shows. Other times, however, it’s a wonder why any producer thought it’d be a good idea for the director to ever be in front of the camera.

10 Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pulp Fiction might be considered Tarantino’s best movie, and rightly so, as the movie follows a bunch of seemingly interconnected vignettes of hitmen, boxers, and drug dealers. However, Tarantino’s best movie has the worst appearance from the director himself, and it, unfortunately, lasts forever, or at least it feels that way.

In the scene, Vince and Jules turn up at a house belonging to Jimmy, played by Tarantino, and it led to the most disgusting and unnecessary use of the N-word in any movie ever. Stanley Kubrick famously called it the worst scene in cinema history.

9 Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

With a long six-year gap between Jackie Brown and his next feature movie, fans knew it was going to be something big. Kill Bill was a massive movie that caused so much controversy that the director hadn’t seen for ten years with Pulp Fiction. But it didn’t stop the movie from being massively successful and getting a sequel the following year, being the only sequel Tarantino has ever made and many even wanting a second sequel.

However, with the controversy Tarantino received for that scene in Pulp Fiction, he took a back seat in terms of cameos, as the director has only an off-screen role in which only his voice can be heard.

8 Jackie Brown (1997)

Jackie Brown is another movie in which Tarantino can be heard but not seen. Being one of the most underrated crime movies of the 1990s, Jackie Brown marked many firsts for Tarantino.

The movie was the first (and so far only) movie directed by Tarantino that isn’t his own material, his first blaxploitation movie, and it was the first time the director didn’t thrust himself into the movie, but his voice can be heard on an answering machine.

7 Death Proof (2007)

Death Proof is less of a traditional Tarantino movie and more of a strange experiment with Robert Rodriguez, meaning that there are very few of the director’s trademarks in the movie except for some bare feet, and, of course, an appearance from the man himself. Marking his first on-screen performance in one of his own directed movies in thirteen years, the role is a little awkward when viewed today, as he continuously passes out shots to women half his age.

6 The Hateful Eight (2015)

When it comes to great westerns directed by Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight undeservedly lives in the shadow of Django Unchained. Being the director’s follow up to Django, The Hateful Eight just didn’t get the success it deserved as it was comparatively fairly free of action. However, the movie really slows down two-thirds of the way in, as Tarantino strangely pauses the movie to deliver a voiceover that summarises everything we’ve already seen. It’s a strange decision, but Tarantino does have a surprisingly sultry voice when he wants to.

5 Django Unchained (2012)

The acting in Django Unchained is mostly superb across the board, with amazing performances from Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio, which spawned some amazing memes. However, in the final act of the movie, Tarantino returns to the fold as he plays an Australian slave trader, and his accent is atrocious. Though it makes for a ton of laughs and he gives himself one of the greatest murder scenes in the entire movie, of which there are many.

4 Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is another movie in which Tarantino actually manages to resist the temptation of writing himself into the story, but he can still be heard at the very end in the mid-credits scene.

When Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is shooting a commercial for cigarettes, Tarantino can be heard as the off-screen director. Not just that, but the director even put himself in the poster.

3 Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Not only is Inglourious Basterds one of the movies that everybody forgot Mike Myers is in, but it’s also a movie that everyone forgets Tarantino is in too, as he doesn’t just have one cameo, but two of them. First of all, he plays the first Nazi to have his scalp collected by the Basterds close to the beginning of the movie. Following that, he plays a Nazi in Nation’s Pride, the movie within the movie, which was interestingly directed by Eli Roth,

2 Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino’s role in Reservoir Dogs isn’t just an appearance, and it certainly wasn’t a cameo as nobody had any clue who he was back then, but he was a main character. Playing Mr. Brown, Tarantino is most remembered for his crude but very in-depth analysis of the smash hit “Like A Virgin” by Madonna, which opens up the movie. His delivery in the movie is exceptional and it’s one of the reasons why the film is one of the best debut movies from a director.

1 From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

Though it wasn’t directed by Tarantino, the filmmaker wrote the story for From Dusk Til Dawn and handed it to his peer, Robert Rodriguez. Tarantino has a leading role in the movie alongside none other than George Clooney. It’s an exciting movie that goes from a road trip flick about two criminals on the run to a vampire slash-em up schlock-fest, and it features Tarantino’s best role to date.