The best character from every Quentin Tarantino movie
Over the past three decades, Quentin Tarantino has proved himself to be one of the finest American filmmakers of our time and, in the eyes of many, one of the greatest in Hollywood history. Tarantino’s success is rooted in meticulous attention to detail. His unique scripts flourish thanks to larger-than-life character development and the trademark thread of satirical humour.
Whether telling the vengeance tale of a mistreated assassin in the modern age or a murder mystery set in a 19th-century haberdashery, Tarantino brings a distinctive identity to his stories. The dark humour and inevitable bloodbath climax are obvious trends, but beyond this, Tarantino deftly weaves nonlinear storylines with curt, impactful dialogue.
Instead of attempting to replicate natural speech as we know it in our quotidian lives, Tarantino removes his foot from the brakes of reality – as he does with his scenes of violence – and uses his imagination. Distinctive manners of speech within Tarantino’s scripts allow for stronger character development; with a sprinkle of that trademark humour, we may just find ourselves charmed by a murdering psychopath.
“When I’m writing,” Quentin Tarantino once said of his unique writing approach via Outstanding Screenplays. “It’s about the page. It’s not about the movie. It’s not about cinema or anything. It’s about the literature of me putting my pen to paper and writing a good page, and making it work completely as a literature document on itself. That’s my first artistic contribution.”
The director adds: “If I do my job right, by the end of the script, I should be having the thought, ‘Y’know, if I was just to publish this now and not make it, I’m done. I’ve done it. I could actually be okay with just saying, ‘That’s it’.”
Today, we’re exploring some of Tarantino’s greatest artistic contributions by picking out the best character from each of his movies.
The best character from every Quentin Tarantino movie
Mr White (Reservoir Dogs, 1992)
In Tarantino’s directional debut, Reservoir Dogs, the audience is introduced to a group of outlaws who plot a heist under code names. To conceal identities, the boss Joe Cabot gives the men colours. During the heist, things go west when cops arrive at the scene before alarm bells have even begun ringing. Following an intense shootout, the perpetrators travel back to the safe house, but it’s apparent there’s a rat among them.
The storyline perfectly illustrates why members of a team should never be strangers to one another. Next to Michael Madsen’s psychopathic and frankly horrifying character Mr Blonde, the whole cast seem pretty friendly, but above the rest, Harvey Kietel’s Mr White shines through as the most morally relatable among the story’s main catalysts as he struggles to look after his new friend, Tim Roth’s Mr Orange.
Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
In 1994, Tarantino released Pulp Fiction, his quintessential crime drama starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel among its A-lister ensemble. In classic Tarantino style, the movie follows several narratives that converge in an intense and violent finale.
In this groundbreaking script, Tarantino brought a host of intriguing characters to our eyes, from Willis’ ageing Boxer, Butch Coolidge, to Kietel’s no-nonsense “cleaner” Winston Wolfe. However, the standout thread follows the partners in crime, Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield. The latter, portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, is a narcissistic comedian, a personality Jackson would partially reprise in Jackie Brown and The Hateful Eight.
Jackie Brown (Jackie Brown, 1997)
In 1997, Tarantino released his third and final movie of the decade. While it hasn’t garnered the same attention as its predecessors over the years, it remains one of the legendary filmmaker’s defining works. To the beat of yet another stellar soundtrack, Tarantino tells the story of the titular air hostess, who cunningly deceives her controlling boss, arms dealer Ordell Robbie.
As the titular protagonist grapples with impending drug trafficking charges and her unstable boss, she finds unlikely comfort in a relationship with bail bondsman Max Cherry. Jackie Brown remains one of Tarantino’s most absorbing characters. At times, she shows a vulnerable and compassionate side, but ultimately, her intelligence and stoicism prevail and have us wondering if she ever doubted herself.
The Bride (Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2003) and (Kill Bill: Vol. 2, 2004)
After the turn of the millennium, Tarantino introduced one of his most memorable characters in the two-part movie series Kill Bill. The extended plot follows The Bride, an assassin played by Uma Thurman. She embarks on a bloody trail of vengeance after waking from a coma induced by a point-blank gunshot wound, during which a male nurse raped her. The ultimate mission is to kill Bill, her former boss, who brutally attacked her four years before.
Throughout both films, the audience is put in The Bride’s mind. We share her wrath, which intensifies as we understand more about her tragic backstory. The Bride’s mission is ours too, and we rejoice when the deed is finally done.
Stuntman Mike (Death Proof, 2007)
Following the successful Kill Bill saga, Tarantino entered a nadir of sorts with the underwhelming Death Proof. The story follows a deranged stuntman, Kurt Russell’s Mike, who stalks and murders young women with his ‘death proof’ stunt car.
Despite the fact Mike is an unhinged murderous maniac targeting vulnerable and innocent women, he is the story’s strongest character thanks to a blinding performance from Russell in his debut Tarantino collaboration. As the central protagonist, Mike keeps the audience on its toes; he may not be particularly likeable or relatable, but he carries a robust and complex personality.
Hans Landa (Inglourious Basterds, 2009)
Following Death Proof, Tarantino wrote and directed Inglorious Basterds. As the misspelt title suggests, the film doesn’t hold back on Tarantino’s characteristic absurdity and comic exaggeration. The film follows a group of Jewish Americans who plot revenge against the Nazi party in occupied France.
The film introduces some strong, stoic characters, such as the head Nazi-hunter Aldo Raine, portrayed by Brad Pitt and the brave French Jewish cinema proprietor, Shosanna Dreyfus, portrayed by Diane Kruger. However, the movie’s strongest and most absorbing character is Hans Landa, the ruthless, sociopathic Nazi played by Christoph Waltz. Waltz’s brilliant acting makes a success of some of the film’s most intense scenes.
Dr. King Schultz (Django Unchained, 2012)
Like Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino’s 2012 blockbuster Django Unchained is a classic story of gritty revenge. This time, we follow the story of newly emancipated slave Django (Jamie Foxx), who embarks on a quest for vengeance and, most importantly, to free his enslaved wife, Broomhilda von Shaft, from the clutches of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie.
Again, Tarantino brings a host of strong characters in Django Unchained, but for me, Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz comes as the most charming and impactful. He frees Django before training him as a bounty hunter and helping him track down his wife. Throughout the film, Waltz brings an element of humour that engages the audience from the off.
Daisy Domergue (The Hateful Eight, 2015)
Following Django Unchained, Tarantino remained focused on the oppressive American expansion region of his timeline. The Hateful Eight is almost entirely set at Minnie’s Haberdashery, where a strong broth of opposing personalities shelter from a blizzard. As a bounty hunter, his live bounty Daisy Domergue, a deputy sheriff, a cowboy, an elderly Confederate general and a Black Union Major converse, tensions rise as it becomes increasingly apparent something’s not right.
Daisy Domergue, the dirty, cackling outlaw brilliantly portrayed by Jennifer Jason Leigh, strikes the most emotion into the audience. Throughout the film, she incites laughter, with her dark humour, anxiety, cruel intentions and fear, with her frightful exterior and abhorrent demeanour.
Rick Dalton (Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, 2019)
Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, arrived in 2019 and is supposedly his penultimate direction. In this classy film, Tarantino left the 1800s to explore the closing years of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Rick Dalton gets caught up in a convergence of setbacks in both his dwindling career and at home, where he finds himself using a flamethrower to fight a deranged hippie.
One of the film’s greatest character dynamics is that seen between Dalton and his loyal stunt double, Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth. As the central protagonist, DiCaprio’s Dalton brings humour to the 1960s satire allowing the audience to sympathise with his despair and celebrate when he comes out on top.
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