One of the greatest assets of Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking is his richly drawn characters. The writer-director’s colorful characters bring his signature dialogue to life, like Jules’ Ezekiel 25:17 recital in Pulp Fiction or Col. Landa’s rat speech in Inglourious Basterds. From Dr. Schultz to Cliff Booth, Tarantino has written a bunch of roles that have won Oscars for their actors.
Since Tarantino often pulls fading movie stars out of the woodwork to give them a career comeback — like blaxploitation icon Pam Grier, who enjoyed a career comeback after starring in Jackie Brown — a lot of the actors in his movies have underrated gems on their filmography.
Leonardo DiCaprio: The Quick And The Dead (1995)
Long before Leonardo DiCaprio would make his way to the top of the A-list and play Calvin Candie and Rick Dalton for Quentin Tarantino, he appeared in Sam Raimi’s underrated revisionist western The Quick and the Dead.
Sharon Stone stars as a gunslinger who rolls into a town called Redemption to take on a vicious gang leader played by Gene Hackman and has to gun down his backup first.
Harvey Keitel: Cop Land (1997)
Harvey Keitel has been a part of the Tarantino-verse since the very beginning, as he starred as Mr. White in the director’s debut feature Reservoir Dogs and followed it up with an unforgettable supporting turn as “The Wolf” in Pulp Fiction.
Across his decades-long career, Keitel has starred in acclaimed movies ranging from Mean Streets to Bad Lieutenant. He also appeared alongside Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, and Ray Liotta in the underappreciated small-town neo-noir Cop Land.
Steve Buscemi: Youth In Revolt (2009)
Miguel Arteta’s Youth in Revolt stars Michael Cera as a nerdy teenager who has to learn how to rebel against authority in order to be with a girl he fell in love with on vacation, played by Portia Doubleday.
The star-studded supporting cast includes Ray Liotta, Fred Willard, M. Emmet Walsh, and Steve Buscemi, who played Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs and the “Buddy Holly” waiter at Jack Rabbit Slim’s in Pulp Fiction.
Samuel L. Jackson: The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Shane Black is one of the most celebrated screenwriters in Hollywood, and as the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise, he’s inextricably tied to buddy action movies. From Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to The Nice Guys, Black has penned a ton of great buddy actioners.
One of Black’s most underrated efforts is The Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Geena Davis as a suburban mom who learns she’s a sleeper agent and Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson as her hilarious sidekick.
Kurt Russell: Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Before S. Craig Zahler put Vince Vaughn through the wringer in Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete, he teamed up with Kurt Russell for his directorial debut, Bone Tomahawk.
In its first half, Bone Tomahawk is a straightforward western about a search party being sent out into the desert. But in its second half, it becomes a brutal horror-thriller about a cannibalistic cult hunting people down and eating them.
Christoph Waltz: Carnage (2011)
Thanks to the roles Quentin Tarantino gave him, Christoph Waltz is the proud owner of two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor. He won the first for playing sinister S.S. Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds and the second for playing the decidedly zanier role of Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained.
In 2011, Roman Polanski directed Waltz, Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, and John C. Reilly in a film adaptation of the French play God of Carnage, simply retitled Carnage, about two sets of parents who meet up when their kids get into a brutal fight.
Bruce Willis: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Quentin Tarantino isn’t the only revered auteur that Bruce Willis has worked with. The actor also worked with Wes Anderson on Moonrise Kingdom, a coming-of-age romance that was overlooked by all the major awards ceremonies.
The movie revolves around Sam and Suzy, two troubled kids who fall in love and run away to be together. Willis plays Captain Sharp, the police officer searching the island for them.
Michael Fassbender: Slow West (2015)
Since appearing as an undercover British soldier in Inglourious Basterds, Michael Fassbender has become one of the biggest movie stars in the world. One little Fassbender-starring gem that slipped under the radar was 2015’s Slow West.
Set in Colorado in the 1800s, Slow West stars Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter who agrees to protect a teenager played by Kodi Smit-McPhee as he searches the Old West for the woman he loves.
Uma Thurman: Gattaca (1997)
From Mia Wallace to the Bride, most of Uma Thurman’s most memorable roles have been in Tarantino movies. After Pulp Fiction launched Thurman to stardom, she became inundated with offers.
One of the most underrated movies from this era is Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca, a dystopian sci-fi thriller set in a futuristic world governed by eugenics.
Brad Pitt: The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Although Tarantino has managed it twice, it’s difficult to create a modern western that becomes a big hit at the box office. The genre’s heyday ended about 50 years ago and the slower, more cerebral entries struggle to connect with today’s audiences.
But The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford — a slow, thought-provoking, very long modern western — is a fantastic movie. Director Andrew Dominik uses the ominous foreshadowing in the title to brilliant effect.