In any discussion of Quentin Tarantino’s distinctive directorial style, violence is bound to be one of the first things that comes up. The notorious writer-director doesn’t depict violence as realistically blunt like Martin Scorsese; in fact, he goes so far the other way that it feels like a satirical statement about the media.
With influences ranging from spaghetti westerns to Shaw Brothers kung fu movies, Tarantino’s particular brand of stylized, increasingly graphic violence is unique to him. No one directs violence quite like Tarantino, and that’s quite an achievement. So, here are the 10 most violent scenes from Tarantino’s filmography.
“Oh, Man, I Shot Marvin In The Face!” (Pulp Fiction)
In Pulp Fiction’s third storyline, “The Bonnie Situation,” we return to Jules and Vincent in Brett’s apartment. They drive away with their “guy,” Marvin, in the backseat, and talk about the fact that when they were shot at, every single bullet missed them. Jules thinks it was divine intervention, but Vincent thinks it’s just a coincidence.
He turns back to get Marvin’s two cents, but his gun goes off and sprays Marvin’s brains all over the back window of the car. John Travolta’s casual delivery of the line, “Oh, man, I shot Marvin in the face!” perfectly sells the pitch-black humor of this scene.
The Bride’s Revenge Against Buck (Kill Bill: Volume 1)
“Your name is Buck, right?” When the Bride awakens from her coma in Kill Bill: Volume 1, she has some truly haunting memories from her comatose state, of an orderly named Buck sexually assaulting her and accepting payments from other men to do the same.
She bites the bottom lip off of one of her attackers and then repeatedly slams a door on Buck’s head until his brain is so seriously damaged that he simply dies. Then, she grabs the keys to his truck and takes off in a wheelchair.
The Mandingo Fight (Django Unchained)
Calvin Candie is the only character that Quentin Tarantino has ever created that he truly hated on a personal level. And to be fair, he is a monster. His favorite pastime is “Mandingo” fighting; in other words, pitting two slaves against each other in a brutal fight to the death.
A Mandingo fight is taking place when we’re first introduced to Calvin, as he cheers on his own fighter and encourages him to get increasingly ruthless.
Mr. Blonde Tortures Marvin Nash (Reservoir Dogs)
Many moviegoers reportedly walked out of Reservoir Dogs in 1992 when Mr. Blonde turned on the radio, danced to Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You,” and tortured a police officer with a straight razor.
And it’s easy to see why, because a tied-up cop begging for his life while a sadistic criminal who couldn’t care less cuts off his ear isn’t a particularly palatable sight. But it’s certainly memorable. It sticks with you.
John Ruth And O.B. Drink The Poisoned Coffee (The Hateful Eight)
Major Warren using two pistols to turn Bob’s head into an eruptive fountain of blood is a strong contender for The Hateful Eight’s goriest moment, but John Ruth and O.B.’s poisoning is slightly more gruesome and a lot more drawn-out.
O.B. is the first to go, vomiting blood all over the floor, and then John Ruth realizes he’s about to suffer the same fate. He spews his innards all over his bounty Daisy Domergue’s face as she says, “When you get to Hell, John, tell ‘em Daisy sent you!” The Hateful Eight is essentially the closest thing on Tarantino’s filmography to a horror film.
The Movie Theater Massacre (Inglourious Basterds)
Only a filmmaker as bold as Tarantino would kill off Adolf Hitler in a rain of gunfire from Jewish soldiers, while the major figureheads of the Nazi Party burned to death at the hands of a Jewish refugee.
The movie theater massacre in Inglourious Basterds is the perfect climax. It’s breathtakingly cinematic, but it also suits the movie’s meta-commentary on WWII narratives.
Head-On Collision (Death Proof)
Death Proof has a bad reputation among Tarantino’s fans, and the director himself has admitted that it’s his worst film. But the premise of a slasher whose villain is a sadistic Hollywood stuntman who uses his “death-proof” stunt car to kill young women is a juicy one.
The head-on collision that tears Arlene and her friends limb from limb (and, in one particularly nasty case, face from skull) is pure ‘70s exploitation cinema.
Cliff, Rick, And Brandy Kill The Manson Murderers (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood)
Tarantino fans who go into his movies expecting action-packed set pieces with gory violence must’ve been a little disappointed by the first and second acts of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but if violence is what they came for, the third act makes up for it. In the Tarantino-verse, the Manson Family murderers didn’t go to Sharon Tate’s house.
They instead went to the house of her neighbor, TV western star Rick Dalton. This turned out to be a big mistake, as most of them were killed by Rick’s tripping stunt double Cliff Booth and the most badass fictional dog since Cujo, while the final one was burnt to a crisp by Rick himself, using the flamethrower from The 14 Fists of McCluskey.
The Bride Takes On The Crazy 88’s (Kill Bill: Volume 1)
The climactic set-piece of Kill Bill’s first half is a cinematic cocktail that sees the Bride taking on the Crazy 88’s in the House of Blue Leaves. Tarantino pulled every trick out of the ultraviolence playbook for this scene, with chests getting slashed open and eyeballs getting ripped out and axes getting thrown into skulls.
The scene briefly switches to a high-contrast black-and-white palette in the middle before returning to bright, saturated colors, allowing Tarantino to get away with explosive bursts of blood while retaining an R rating (and also adding to the intensity and disorientation of the sequence).
The Candyland Shootout (Django Unchained)
In the sale of Broomhilda, everything is going smoothly until Calvin Candie asks Dr. Schultz to shake his hand. All Dr. Schultz has to do is shake Calvin’s hand and Django’s wife will be free. But due to Dr. Schultz’s damnable pride, he can’t bring himself to shake the hand and instead whips out his sleeve gun and shoots Calvin in the chest.
Suddenly, everyone working on the plantation pulls out their gun and starts trying to kill Django. It’s one of the bloodiest (and also one of the most cinematic) gunfights in cinema history.