Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked

▣ True Romance (1993) pictured above
Top Gun director Tony Scott's thriller finds Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as lovers on the run after they steal contraband from the Detroit mob. Though it came out after Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino wrote True Romance first, and he gave Scott the choice of which of the two projects to direct while keeping the other for himself as his directorial debut.

“A vibrant, grisly, gleefully amoral road movie.” —Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

▣ Natural Born Killers (1994)
The story for Killers actually originated in Tarantino's script for True Romance, but when the page count grew too long, he divided the films in two. The resulting script was heavily revised by director Oliver Stone for his NC-17 serial killer satire starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis—leading Tarantino to remove his name from the screenplay credit—but Tarantino's original version was later published in book form.

“Most films today are afraid to try anything new. Natural Born Killers is an explosive device for the sleepy movie audience, a wake-up call in the form of a frag bomb.” —Richard Corliss, Time

▣ From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Directed by Tarantino's occasional collaborator Robert Rodriguez, this 1996 cult hit is a comedic horror thrill-ride starring George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, and Juliette Lewis—plus Tarantino himself. Tarantino actually began working on the screenplay in the early 1990s when he was hired by Robert Kurtzman to adapt Kurtzman's story idea, though it took years for the project to get off the ground.

“A deliriously trashy, exuberantly vulgar, lavishly appointed exploitation picture, this weird combo of road-kill movie and martial-arts vampire gorefest is made to order for the stimulation of teenage boys.” —Todd McCarthy, Variety