Every single Quentin Tarantino character is full of life. Look to the fringes of his films and you’ll find supporting characters with more personality and spark than leading characters in other movies. Minor characters, who appear for a single scene and vanish forever, are given lines of dialogue that would be the highlight of other films. Few living filmmakers stack their films with so many memorable names and faces.
And with his new movie, The Hateful Eight, about to hit theaters, it’s time to something really, really dumb: rank every single Quentin Tarantino character of any significance from worst to best. Bear with me. This is going to take awhile.
When assembling the master list of names for this endeavor, we followed a handful of rules:
- In order to be included, the character must play a role in the plot of the film or interact with a major character.
- In order to be included, a character must have a name. If the character doesn’t have a name, they must have enough screen time or be significant enough to overrule this command.
- In order to be eligible, characters had to be in a feature film directed by Quentin Tarantino. This means characters from True Romance and From Dusk Till Dawn are ineligible. Since it’s not a full feature, I also disqualified Tarantino’s segment from Four Rooms.
- Any of those rules can be broken at any time, for any reason, if it means making this list worth reading.
Going by those regulations, I re-watched all eight of Tarantino’s movies, took a lot of notes, and arrived at a final list of 122 names. If there’s someone missing who you think is seriously worth of additional consideration… just go write your own list.
This may seem like a preposterous list, an exercise in cinematic masochism and, well, that’s kind of a true. But this was really just an excuse to revisit the career of one of the great modern filmmakers and to examine the literal dozens of amazing characters he has created.
So let’s get started. Welcome to part one a three-part series that will rank every single Quentin Tarantino character. In today’s edition: #122 through #61…
122. Warren
The Movie: Death Proof
The Actor: Quentin Tarantino
Noteworthy Quote: “Is that a tasty beverage or is that a tasty be-ve-rage?”
Quentin Tarantino obviously wanted to have fun and chill out on the set of Death Proof and taking on the minor character of Warren the bartender gave him an opportunity. No one would remember this character at all if it didn’t involve Tarantino sampling one of the most famous lines from Pulp Fiction.
121. Dov
The Movie: Death Proof
The Actor: Eli Roth
Noteworthy Quote: “Dude fucking cut himself falling out of his time machine.”
When Quentin Tarantino decided to have fun and chill out on the set of Death Proof, he apparently decided to bring in his buddy, filmmaker Eli Roth, along for the ride. Fair enough. What good are friends if you can’t just drop them into your movies whenever you want?
120. LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employee 3
The Movie: Django Unchained
The Actor: Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino has never been a particularly strong actor. Here, he tries out an unfortunate Australian accent. He does get a great death, though – blown up by a stick of dynamite.
119. LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employee 2
The Movie: Django Unchained
The Actor: John Jarratt
Quentin Tarantino collects character actors like normal people collect baseball cards. He’s obviously a Wolf Creek fan.
118. LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employee 1
The Movie: Django Unchained
The Actor: Michael Parks
Of all the minor characters Michael Parks has played throughout Tarantino’s filmography, this one shines the least. That’s no fault of Parks, an actor who has never given a bad performance in his life, but hey, someone has to suffer when you rank things.
117. Mr. Brown
The Movie: Reservoir Dogs
The Actor: Quentin Tarantino
Noteworthy Quote: “Let me tell you what ‘Like a Virgin’ is about. It’s all about a girl who digs a guy with a big dick. The entire song. It’s a metaphor for big dicks.”
At one point, Tarantino considered casting himself in the much larger role of Mr. Pink. He eventually, and thankfully, settled for the much smaller role of Mr. Brown. Tarantino isn’t awful, but he’s certainly out of his league when surrounded by the likes of Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Steve Buscemi.
116. Mr. Blue
The Movie: Reservoir Dogs
The Actor: Eddie Bunker
Noteworthy Quote: “How many dicks is that?”
Eddie Bunker, a former criminal turned writer and actor, imbues Mr. Blue with an effective and lived-in world weariness. And yet, he only has a few lines and vanishes from the movie after the opening credits, dying offscreen.
115. Francesca Mondino
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Julie Dreyfus
Tarantino apparently likes working with Julie Dreyfus, who played a more significant role in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Why else would he cast her as Joseph Goebbel’s French translator, who exists to relay information across the language barrier, participate in a bizarre sex joke, and receive a brutal death.
114. Tommy Plympton
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Actor: Christopher Allen Nelson
Noteworthy Quote: “Well, let’s just say I like to live dangerously.”
Tommy Plympton has one job and one job only: to look like a dumb schmuck who is entirely unworthy of Uma Thurman at a quick glance. Mission accomplished.
113. Sheronda
The Movie: Jackie Brown
The Actor: Lisa Gay Hamilton
As one Ordell Robbie’s pawn in his increasingly complex game of cash and guns, Sheronda is an innocent caught in the crossfire. She exits the movie after only a single scene, although her naïveté leaves a mark on the toughed Jackie.
112. Ernie
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Actor: Clark Middleton
Noteworthy Quote: “Look at those eyes. This bitch is furious.”
Budd’s redneck buddy helps him bury Uma Thurman’s Beatrix Kiddo alive. In just a handful of lines, actor Clark Middleton paints an effective-enough portrait of a sexist jackass.
111. Joseph Goebbels
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Sylvester Groth
Noteworthy Quote: “It seems I’ve created a monster. A strangely persuasive monster.”
It’s hard to be fully appreciated as cinematic recreation of the 20th century’s second greatest monster when you share a movie with the likes of Adolf Hitler. Goebbels is appropriately slimy, but, you know, Hitler is hanging around, too.
110. Rufus
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Actor: Samuel L. Jackson
Noteworthy Quote: “I was a Drell. I was a Drifter. I was a Coaster. I was part of The Gang. I was a Bar-Kay… If they come through Texas, I done played with them.”
Did you really think Tarantino wouldn’t find room for his good luck charm in either of the Kill Bill movies? Samuel L. Jackson pops up for one scene, acts cooler than everyone else in the room, and then vanishes. Sure, we’d watch a spin-off movie about the musical adventures of Rufus, the El Paso church musician.
109. Reverend Harmony
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 2
The Actor: Bo Svenson
Noteworthy Quote: “Now, when I say you may kiss the bride, you may kiss the bride… but don’t stick your tongue in her mouth.”
Of course Tarantino would cast minor B-movie legend Bo Svenson as slightly grizzled Texas preacher. Elevating bit parts with cool actors is his specialty.
108. Pfc. Michael Zimmerman
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Michael Bacall
Noteworthy Quote: “Yes, sir!”
Of all the “Basterds” enlisted to wreak havoc across Nazi-occupied France, Michael Zimmerman seemingly has the least to do. Still, he does get to be on hand for several gnarly, tense sequences.
107. Pfc. Hirschberg
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Samm Levine
Noteworthy Quote: “Yes, sir!”
Despite being played by the recognizable Sam Levine, Hirschberg only has slightly more to do than Zimmerman.
106. Pfc. Andy Kagan
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Paul Rust
Noteworthy Quote: “Yes, sir!”
Despite being played by the recognizable Paul Rust, Hirschberg only has slightly more to do than Levine.
105. Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki
The Movie: Inglourious Basterds
The Actor: Gedeon Burkhard
Noteworthy Quote: “Yes, sir!”
Of all the background Basterds who really don’t contribute to the plot in any way, Wilhelm Wicki gets ranked the highest simply because he’s in the most scenes, including the skin-crawling tavern shootout that leaves him dead.
104. Paul/English Bob
The Movie: Pulp Fiction
The Actor: Paul Calderon
Noteworthy Quote: “My name’s Paul and this is between y’all.”
Despite being called “English Bob” by Jules and named so in the screenplay, Marsellus Wallace’s friendly bartender refers to himself as Paul and is credited as such in the closing credits. He repartee with Jules and Vincent is much sharper than that of your typical movie bartender.
103. Buck
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 1
The Actor: Michael Bowen
Noteworthy Quote: “Well, ain’t you the little slice of cutie pie they said you were. Jane Doe, huh? Well, we don’t know shit about you, huh? Well, I’m from Huntsville, Texas. My name is Buck, and I’m here to fuck.”
One of the most unpleasant minor characters in the Tarantino filmography, Buck is the kind of charming fellow who pimps out the bodies of coma patients. He is not a nice man and is placed with appropriate sleaze by Michael Bowen. He more than earns his brutal death at the hands of Uma Thurman’s Beatrix.
102. Johnny Mo
The Movie: Kill Bill Vol. 1
The Actor: Gordon Liu
The leader of the Crazy 88 is the “sub-boss” of Kill Bill Vol. 1 – our heroine needs to get through him to face her real target. Johnny Mo doesn’t have a personality (he literally doesn’t speak), but he’s a striking physical threat and his sword fight with Beatrix Kiddo is the brutal cherry on top of the film’s gory climax. He even dies horribly, losing several limbs as he plunges into a pool of bloody water, never to be seen again.
101. Marvin
The Movie: Pulp Fiction
The Actor: Phil LaMarr
Noteworthy Quote: “Man, I don’t even have an opinion.”
Marvin doesn’t do much beyond getting shot in the face, but as anyone who has seen Pulp Fiction can tell you, his death triggers all kinds of hilarious and twisted events. As a character: meh. As a catalyst for Pulp Fiction’s finest chapter: gold.
Continue Reading Every Quentin Tarantino Character, Ranked >>
The post Do You Find Me Sadistic: Ranking Every Single Quentin Tarantino Character (Part One) appeared first on /Film.
Sponsored Link
Clash of Clans Gems
