Watch Quentin Tarantino's favourite Christopher Nolan film on Netflix

Legendary auteur Quentin Tarantino is known for his two primary fetishes: feet and films. A true lover of cinema, Tarantino has become a phenomenon in his own right, having won various awards and accolades due to his unimaginable impact and contribution to cinema. 

However, the auteur still considers himself “a student of cinema” and has equated his graduation day to “the day [I] die”. Quirky, unapologetic and unabashed in his works, he is the king of violence, bloodshed and controversy. His oeuvre is a focal point of study among cinephiles and some of his most famed works include Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, Kill Bill, Jackie Brown and more. 

A fanboy of iconic filmmakers like Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese, Tarantino’s most recent release Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was his romantic and nostalgic homage to the cinema industry he adores. With Tarantino suggesting it may be his penultimate film, it is a perfect curtain call to his illustrious career. 

A film fanatic, Tarantino has always appreciated the works of his contemporaries, namely Bong Joon-ho, Paul Thomas Anderson and more. Tarantino had also named his favourite Christopher Nolan film- surprisingly enough, it is not the Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer, Inception. 

Tarantino revealed that Nolan’s 2017 World War II film, Dunkirk is his second favourite film of the decade and has garnered quite the reputation in his eyes after the third watch. “I had an interesting experience with it the first couple of times,” Tarantino said. 

“The first time I saw it, I don’t know what I was thinking the first time. I just dealt with the spectacle of it all. I couldn’t deal with anything else but the spectacle of it all. I liked the movie, but the spectacle almost numbed me to the experience.”

The director revealed how it did not make him feel “emotional”- all he felt was awe without knowing what he was “awed by”. The third time was a charm for Tarantino and he reflected on the same by saying, “It wasn’t until the third time that I could see past the spectacle and into the people the story is about. I finally could see through the trees a little bit.”

The filmmaker clarified why it took him so long to revel in the beauty of Nolan’s genius. “Oftentimes, you see a film where the style is about the adrenaline of it. The style is an immersive experience, but by the third or fourth viewing you get past the style and you realize the magician’s tricks,” said the Reservoir Dogs director. 

Tarantino concluded, “In the case of Dunkirk, it rewards Nolan’s efforts to see it more. There’s a point, by mid-movie, he can’t do it wrong. It’s a symphony. Nothing doesn’t work.”

Starring Harry Styles, Cillian Murphy, Fionn Whitehead and Tom Hardy, Nolan’s 2017 flick revolved around the evacuation of the town of Dunkirk by the British, French and Belgian soldiers during a horrifying and unending battle with the German forces in the wake of the Second World War. 

Watch the film on Netflix now.