Top 10 Tarantino Characters

Top 10 Quentin Tarantino Characters

I cannot think of another writer who every character they write is perfect, besides Quentin Tarantino. I truly believe Tarantino has never made a bad character. That being said this was an extremely hard list to create, I mean I had so many characters to choose from. These are the ten that Tarantino has both written and directed that I believe are his best writing and directing examples. So sorry Natural Born Killers you are out of this.

10. Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction 1994)

Marcellus Wallace's (nominee for the list) wife in the Tarantino classic, Pulp Fiction, is one of Tarantino's greatest written female characters ever, and Tarantino is excellent at writing female characters. Mia Wallace just has this air of command and sexiness to her that Tarantino has never really been able to touch since. She is just played by the perfect Uma Thurman, who reads Tarantino's dialogue as if she was meant to. Mia Wallace is one of the best examples of that in Tarantino's filmography.

9. Shosanna Dreyfus (Inglourious Basterds 2009)

Another example of Tarantino's great female characters is Shosanna from his WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds. Shosanna is the last remaining member of the Dreyfus family that was murdered by the "Jew Killer" during World War II. She hides out in France as a cinema owner under a fake name. Everything is going well until a German soldier wants to start seeing her basically. Mélanie Laurent was the perfect choice to play this women playing cat and mouse with the German army, and more importantly, the "Jew Hunter". What is done so perfectly for Shosanna in the movie is the choice of music that Tarantino put to her character, so awesome.

8. Ordell Robbie (Jackie Brown 1997)

Our first example of Samuel L. Jackson on Tarantino's character list Ordell Robbie is a weapons dealer, who just doesn't seem very good at it. What great writing, any time Tarantino writes any dialogue for Samuel L. Jackson it just works. Quentin Tarantino knows how to write for the man, and Sam Jackson knows how to read the man's writing. Match made in heaven and this is the first but not the last time Sam Jackson will appear on the list.

7. The Wolf (Pulp Fiction 1994)

"I'm Winston Wolf, I solve problems."

Best written line in any Tarantino movie ever? Maybe, that's a hard list to make, but everything that comes out of the Wolf's mouth is sheer brilliance in writing, and sheer brilliance in acting, thank you Harvey Keitel for giving a Tarantino a chance at movies with 

6. Lt. Aldo Raine (Inglourious Basterds 2009)

Lt. Aldo Raine, with his thick almost over exaggerated southern accent and his lines are just so mesmerizing and hysterical This is some of Brad Pitt's best work, and some of Tarantino's best writing for any character he has ever written. But what is maybe better is the way the two of them worked together to create the character, how he answers and when he answers questions is so great. Just everything about Aldo Raine is awesome. He also speaks a little Italian.

5. Mr. Pink (Reservoir Dogs 1992)

What isn't great about Mr. Pink? He doesn't tip, he acts like a professional, he can guarantee there's a rat in the house, everything is great about Mr. Pink. Tarantino just wrote this character to be a paranoid, worried, and jumpy little guy, and no one could have played him better than the one and only Steve Buscemi. I have already touched on Steve Buscemi a little on this blog, and Mr. Pink I labeled as his second best performance. But the greatness of Mr. Pink still just doesn't come from Steve Buscemi, he is one of the brain children of the great, twisted, and bloody mind of Tarantino. And it was the two working together that brought it to great levels.

4. Calvin Candie (Django Unchained 2012)

Finally one of the best actors in modern Hollywood and one of the greatest writer/directors ever met and created this evil, menacing, and horrible monster of a human being, but damn it is a lot of fun to watch it. Calvin Candie is a slave owning Southerner in Antebellum South, played by the one and only Leonardo Dicaprio. This is honestly some of Leo's best work ever, and I have no doubt it is related to the writing of Tarantino. It took a lot of balls to write a character like this, and a lot of balls to play a character like this, but it is so like these two men to do something like that, and there are plenty examples of this in both their filmographies. 

3. The Bride (Kill Bill Vol.1 and 2.)

Probably the best written female character in all of Tarantino's work, the Bride was written specifically for Uma Thurman. And Uma Thurman is an absolute badass in this role. Probably the most badass female in all of cinema, I feel pretty confident in saying that, well maybe not as badass as Ripley from Aliens but that is off topic. The Bride is not only well written but where she shines, is how the director and actress interacted to make the character on screen and how it came through, not just in the dialogue, but in the action, and the camerawork by the director when the bride is on screen, really the Kill Bill's contain some of the best camera work Tarantino has ever done and it often is the coolest when Uma is on screen.

2. Col. Hans Landa (Inglourious Basterds 2009)

Tarantino almost didn't make this movie because he couldn't find the perfect Hans Landa for Basterds. I've heard that it was the last day of looking and if they didn't find him they were going to abandon the movie. Thank god, Christoph Waltz showed up that day, without him we wouldn't have Inglourious Basterds, and probably wouldn't have Django Unchained. Can any Tarantino fan imagine life without either? I know I can't. The "Jew Hunter" is some of Tarantino's best writing he has ever done, and the best acting I have ever seen Waltz do, granted I haven't seen anything he did before Basterds. Anyway sheer brilliance is what made Col. Hans Landa, between Tarantino and Waltz.

1. Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction 1994)

Could it have been anything else? I said Ordell Robbie wasn't the only time Sam Jackson would be on the list, and I really wanted Stephen from Django Unchained to be on here as well, but there are only ten slots and these on the list are just slightly better. 

Sam Jackson was just born to speak Tarantino's dialogue. Any and all of it, the two work better together than anybody else and Tarantino does on the list. Literally everything Jules does is the perfect thing to do at that time in the movie. The character of Jules Winnfield started teaching me the art of swearing. It is an art form when these two get together, I thank Tarantino for teaching me that, and I thank Samuel L. Jackson for all the glorious examples he has given in all the Tarantino movies. This is Tarantino's best character ever put to screen so far. But hey, The Hateful Eight is coming in not to long, we'll see what that brings.

I made this list, because my friend John and I could not find a list of the best Tarantino characters that either of us thought was right. We found a few that did better than others, but none that really should Tarantino's ability to work with actors to create some of the most memorable character in cinema. If you think I missed a character or put them in the wrong order, let me know.