Quentin Tarantino’s Top 10: Tom Hardy’s Debut Film Outranks Christopher Nolan

Quentin Tarantino just dropped his personal top 10 movies of the 21st century, and the list is very Tarantino: unapologetically subjective, a bit contrarian, and driven by whatever stuck in his brain the hardest. His No. 1 pick? Ridley Scott's war grinder Black Hawk Down. Not exactly the consensus Best of the Century pick, but that is kind of the point.

He shared the list on Bret Easton Ellis's podcast and said his whole approach was simple: he chose the movies he can still see in his head, beat by beat. Here are the titles he called out:

• Black Hawk Down
• Toy Story 3
• Dunkirk
• There Will Be Blood
• Zodiac
• Unstoppable
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Shaun of the Dead
• Midnight in Paris
• Lost in Translation

Why Black Hawk Down tops his list

Tarantino has always loved go-for-broke filmmaking, and he sees Black Hawk Down as a directional flex beyond extraordinary. He even puts it in conversation with Apocalypse Now in terms of purpose and sustained intensity. For the record, he says the single most perfect movie on his list is actually Toy Story 3 - as close to perfect as it gets, in his words - but Black Hawk Down is the one that hits him hardest.

"This is the only movie that actually goes completely for an 'Apocalypse Now' sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling, and I think it achieves it. It keeps up the intensity for 2 hours 45 minutes, or whatever it is, and I watched it again recently, my heart was going through the entire runtime of the movie; it had me and never let me go, and I hadnt seen it in a while."

The Nolan outlier that grew on him

Only one Christopher Nolan film made Tarantino's cut: Dunkirk. It did not click for him the first time. He says that initial viewing was more overwhelming than moving. Then he watched it again. And again. And again. Now it ranks fourth on his list.

"The first time, it's not like it left me cold - it was so kind of gobsmacking, I didnt really know what I saw, it was almost too much, and then the second time I saw it, my brain was able to take it in a little bit more, and then the third time and the fourth time, it was just like, wow, it just blew me away."

A couple extra notes

If you are keeping score, Black Hawk Down and Dunkirk do just fine with audiences, but the numbers are not why he picked them. As of this writing: Black Hawk Down sits around 7.7 on IMDb and 77% Tomatometer/88% Audience on Rotten Tomatoes; Dunkirk is around 7.8 on IMDb with a 92% Tomatometer/81% Audience. Also fun connective tissue: both Tarantino's No. 1 pick and his Nolan pick feature Tom Hardy, who made his big-screen debut in Black Hawk Down before flying a Spitfire in Dunkirk.

Where to watch (US)

Dunkirk and Black Hawk Down are both available to rent on Apple TV.

Agree? Hate it? Toss me your own 21st-century No. 1.