Anna Daniels
The denizens of Film Twitter aren’t the only folks out there ranking their best movies of the last decade. Quentin Tarantino decided to get in on the action as well, stopping by The Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast to sing the praises of Christopher Nolan‘s Dunkirk. Tarantino says that Nolan’s World War II epic is his number two movie of the decade – a revelation that seems to even surprise Tarantino himself.
During the first of a three-part guest spot on Rewatchables, Quentin Tarantino is preaching the good word about Dunkirk. The podcast is all about highlighting the type of movies that you find yourself wanting to rewatch and revisit, and while the show primarily focuses on older stuff, Tarantino wanted to specifically talk about Nolan’s 2017 film.
Why? Because it’s the second-best movie of the decade, at least according to Tarantino. As he says during the interview, he originally had Dunkirk at number seven on his list, but after rewatching it three times, it “jumped up to number 2.” Tarantino adds that the film elicited passion within him, and that he’s “not used to being that passionate about a movie that new.”
Dunkirk focuses on the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II, told from three different perspectives during three different timelines: land, sea, and air. Eventually, the timelines slowly converge in a very Nolan-like way. While there’s plenty of spectacle in the film, it’s not one of Nolan’s flashier movies. But it is the first of his films to land Nolan a Best Director Oscar nomination.
During the interview, Tarantino says that watching Dunkirk over and over again enabled him to see past the timeline trickery Nolan was using and focus more on the characters. According to Tarantino, rewatching stuff over and over again often leads to him realizing a certain movie is truly great. Another example he gives is David Fincher’s Zodiac, which he says he rewatched over and over again when it arrived on HBO after seeing it in theaters.
I certainly wouldn’t place Dunkirk as high-up on my Best of the Decade list (which you can read here), but having recently rewatched the film myself, I agree that it’s pretty great. The only qualm I have with this interview is that Tarantino doesn’t list his other favorite movies of the decade. What’s number one? Maybe he’ll tell us in the upcoming Rewatchables episodes.
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