Pulp Fiction

#8 at the time of writing.

I watched this film when it first came out, I've watched it recently (this year), and I've watched it in between - and I have felt different ways about it at different times. Masterpiece of punk rock filmmaking? Or overblown self-indulgent tripe? Actually, that dichotomy sums up how I feel about most of Quentin Tarantino's output.

The strongest parts of this film, for me, are the off-beat dialogue, the willingness to throw the standard Hollywood screenplay structure out of the window, and the playful retro-fetishism. The weakest parts are the uneven pace and the occasionally grating turgidity. Weaknesses that, I think, were not as apparent in Tarantino's previous, more pared-down, Reservoir Dogs - but that become variously more apparent in his later films.

Worthy of being in IMDb's top 10 films of all time? Well... we're still talking about it, I suppose.

I do admire Tarantino's ability to turn himself into a brand - he tells everyone how great he is with such confidence that everybody believes him, and he builds a whole folklore around his movies, like he will only ever make 10 movies, or all his movies exist in the same world.

Incredibly, this film reportedly cost only $8 million to make, $5 million of which went on the actors' salaries. And it was successful enough to relaunch John Travolta and Bruce Willis' careers (and push Uma Karuna Thurman's into a new gear). Money well spent.