Quentin Tarantino had never been to a film festival, or even seen the snow, when he arrived at Sundance wearing a tee-shirt in 1992. His movie shocked and divided the indie crowd. But everyone agreed things would never be quite the same again…
Beginning in the middle and then carving the story of a failed jewellery store robbery into a series of chapters that introduces each of the crooks by turn, Tarantino rifles through the heist movie back catalogue, borrowing from Kubrick’s The Killing, Ringo Lam’s City on Fire, Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and a bunch of Jean-Pierre Melville films as he sees fit, and all but omitting the robbery itself. Tarantino’s profane, funny, pop-littered dialogue puts its own ironic spin on things. His heavies don’t talk like movie gangsters, they talk like geeks who have seen too many films. But it’s the disquieting ease with which Tarantino jumps from postmodern cool to blood-soaked violence that made the film so controversial, and so impactful.
Content Considerations: Graphic violence
It’s dynamite on a short fuse.
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
Those who survive it emerge in a shell-shocked euphoria — so good and so blunt is the writing.
Duane Byrg, Hollywood Reporter
Media Partner
Quentin Tarantino
Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Eddie Bunker
USA
1992
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Lawrence Bender
Screenwriter
Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography
Andrzej Sekula
Editor
Sally Menke
Production Design
David Wasco
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.
Fargo
Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.
Lone Star
John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Gummo
Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...
Out of Sight
Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel about the mutual attraction between an escaped bank robber and the FBI agent on his tail, Out of Sight is sexy and romantic, cosmopolitan, and full of Soderbergh's sleight of hand, shuffling time like a card sharp.
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Rushmore
Precocious Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is befriended by depressed industrialist Harold Blume (Bill Murray) until they both fall in love with first grade teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson's second feature is an old favourite.
The Blair Witch Project
The rushes of a student-made documentary investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, Maryland, a quest that led the three filmmakers deep into the Appallachian woods. Easy to get lost in there...