Tarantino’s harshness towards 1980s Hollywood does not mean he rejects all its films. Blow Out, The Thing and Back to the Future provide three documented and very different references for exploring a decade he often discusses with particular intensity.
A criticised decade that also contains favourites
In November 2022, NME reported Tarantino’s comments on Video Archives about the 1980s as one of the periods in Hollywood he appreciated least. It was a general judgement made within a film conversation, not a claim that no worthwhile films were released during those years.
The distinction is borne out in his praise for specific works. A decade brings together industries, genres and careers that are too different to be reduced to a single trend. Even within Hollywood, a tragic thriller, a horror film and a family adventure can coexist. The three references in this selection belong to that territory and have received identifiable comments from the director.
The comparison with his preferences for 1970s cinema makes it possible to identify a shift in sensibility, but it does not force the story to be organised as a uniform decline. The interest lies in discovering which films cut across his negative view of the period and what specific experience each one offers.
It is also best not to call this selection a ranking. The statements come from different moments and do not establish an order among the titles. If one appears first here, that is due to the structure of the article, not to any secret hierarchy attributed to Tarantino.
Blow Out and The Thing: two ways of not being able to trust
Blow Out, by Brian De Palma, was released in 1981. Michael Sragow’s essay published by Criterion in 2011 records Tarantino’s praise for Travolta’s final close-up. That reference allows it to be included with confidence among his enthusiasms of the decade. The profile of Brian De Palma develops the connection in more detail.
The film turns a recording into a problem of knowledge. Listening carefully may reveal a crime, but finding proof does not guarantee that the public version of events can be changed. The viewer follows an investigation whose technical appeal is tied to the vulnerability of those involved in it.
As an entry point into 1980s cinema, Blow Out shows that polished visuals do not imply optimism. Artifice can be used to build a tragedy. The film explores the distance between having the tools to record the world and having enough power to intervene in it.
The Thing, by John Carpenter, arrived in 1982. Tarantino acknowledged its importance for Reservoir Dogs and The Hateful Eight in Time Out in January 2016. The documented link refers to suspense and suspicion within an isolated group, beyond Kurt Russell’s presence in both filmographies.
Here, uncertainty affects bodies. A colleague may cease to be recognisable as such even if they keep the same appearance. The story forces characters to interpret behaviour and turns the need to co-operate into a risk. The tension comes from a question that no practical decision fully eliminates: who can still be considered part of the group?
Taken together, both films suggest different problems of trust. In one, evidence threatens an official version; in the other, verifying an identity can put everyone in danger. That comparison belongs to the analysis of the works. It does not mean Tarantino grouped them under a single theory of the decade.
Back to the Future and the pleasure of precise construction
In his October 2022 conversation with Jimmy Kimmel, Tarantino included Back to the Future among the examples of films he considered perfect. The selection was reported by NME. The praise introduces a different tone: Robert Zemeckis’s 1985 adventure offers humour, family emotion and a narrative mechanism that rewards attention.
The time travel allows a small action to have consequences in two moments in history. An object, a phrase or a behaviour can reappear with a different meaning. The audience learns the rules and enjoys anticipating their effects. Precision does not lie in everything being complicated, but in the elements being connected in a way that can be followed.
The film also combines an extraordinary problem with understandable desires. Marty needs to return to his own time, but to do so he must intervene in his parents’ lives when they were not yet the people he knows. The science-fiction device makes it possible to look at family from an unexpected distance.
That contrast with Blow Out and The Thing shows the breadth of the exceptions. These are not three works that share the same tone or the same view of the world. They share the ability to organise an intense experience through clear rules, attention to the viewer and dramatic consequences that do not depend solely on visual spectacle.
The journey therefore offers three concrete entry points: listening to an image, distrusting an appearance and following the consequences of a temporal alteration. Each film helps show why a negative judgement about a period can coexist with a lasting enthusiasm for works born within it.
See the selection of films recommended by Tarantino.