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6. The Sicilian scene
The film: True Romance
The moment: Up until he penned the twenty-minute Inglourious Basterds opening, Tarantino claimed this as his favorite piece of dialogue he'd ever written. Two-handers are his forte, no doubt, and watching Christopher Walken as the brutal Don Vincenzo Coccotti interrogate Dennis Hopper's cop is a superb moment that will have you transfixed.
Coolest element: Hopper's character will do anything to protect his son - who Coccotti is desperate to locate - and knows the end is coming for him. Instead of refusing, the cop proceeds to make sure he really irks Coccotti with his parting words.
5. Jackie's Entrance
The film: Jackie Brown
The moment: Not every cool moment has to be packed with peppy dialogue and on-the-nose observations. Jackie Brown opens on a mundane location - an airport escalator. Seconds later the titular air hostess saunters into view, looking straight ahead as she's carried along the automated belt. It's a simple scene that oozes with cool. Only later on do we discover the weight on Jackie's mind as she's exiting the airport - which makes her introduction all the more badass.
Coolest element: As expected, Tarantino's soundtrack choice. Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" accompanies Jackie's movements.
4. The family in the basement
The film: Inglourious Basterds
The moment: Tarantino doesn't do things by halves. Neither does the villainous Hans Landa, a Nazi officer tasked with scouring the French countryside for people harbouring Jews. Dragged out over nearly twenty minutes, Landa interrogates a farmer whose basement houses a family of Jews, whom he has provided refuge during the conflict. As Landa, Christoph Waltz intimidates and threatens in a way so unlike Tarantino's typical antagonists; he puffs away on his pipe quietly and calmly. That genial charm masks his true intention, to kill the farmer and his family should he not reveal the location of the hidden Jews. Which he eventually does.
Coolest element: The barely-detectable score. Simmering away beneath the entire scene, it builds to a monstrous swell as Landa steers his heavily-armed troops into the domicile and points to the areas of the cellar where the Dreyfus family are hiding.
3. Butch and Marsellus
The film: Pulp Fiction
The moment: Marsellus spies Butch and the two wind up in a chase across town that ends in a pawnbrokers, where its twisted owner Maynard ties them up in the basement and calls his security guard pal Zed to come over. Butch breaks free, and knocks out "the gimp" watching over him and makes his way to the exit, until at the last second he opts to save Marsellus. Zed is sliced by a katana, and Marsellus exacts some medieval revenge on Maynard.
Coolest element: A harrowing and uncomfortable watch is made tolerable as Marsellus and Butch bury the hatchet once and for all.
2. Brett's apartment
The film: Pulp Fiction
The moment: Jules and Vincent head over to Brett's apartment to collect the briefcase he supposedly has in his possession. The luggage belongs to Marsellus Wallace, and therefore it's of the utmost importance that the two hitmen locate it. Brett denies everything, Jules finds it and all hell breaks loose. Not before Jules has a bite of his tasty Big Kahuna burger, mind.
Coolest element: Samuel L. Jackson's career-defining speech, cooked up by he and Quentin Tarantino, seconds before he opens fire on the room. The "Ezekiel 25:17" dialogue launched an entire line of merchandising, and in recent years, a never-ending stream of memes.
1. Breakfast banter
The film: Reservoir Dogs
The moment: The opening scene of Tarantino's directorial debut - not including My Best Friend's Birthday - introduced us to the cast of crooks and the filmmaker's signature style of dialogue. Gangsters and criminals banter just like law-abiding citizens, as is gleefully presented in this sequence. The Dogs gather for a pre-heist breakfast, where they argue and bicker over an assortment of mundane topics. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in crime cinema.
Coolest element: The breadth of subjects brought up. Madonna's Like a Virgin is discussed in great detail, and Mr. Pink's stingy tipping practices are torn apart.
