Here Are Quentin Tarantino’s Favorite Comedies of the 21st Century

Acclaimed filmmaker and former Golden Girls star Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of comedy. Although you might not know it from watching the disastrous episode of Saturday Night Live that he hosted back in 1995.

In fact, Tarantino has previously expressed an interest in cast five of the Groundlings in Pulp Fiction. So perhaps it’s not all that shocking that some of his favorite movies of the past 25 years are comedies. 

Far Out Magazine recently compiled a list of Tarantino’s apparent preferred 21st century films, which includes titles such as Mad Max: Fury Road, Battle Royale, There Will Be Blood and Top Gun: Maverick. On the comedy front, Tarantino singled out Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police, which one would imagine didn’t make Matt Damon or Michael Moore’s list of favorite movies.

Tarantino once claimed that he saw Team America “five or six times,” and he specifically loved that it featured an homage to Kill Bill, because that meant that he was the only Hollywood celebrity who had been “referenced respectfully.”

He also has a deep appreciation for Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. The Reservoir Dogs director once said that the zombie-filled romantic comedy is “my hands down favorite British movie that has come out since I’ve been making movies.”

More surprisingly, the list includes Jason Reitman’s Young Adult from 2011, which is arguably the Juno director’s best movie. Although there are definitely dramatic elements, it’s mostly a dark comedy, starring Charlize Theron as a willfully delusional alcoholic writer returning to her hometown. It also features a terrific ing performance by Patton Oswalt.

Then there’s Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s s Ha. Tarantino called the pseudo-autobiographical black-and-white character study one of his favorite movies of 2013.

Anyone who’s been following Tarantino’s career in recent years won’t be surprised to learn that Toy Story 3 made the list. While it's a little weird to call any movie in which a group of characters are forced to hands in solemn acceptance of the reality that they’re all about to burn to death a “comedy,” it is a Pixar movie full of wacky characters and kid-friendly humor. 

Tarantino loved Toy Story 3 so much that he refused to watch Toy Story 4, calling its predecessor “devastating” and “one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.”

Sadly, the list failed to find a spot for that other computer animated movie that Tarantino has publicly praised: Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie.