10 Directors Who Prove Tarantino’s 10 Movie Rule Is Completely Wrong

Quentin Tarantino has famously stated that his tenth movie will be his last, but looking at the careers of other great directors shows that this may be a mistake. Tarantino’s 10 movie rule is all about ensuring that he leaves an unblemished legacy. He has spoken in multiple interviews about wanting to go out on a high note, and he has suggested, without naming names, that some directors tend to decline in quality the longer they go on.

For a long time, it looked like Tarantino’s tenth and final movie was going to be The Movie Critic, a spiritual successor to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that had Brad Pitt signed up to star. Recently, however, Tarantino canceled The Movie Critic, reportedly due to concerns that it wasn’t a fitting finale for the director. If this is the case, then Tarantino’s 10 movie rule is more of a hindrance than a help, and it could end up backfiring and hurting his credibility. Great movie directors tend to continue exploring and experimenting for as long as they are able, from Scorsese to Kubrick to Kurosawa.

10

Martin Scorsese

Scorsese shows no signs of slowing down in his 80s

Martin Scorsese began making waves in the 1970s and 1980s with movies like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and he soon established a reputation as the king of the crime genre. With Robert De Niro and a host of other regulars, Scorsese directed a string of gangster movie classics, but he always threw in a few curveballs along the way. He now has a filmography that spans several genres.

Although he could easily have quit a long time ago and still gone down in history as a filmmaking legend, Martin Scorsese has kept up the same pace throughout his career. He has been just as prolific in the 21st century as he was when he first started out over 50 years ago, and his last two movies have both received 10 Oscar nominations. Martin Scorsese is preparing a Frank Sinatra biopic and a movie based on Shūsaku Endō’s novel, A Life of Jesus.

9

Agnès Varda

The pioneer of the French New Wave also mastered documentary filmmaking

Agnès Varda was an icon of the French New Wave, and her early films helped redefine the language of cinema. La Pointe Courte and Clèo from 5 to 7 heralded the coming of an important new voice in European film, and Varda kept delivering throughout the 1960s. However, her style evolved over time, and she also evolved into one of the greatest documentary filmmakers of her generation.

Some of Varda’s most beloved movies came decades after her breakthrough. The Gleaners and I and The Beaches of Agnès, both documentaries produced in the 21st century, show an artist who never tired of exploring new avenues of creativity. Her constantly curious style makes Quentin Tarantino’s plan to only direct 10 movies look foolish and self-serious by comparison.

8

Clint Eastwood

Eastwood may have been an actor first, but his directing skills soon caught up

Clint Eastwood was a successful actor long before he was a director. By the time he made his directorial debut with 1971’s Play Misty for Me, he was already an icon of the western genre, thanks to his starring role in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and his part in the TV series Rawhide. Eastwood’s early directorial efforts were a mixed bag, but he has refined his style over the years.

Clint Eastwood’s career progression shows how he has developed his skills as a director, and many of his most popular movies have come in the 21st century. Million Dollar Baby, Invictus and American Sniper were each huge hits with audiences and critics, but Eastwood never would have reached the same technical level if he had limited himself to just a few movies. His long career has also allowed him to branch out into other genres.

7

Joel & Ethan Coen

The directing duo have branched out into different genres as they have progressed

The Coen brothers started out with a string of critically acclaimed dark comedy movies, often focusing on some sort of crime. Raising Arizona, Fargo and The Big Lebowski all revolve around farcical kidnapping plots, but the Coens have pushed beyond the limits of their comfort zone since the 1990s. They can still return to their roots, as shown by Hail, Caesar, but they are now two artists who are much harder to pin down.

After mastering the western genre and contributing to two French anthology movies, the Coen brothers are making a horror movie for the first time. They spent some time recently working on solo projects, with Joel directing Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of Macbeth and Ethan creating Drive-Away Dolls with his wife, Tricia Cooke. As they reunite for their first foray into the horror genre, there’s no telling what could come next. The Coens have gotten more interesting and less predictable with age.

6

Alfred Hitchcock

It took Hitchcock several decades before he made his most enduring movies

Alfred Hitchcock worked during an era when the movie industry was extremely different. Hollywood has changed a lot since his day, but Quentin Tarantino can still take inspiration from the way that Hitchcock refined his vision and his technical flair as his career progressed. He produced movies at a much faster rate than Tarantino, sometimes making multiple films in one year, but he’s still an interesting case study in how a director can evolve.

Most of Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies came in the 1950s and 1960s. By the time he directed Rear Window and Dial M for Murder, he had already been working for 30 years. There were a few hits before then which showed his quality, like Rebecca and Rope, but he would not have enjoyed such a stellar legacy if he had stopped at 10 or even 20 movies. If Tarantino’s 10 movie rule is about keeping his legacy intact, he might want to consider how Hitchcock is viewed through a modern lens.

5

David Lean

The iconic British director took on large-scale epics in the second half of his career

Like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean worked in a very different movie industry to the one that exists today, but he is still a great example of a filmmaker whose work improved with age. If David Lean had believed in Quentin Tarantino’s 10 movie theory, he would have stopped with a respectable filmography, but not a remarkable one. Some of his later movies are among the best of all time.

David Lean directed The Bride on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago back-to-back, cementing his status as a filmmaking legend. Although he also has classics among his first 10 movies, David Lean certainly reached the next level as he progressed. By imposing limits on himself, Tarantino could be curtailing his development as an artist. He also has some classics under his belt, much like Lean did, but he could transition to different kinds of movies altogether.

4

Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick slowed down, but he never retired

Stanley Kubrick is frequently hailed as one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time, but he wasn’t overly prolific. He only directed 13 feature films in his career, and it’s possible that this kind of output has inspired Quentin Tarantino’s thinking about his own legacy. However, looking closer at Kubrick’s body of work shows that Tarantino could take a slightly different approach and still maintain the quality and integrity of his movies.

Kubrick’s tenth movie was Barry Lyndon, and he slowed things down after that. Each subsequent movie which he directed came after a longer gap than the last. There were 12 years between Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. Tarantino could adopt a similar tactic, taking his time to ensure that a project is right for him, but not retiring altogether. If Tarantino is worried about the quality or the relevance of his work dropping off, he could decide to direct just one movie every 10 years or so.

3

Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa became even more influential in his later years

Akira Kurosawa’s movies continue to captivate and inspire, as evidenced by Spike Lee’s upcoming remake of High and Low, as well as countless homages to Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rashomon in western cinema. Had Kurosawa quit after 10 movies, none of his greatest works would exist. Quentin Tarantino has had a different career trajectory, with his early movies being huge hits, but he can still learn from Kurosawa.

The Japanese director’s first true classics came in the 1950s, but he kept directing movies until the 1990s. One of his greatest movies, and one of the most influential war movies of all time, came in 1985, when Kurosawa was 75 years old. Ran is an adaptation of King Lear set during Japan’s Sengoku period, and it proves that some great directors never lose their magic touch.

2

Christopher Nolan

One of Tarantino’s contemporaries could leave him behind

Christopher Nolan made his first feature film just a few years after Quentin Tarantino broke through with Reservoir Dogs. Both directors have been working during the same period, and they have both become big box office draws. However, Tarantino’s 10 movie rule means that Nolan is starting to pull ahead in terms of the number of movies they have created, and his career looks set for an exciting new phase.

Tarantino obviously won’t directly compare himself to Nolan, but there’s no denying that the two directors share a few similarities, at least regarding their standing in Hollywood. Oppenheimer, Nolan’s twelfth movie, finally scored him an Oscar for Best Director, an honor which Tarantino has not yet won. Rather than preserving his legacy and going out on a high, Nolan is gearing up for an exciting future.

1

Steven Spielberg

Not every Spielberg movie is a success, but the king of the summer blockbuster keeps surprising audiences

Steven Spielberg could easily have retired around 1990 and lived off his reputation as the man who redefined the summer blockbuster with Jaws, E.T. and the original Indiana Jones trilogy. Instead, he entered a new phase of his career, hopping between different genres with ease. Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan all came in the 1990s, and Spielberg was still not content to retire.

Quentin Tarantino may look at Spielberg’s career as evidence to support his 10 movie rule, and it’s true that Spielberg has delivered a few mediocre movies in his time. However, Spielberg’s failures have seemed to free him up to tackle more ambitious projects. He has had hits by experimenting with animation and musicals, which he never would have considered earlier on in his career. Tarantino can’t afford to take such risks if he wants to deliver a filmography with 10 hits and no misses, but that means he may be missing out on untold rewards.