Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino’s crackling crime classic still retains its swagger as one of the great American films of recent decades.

One of the key films of the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino’s postmodern, portmanteau crime thriller established the writer-director’s reputation as a Hollywood untouchable, while also rejuvenating the careers of a host of stars including John Travolta.

Its unprecedented success changed the face of ‘independent’ cinema in America, helping establish distributor Miramax as a major player and ushering in a wave of exciting filmmakers, many of whom still hold sway in Hollywood. Presented as three interconnected stories which unfold in a nonlinear melange, Tarantino’s sophisticatedly structured saga prefigured the rise of multi-stranded ‘hyperlink’ cinema in the 2000s. And its smorgasbord of pop culture references also introduced a new generation of fans to the likes of Dick Dale, MacGuffins and Ezekiel 25:17. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1994, Pulp Fiction holds up as one of the most riotously entertaining nineties pictures, strewn with endlessly quotable dialogue and an array of career-defining performances from its ensemble cast, with Samuel L Jackson stealing the show as Biblical badass Jules Winnfield.