Quentin Tarantino can surprise not only with his films, but also with his opinions about cinema. The director has never been shy about expressing his opinions, but his latest statement is one of the most controversial of his career.
Quentin Tarantino launched into a savage tirade against a Hollywood star after claiming that one of his favourite movies in recent years would have been even better if he hadn’t been in it.
Read also: Gigantic amount Mariah Carey makes every year from All I Want For Christmas Is You
Considered one of the most famous and influential film directors in history, Tarantino has an impressive filmography, including the likes of Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds, and the more recent Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Tarantino was on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast recently, where he listed his top 10 movies in the 21st century, and put Daniel Day Lewis-led period drama There Will Be Blood at spot number five.
However, he claimed that it would be even higher on his list if it had a different actor in one of the main roles.
Quentin Tarantino has revealed his Top 10 Films of the 21st Century:
🔟 – Midnight in Paris
9️⃣ – Shaun of the Dead
8️⃣ – Mad Max: Fury Road
7️⃣ – Unstoppable
6️⃣ – Zodiac
5️⃣ – There Will Be Blood
4️⃣ – Dunkirk
3️⃣ – Lost in Translation
2️⃣ – Toy Story 3
1️⃣ – Black Hawk Down pic.twitter.com/hlRRYvSLUA— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 2, 2025
Quentin Tarantino speaks harshly about Paul Dano’s role in “There Will Be Blood”
The director said: “There Will Be Blood would stand a better chance to be in number one or number two if it didn’t have a big giant flaw in it, and the flaw is Paul Dano.”
“Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also so drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander.”
The director claimed Dano’s performance, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA, was ‘weak’ and ‘uninteresting’, digging into the man even further by calling him ‘weak sauce’ and ‘just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy… the weakest f*cking actor in SAG’.
The director went so far as to say that another actor would have been great in the role: “Austin Butler would have been wonderful in this role.”
Ellis said that any actor would find it ‘impossible’ to match Daniel Day Lewis’ performance in the film, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar that year, but Tarantino would not let up in his criticism of Dano.
“So you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG? The limpest d**k in the world?” he asked. “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”
Read also: The 11 fastest players to score 100 Premier League goals
Dano’s performance in “There Will Be Blood” has long been considered one of the highlights of his career. He received a BAFTA nomination for the film and has since starred in films by Steven Spielberg and Matt Reeves, among others. This isn’t the first time Tarantino has spoken harshly about actors or films he considers overrated, but the criticism of an actor considered by many to be one of the most talented actors in Hollywood has sparked an online outcry.
Dano has received plaudits for his roles in the likes of Little Miss Sunshine, The Fabelmans and The Batman, but Tarantino insisted that he ‘doesn’t care for him’.
Evidently, it’s an opinion not shared by the rest of Hollywood since Dano has had a successful acting career.
Quentin Tarantino is currently preparing to shoot his tenth film, which will mark the end of his directing career. However, we still don’t know what the director’s latest film will be about.