Director Quentin Tarantino frequently shares his list of favorite movies, ranging from broad best-of-the-year lists to breakdowns of more obscure genres. His favorite movie of 2026, for instance, is the Netflix crime-thriller The Rip, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. His favorite spaghetti Western, on the other hand, is Sergio Leone‘s epic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Tarantino has also made his love for grindhouse cinema quite apparent over the course of his career. Around two decades ago, he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez on a grindhouse double-bill released theatrically; his installment, Death Proof, is widely regarded as his most minor work. Unsurprisingly, Tarantino has a list of favorite grindhouse films, and the highest-rated movie on it is currently streaming on Prime Video and Shudder. In his book “Cinema Speculation,” Tarantino described it as one of the few “perfect” movies ever made.
Not every movie with a vaguely exploitation-cinema vibe can meet Tarantino’s guidelines for what qualifies as grindhouse cinema. Number-one on the list of requirements, he explained in a 2008 interview, is that the movie in question must have played in an actual grindhouse — that is, not a mainstream theater. “Halloween could be on here, but Friday the 13th couldn’t, because that was a Paramount movie,” he explained. Tarantino’s favorite grindhouse movie is an 83-minute horror classic that spawned a franchise that continues to this day, and is about to be rebooted by Curry Barker, the director of this year’s smash-hit Obsession.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Here’s Where You Can Watch Quentin Tarantino’s Favorite Grindhouse Movie on Streaming
We’re talking, of course, about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Director Tobe Hooper‘s controversial slasher movie was partially inspired by the crimes of serial killer Ed Gein and was banned in several countries for its graphic content. The movie was produced on a shoestring budget of $140,000, and it went on to gross $30 million. It now holds a “Certified Fresh” 85% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.” The movie launched a franchise that has survived decades, and was most recently rebooted by Netflix in 2022. A new movie, directed by Barker, will be produced and distributed by A24. You can watch Hooper’s 1974 original on Prime Video, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
