Summary

• Quentin Tarantino's cameos are a staple in all his movies, showcasing his talent for dialogue and references.
• Fans eagerly anticipate his appearance in his final film, The Movie Critic.
• Tarantino's cameos range from subtle voice roles to on-screen appearances, always adding a fun element for viewers.

Quentin Tarantino cameos have become one of many features that fans have come to expect to see in every one of the filmmaker's movies. Tarantino’s career in the film industry officially began in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, showcasing his unique talent for dialogue and his vast array of references that allow him to build movies inspired by others but always feeling completely original. With his acclaimed movies that followed, Tarantino cemented himself as an icon behind the camera, but he has also appeared on screen in one way or another.

With only one movie left in his planned 10-movie career, fans are wondering what is in store for the The Movie Critic. However, given that it has been a staple of all of his movies up until now, it is all but guaranteed that Tarantino's final movie will feature a cameo from the filmmaker. In each of his movies, Tarantino has either appeared as a character in the movie or contributed a voice cameo. Some Quentin Tarantino cameos are more noticeable than others, while some have been called distracting, but it is a fun thing to always look out for.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Role: Mr. Brown

Quentin Tarantino made an explosive directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs which also served as his acting debut as well. The movie follows a group of criminals who come together for a heist of a diamond shop only for it to go horribly wrong and for the surviving criminals to meet back up at their safe house to determine who ratted them out. The movie features the likes of Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Michael Madsen, all of whom Tarantino would work with again.

Originally, Tarantino had imagined himself playing the role of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs. However, after being impressed with Steve Buscemi, Tarantino cast him in the role and took the smaller role of Mr. Brown. He is the getaway driver of the team who is shot and killed by police. While it is one of the smallest roles in the minimal cast, Tarantino gave himself the opening monologue about Madonna's song "Like a Virgin" which has become an iconic example of Tarantino's signature dialogue.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Role: Jimmie Dimmick

While Reservoir Dogs served as his breakout movie, Pulp Fiction cemented Tarantino as one of the defining new voices in cinema. The wild crime movie followed various intersecting stories of characters in the criminal underbelly of Los Angeles, including hitmen, robbers, and a boxer. The movie served as a comeback role for John Travolta and was Tarantino's first movie with Samuel L. Jackson. Tarantino shared the screen with both actors in his role as Jimmie Dimmick

Jimmie is a friend of Jules Winnfield (Jackson) who reluctantly helps him and Vincent (Travolta) deal with the mess caused by Vincent accidentally shooting Marvin in the head. As they hide the car at Jimmie's house, they call a criminal cleaner known as The Wolf (Harvey Keitel) who comes to deal with the situation before Jimmie's wife Bonnie returns home.

Jackie Brown (1997)

Role: Answering Machine Voice (Voice Only)

Though it is sometimes overlooked in his filmography, there are a number of Tarantino fans who insist Jackie Brown is the filmmaker's best movie. Adapted from the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch, Pam Grier stars in the titular role as a woman who works as a stewardess while also smuggling money for an arms dealer (Samuel L. Jackson). When she is caught, she sets in motion a plan to keep herself out of prison while also getting a big payday.

The movie also stars Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton, and Robert Forster as the bail bondsman who falls for Jackie. Along with being overlooked, it also features Tarantino's subtlest cameo. Instead of appearing on screen, Tarantino simply provides the automated voice on Jackie's answering machine that reads out "You have one message". It is an easy one to miss, but when listening back knowing that it is Tarantino, his distinct voice can clearly be heard.

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

Role: Member of The Crazy 88

Kill Bill is the epic martial arts revenge movie that Tarantino first began developing with Uma Thurman on the set of Pulp Fiction. Thurman plays The Bride, a former assassin who is betrayed by her former employer and colleagues. Their ambush puts her in a coma only for her to wake up and embark on a mission to get even. While originally planned as one epic movie, it was eventually cut into two parts with Tarantino only making a cameo in the first installment.

While Tarantino's appearance is another one that is hard to spot, it comes in the movie's best sequence. When The Bride arrives in Japan to kill her former colleague O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), she first has to do battle with O-Ren's personal army, the Crazy 88. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where to find him given the bloody chaos of the scene but Tarantino has a cameo role as a member of the Crazy 88, and one whose throat was slit by The Bride.

Death Proof (2007)

Role: Warren

Grindhouse was an ambitious ode to a different era of movies as Tarantino and his filmmaker friend Robert Rodriguez south to deliver a double feature with Rodriquez's zombie horror movie Planet Terror playing back-to-back with Tarantino's vehicular serial killer movie Death Proof. Though the experiment failed financially and Death Proof is sometimes regarded as Tarantino's worst movie, it is still a very fun horror movie with a brilliant final act twist.

Kurt Russell stars as Stuntman Mike, a sadistic Hollywood stuntman who stalks and kills women using his custom-made car. The first act of the movie follows a group of women who become the first victims of Stuntman Mike's murderous ways with an extended sequence set at a roadside bar with Mike meets the women and decides to kill them. Tarantino appears in an extended cameo during this sequence as Warren, the bartender of the establishment who parties with everyone.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Role: British Soldier (Voice Only)

Inglourious Basterds was Quentin Tarantino's first foray into a war movie, delivering an homage to team-on-a-mission movies like The Dirty Dozen. However, it is also a brilliant mix of this genre with a love and appreciation for the power of cinema. A big part of the movie revolves around the screening of a German propaganda movie about Inglourious Basterds' fictional Nazi Frederick Zoller. The climax of the movie revolves around this screening and how it is instrumental in bringing World War II to an end.

The movie premiere sequence is another wild one from Tarantino, not least of all because he kills off Adolf Hitler in the scene. Given all that is going on, it is not surprising that some viewers did not pick up on Tarantino's short voice cameo. It appears within the fake movie entitled Nation's Pride in which he is heard as a British soldier imploring a superior officer to bomb the tower where Zoller is hiding out.

Django Unchained (2012)

Roles: Robert & Frankie

Though he had references and paid homage to the genre many times in his previous movies, Django Unchained was the first time Tarantino made a full-blow Western. The movie stars Jamie Foxx as a slave who is freed by a bounty hunter and goes on a mission to rescue his wife from a sadistic plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Tarantino was clearly excited about getting to play around in a genre he loves so much and this led to him taking on two roles in the movie.

First, Tarantino plays Robert aka Bag Head #1, one of the Klu Klux Klan who s Big Daddy Bennet (Don Johnson) in his attempt to kill Django and Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Tarantino's face is not seen in the scene as he is just heard complaining about how he can't see anything with his hood. Later on in the story, he played Frankie, an Australian miner transporting Django as he was going to be sold to a mining company and worked to death. As Frankie was carrying explosives, he is blown up when Django shoots him.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Role: Narrator (Voice Only)

The Hateful Eight was Tarantino's second Western movie as well as sharing similarities with his first movie, Reservoir Dogs. The movie stars the likes of Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, in the story of a band of strangers who find themselves sharing a cabin in the middle of a blizzard with tensions rising and no one knowing who to trust.

Tarantino took a break from on-screen characters, but he still played a pivotal role in the movie. He decided to play the role of narrator, which was very obvious given his peculiar voice and style. Tarantino helps the audience with the story between the first and second acts by explaining what happened during the shoot-out, introducing a new mystery element into the story with the revelation that someone poisoned the coffee.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Roles: Bounty Law Announcer & Commercial Director (Voice Only)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is perhaps Tarantino's most personal movie to date, as it encomes so much about the old Hollywood of the 1960s that he clearly grew up with and the kinds of movies and TV shows that influenced him. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Rick Dalton, a washed-up TV actor looking to save his career alongside his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

Once more, Tarantino decided to stay behind the camera, but he lent his voice to two different characters, and one was a meta-type of cameo. First, Tarantino served as the Bounty Law announcer, the fictional Western series that starred Dalton as bounty hunter Jake Cahill. He then had a very brief voice cameo at the end of the movie, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's post-credit scene as the unseen director of the Red Apple Cigarettes commercial Dalton is starring in. Tarantino is heard yelling "cut!" as the movie comes to an end.