Quentin Tarantino decries the state of the film industry while at Sundance

Quentin Tarantino does not see a bright future in store for the movie business.

“That’s a big f—ing deal, pulling [a play] off,” the writer, director, and American cinema icon said Monday about a play he’s writing. “But making movies? Well, what the f— is a movie now?”

Tarantino’s grim answer to that hypothetical: “What? Something that plays in theaters for a token release for four f—ing weeks? All right, and by the second week you can watch it on television. I didn’t get into all this for diminishing returns,” he told film critic and radio host Elvis Mitchell in conversation at The Elvis Mitchell Suite presented by Darling&Co. at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

“It was bad enough in ’97,” he continued, citing the year his third feature, Jackie Brown, was released. “It was bad enough in 2019, and that was the last f—ing year of movies. That was a s— deal, as far as I was concerned, the fact that it’s gotten drastically worse? It’s a show-pony exercise. Now the theatrical release, [and] in two weeks, you can watch it on this [streamer] and that one.”

Tarantino’s last feature, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, was released in 2019. He publicly speculated shortly thereafter whether his subsequent 10th film should be his last.

“Most directors’ last films are f—ing lousy,” he said in 2021. “It’s making me think that maybe I should not make another movie because I could be really, really happy with dropping the mic on Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”

In 2023, he announced his next film would be his last and gave it the provisional title of The Movie Critic. Brad Pitt was rumored to be in talks to star as a “second-string critic” of films for a Los Angeles adult magazine, but no further developments have been shared. If the cynicism of Tarantino’s grumblings about the state of the film industry has intensified over time, so has his fondness for his own contributions to said industry.

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“When it comes to being a filmmaker, I’ve pretty much done everything I’ve wanted to do,” he told Mitchell. “I’ve always equated filmmaking with climbing mountains. I’ve climbed my Everest, I’ve climbed my Mount Fuji, my Kilimanjaro. I don’t really have any more mountains to climb in that respect. I’ve planted my flags. I’m proud of my achievements.”

Writing plays is another story. “Theater isn’t another mountain to climb, it’s an ocean voyage,” Tarantino ventured. Calling theater “the last frontier,” Tarantino shared that he’s “excited about doing a play because pulling it off is a big f—ing deal,” and also because “you can’t tape it. There is no cell phone. You own the audience for the duration of the play every night. It’s a great night out. It’s worth it for them. That’s f—ing exciting!”

The film industry has been rocked by major events since the release of Once Upon a Time; in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes. The former forced nearly everyone to watch movies at home and paved the way for increasingly short theatrical windows in the years that have followed. The latter caused film and television production to grind to a virtual halt, which has since caused a contraction in the entertainment industry across all segments, from executives and creatives to third-party vendors like catering and pr firms and — ahem — news media covering the industry.

But not every director of Tarantino’s pedigree agrees with his diagnosis of the industry’s ills or, at least, his sense of its severity.

Martin Scorsese has repeatedly railed against the production and exhibition sides of the industry favoring ultra-high-budget superhero films, saying that “theaters have become amusement parks.” At the same time, Scorsese, who is 21 years older than Tarantino and has made 26 films to Tarantino’s nine, agreed that he must be “built differently” than the Reservoir Dogs director.

“[Tarantino is] a writer… It’s a different thing. I come up with stories, I get attracted to stories through other people,” Scorsese said. “My curiosity is still there. I couldn’t speak for Quentin Tarantino or others who are able to create this work in their own world.”