1963-
Movie Director, Screenwriter

A Scorsese for the 1990s.

Quentin Tarantino burst onto the movie scene in 1992 with his shockingly violent, critically acclaimed movie Reservoir Dogs, which he directed and played a small role in, as well as writing the screenplay. He did the same for his biggest hit of the decade, Pulp Fiction (1994), which prompted some to call him the new Martin Scorsese — a moviemaker who could depict the anxieties of the 1990s as Scorsese had done in the 1970s with movies such as Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976). A few critics even went so far as to predict that Tarantino would be the "savior of American film making."

High-School Dropout.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tarantino grew up in suburban Los Angeles, where during high school he worked part-time as an usher in a porno-graphic movie theater. After quitting school before graduation, he worked...