Quentin Jerome Tarantino ( TARR-ən-TEE-noh; born March 27, 1963) is an American filmmaker, actor, and author. His films are characterized by graphic violence, extended dialogue often featuring much profanity, and references to popular culture. His work has earned a cult following alongside critical and commercial success, and he has been named by some as the most influential director of his generation. Tarantino has received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. His films have collectively grossed more than $1.9 billion worldwide. Tarantino began his career by having a number of jobs through the 1980s, including writing several screenplays. During that time, he made his directorial debut with the independent crime film Reservoir Dogs (1992), which became an immediate hit. His second film, the crime comedy-drama Pulp Fiction (1994), was a critical and commercial success and received numerous awards, including the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and Tarantino's first Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay. The film has been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Afterward, he wrote and starred in the action horror film From Dusk till Dawn (1996). Tarantino's third film as director, Jackie Brown (1997), paid homage to blaxploitation films. Subsequently, Tarantino wrote and directed the martial arts films Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), with both volumes combined regarded as a single film. He then made the exploitation-slasher film Death Proof (2007), which was part of a double feature with From Dusk till Dawn director Robert Rodriguez, released under the collective title Grindhouse. His sixth film, Inglourious Basterds (2009), followed an alternate account of World War II. He followed this with two Western films: Django Unchained (2012)—a slave revenge Spaghetti Western which won him his second Academy Award, also for Best Original Screenplay—and The Hateful Eight (2015), a revisionist Western thriller which opened to audiences with a roadshow release. Tarantino's ninth and most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), was a comedy-drama set in the late 1960s about the transition of Old Hollywood to New Hollywood; he made his debut novel, a novelization of the film, in 2021. Tarantino next wrote the film's standalone sequel, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (2026), which he chose not to direct, instead handing the film to David Fincher. He has tentative plans for his tenth film to be his last before retiring from filmmaking.