Quentin Tarantino Calls Out THE HUNGER GAMES for Ripping Off BATTLE ROYALE as He Shares His Top 20 Films of the 21st Century
Quentin Tarantino just dropped some fire on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, and while unveiling part of his list of the best movies of the 21st century, he didn’t hold back on a long-standing cinematic controversy.
As the legendary filmmaker began counting down his picks from #20 to #11, he took a detour to blast The Hunger Games for what he sees as a blatant rip-off of Kinji Fukasaku’s cult classic Battle Royale, which a lot of people have already called Hunger Games out for.
If you’ve followed Tarantino over the years, you know Battle Royale is a longtime favorite of his. The 2000 Japanese film is a brutal, dystopian thriller where a class of students is forced into a deadly fight-to-the-death scenario by a totalitarian government. Sound familiar? It should.
Tarantino didn’t mince words when it came to calling out author Suzanne Collins and her hit The Hunger Games series. He said,
“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every fucking thing she owns. They just ripped off the fucking book! Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called Battle Royale, so the stupid book critics never called her out on it.
“They talked about how it was the most original thing they’d ever fucking read. As soon as the film critics saw the film they said, ‘What the f-ck! This is just Battle Royale except PG!’”
Tarantino has a personal connection to Battle Royale, having seen it before almost anyone in the U.S. He was in Japan doing early location scouting for Kill Bill when Fukasaku gave him a private screening.
“I had no idea what the f-ck I was about to see,” he recalled. “And holy f-cking shit! I don’t even know what I saw. It was so wild… three months later I was at the Seattle Film Festival.
“They were going to be showing Battle Royale at midnight. Nobody had seen this in America yet. I got to the midnight screening and that was one of the most exciting screenings as I waited for the movie to start.
“I knew what they were going to see. This is going to deliver more than they even know! They are not prepared for how this is going to deliver. To have that knowledge was power.”
As part of the episode, Tarantino also began revealing his official “Top 20 Movies of the 21st Century So Far.” Here’s what he shared:
20. West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)
19. Cabin Fever (Eli Roth)
18. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)
17. Chocolate (Prachya Pinkaew)
16. The Devil’s Rejects (Rob Zombie)
15. The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson)
14. School of Rock (Richard Linklater)
13. Jackass: The Movie (Jeff Tremaine)
12. Big Bad Wolves (Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado)
11. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku)
He had high praise for his #20 pick, West Side Story, saying it was the film that brought Steven Spielberg roaring back.
“This is the one where Steven shows he still has it. I don’t think Scorsese has made a film this exciting [this century],” Tarantino said.
When it came to #13, Jackass: The Movie, he admitted it was the film that made him laugh the hardest in the last two decades.
“I laughed the most at these last 20 years. I don’t remember laughing beginning to the end like this since Richard Pryor…
“As I was making Kill Bill I thought this movie was so fucking funny I had to show it to the crew, so we found a print, and we watched the movie and just died.”
Tarantino’s Top 10 is still under wraps, but he promised to reveal those on the next episode of the podcast. Until then, fans can debate whether The Hunger Games really was just a watered-down Battle Royale and revisit some of these killer picks that helped shape 21st-century cinema.