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97-630: Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel , Tim Roth , Chris Penn , Steve Buscemi , Lawrence Tierney , Michael Madsen , Tarantino, and Edward Bunker as diamond thieves whose heist of a jewelry store goes terribly wrong. Kirk Baltz , Randy Brooks , and Steven Wright also play supporting roles. The film incorporates many motifs that have become Tarantino's hallmarks: violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and nonlinear storytelling . The film

194-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

291-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

388-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

485-575: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

582-555: A cop pretending to be a robber". The film contains multiple homages to other films. Tarantino himself has said that Reservoir Dogs was influenced by Stanley Kubrick 's 1956 film noir The Killing : "I didn't go out of my way to do a rip-off of The Killing , but I did think of it as my 'Killing', my take on that kind of heist movie." The film's plot was also inspired by the 1952 film Kansas City Confidential . Additionally, Joseph H. Lewis 's 1955 film The Big Combo and Sergio Corbucci 's 1966 Spaghetti Western Django inspired

679-414: A crash is heard outside and gunshots follow. As White cradles the dying Orange in his arms, Orange confesses that he is a police officer. White presses his gun to Orange's head. The police storm the warehouse and order White to drop his gun. White is killed by the police after he shoots Orange . Rich Turner played Sheriff #1. Nina Siemaszko played police officer Jody McClusky; her scenes were deleted from

776-454: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

873-410: A diamond heist. White flees with Orange, who was shot during the escape and is bleeding profusely in the back seat of a car driven by White. At their hideout, White and Orange rendezvous with Pink, who believes that the job was a setup and that the police were waiting for them. White informs him that Brown is dead, Blue and Blonde are missing, and Blonde murdered several civilians during the heist. White

970-399: A disc of bonus features such as interviews with the cast and crew. However, the full screen version on the second disc was a pan and scan transfer from the 2.39:1 widescreen version, as opposed to open matte like the 1997 DVD. For the film's 15th anniversary, Lionsgate (which had purchased Artisan in the interim) produced a two-disc anniversary edition with a remastered 16:9 transfer and

1067-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

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1164-675: A first week total of $ 147,839. It was expanded to 61 theaters on October 23, 1992, and totaled $ 2,832,029 at the domestic box office. The film grossed more than double that in the United Kingdom, where it did not receive a home video release until 1995. During the period of unavailability on home video, the film was re-released in UK cinemas in June 1994. Reservoir Dogs is regarded as an important and influential milestone of independent filmmaking . Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives

1261-491: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

1358-684: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

1455-457: A new supplement, but not all of the extra features from the 10th Anniversary edition. In particular, the interviews with the cast and crew were removed, and a new 48-minute-long feature called "Tributes and Dedications" was included. Lionsgate Home Entertainment celebrated the 30th anniversary of Reservoir Dogs with a 4K Blu-ray release, which was released in the U.S. on November 15, 2022. The Reservoir Dogs: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

1552-498: A police officer chasing Mr. Pink. Bender gave the script to his acting teacher, whose wife gave the script to Harvey Keitel. Keitel liked it enough to sign as a co-producer so Tarantino and Bender would have an easier job finding funding; with his assistance, they raised $ 1.5 million. Keitel also paid for Tarantino and Bender to host casting sessions in New York, where the duo found Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, and Tim Roth. Jon Cryer

1649-590: A prominent film in terms of on-screen violence. J. P. Telotte compared Reservoir Dogs to classic caper noir films and points out the irony in its ending scenes. Mark Irwin also made the connection between Reservoir Dogs and classic American noir. Caroline Jewers called Reservoir Dogs a "feudal epic" and paralleled the color pseudonyms to color names of medieval knights. Critics have observed parallels between Reservoir Dogs and other films. For its nonlinear storyline, Reservoir Dogs has often been compared to Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon . Critic John Hartl compared

1746-535: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

1843-681: A real-time clock as opposed to a movie clock ticking". Reservoir Dogs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1992. It became the festival's most talked-about film, and it was subsequently picked up for distribution by Miramax Films . After being shown at several other film festivals, including in Cannes , Sitges , and Toronto , Reservoir Dogs opened in the United States in 19 theaters on October 9, 1992, with

1940-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

2037-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

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2134-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

2231-440: A short 30- to 40-page script . Tarantino became attached to the project as co-writer and director, and he and Hamann expanded the script to 80 pages. On an estimated budget of $ 5,000, the film was originally planned in a Super 8mm format . However, when Tarantino was able to borrow a 16mm camera from film director Fred Olen Ray , the film was shot in 16mm over the course of the next four years. Hamann and Tarantino starred in

2328-422: A straight razor. He prepares to set him on fire, but Orange shoots Blonde dead. Orange reveals to Nash that he is an undercover police officer , and that the police will arrive when Joe comes to the warehouse. When Eddie, Pink, and White return, Orange tries to convince them that Blonde planned to kill them all and steal the diamonds for himself. Eddie shoots and kills Nash and accuses Orange of lying, since Blonde

2425-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

2522-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

2619-569: Is furious that Joe, his old friend, would employ Blonde, whom he describes as a psychopath. Pink has hidden the diamonds nearby and argues with White over whether to get medical attention for Orange, and the pair draw guns on each other. They stand down when Blonde arrives with a kidnapped policeman, Marvin Nash. Sometime earlier, Blonde meets with the Cabots, having been paroled after a four-year prison sentence. To reward him for not giving Joe's name to

2716-450: Is regarded as a classic of independent film and a cult film. Although controversial at first for its depictions of violence and heavy use of profanity, Reservoir Dogs was generally well-received, and the cast was praised by many critics. Despite not being heavily promoted during its theatrical run, the film became a modest success in the United States after grossing $ 2.9 million against its scant budget. It achieved higher popularity after

2813-640: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

2910-503: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

3007-1045: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

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3104-495: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

3201-631: The "Greatest Independent Film" ever made. At the film's release at the Sundance Film Festival, film critic Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News compared the effect of Reservoir Dogs to that of the 1895 film L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat , when audiences supposedly saw a moving train approaching the camera and ducked. Bernard said that Reservoir Dogs had a similar effect and people were not ready for it. Vincent Canby of The New York Times enjoyed

3298-612: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

3395-689: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

3492-595: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

3589-498: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

3686-522: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

3783-794: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

3880-660: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

3977-518: The Seventies Weekend", a themed weekend show of broadcasts of songs from the seventies. The radio station played a prominent role in the film. The DJ for the radio was chosen to be Steven Wright , a comedian known for his deadpan delivery of jokes. An unusual feature of the soundtrack was the choice of songs; Tarantino has said that he feels the music to be a counterpoint to the on-screen violence and action. He also stated that he wished for

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4074-516: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

4171-488: The UK VHS release approval, PolyGram released a "Mr Blonde Deluxe Edition", which included an interview with Tarantino and several memorabilia associated with the character Mr. Blonde, such as sunglasses and a chrome toothpick holder. Region 1 DVDs of Reservoir Dogs have been released multiple times. The first release was a single two-sided disc from LIVE Entertainment , released in June 1997 and featuring two versions of

4268-461: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

4365-437: The authorities, they offer him a no-show job . Blonde is grateful but insists that he wants to get back to "real work", and they recruit him for the heist. In the present, White and Pink beat Nash for information. Eddie arrives and orders them to go with him to ditch the getaway vehicles, leaving Blonde in charge of Nash and Orange. Nash denies knowledge, but Blonde ignores him and resumes the torture, cutting off Nash's ear with

4462-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

4559-601: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

4656-591: The cast and the usage of non-linear storytelling. He similarly complimented Tarantino's directing and liked the fact that he did not often use close-ups in the film. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times also enjoyed the film and the acting, particularly that of Buscemi, Tierney and Madsen, and said "Tarantino's palpable enthusiasm, his unapologetic passion for what he's created, reinvigorates this venerable plot and, mayhem aside, makes it involving for longer than you might suspect." Critic James Berardinelli

4753-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

4850-420: The characters. He also said that Tarantino "has an idea, and trusts the idea to drive the plot." Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four and said that while he enjoyed it and that it was a very good film from a talented director, "I liked what I saw, but I wanted more." The film has received substantial criticism for its strong violence and language. One scene that viewers found particularly unnerving

4947-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

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5044-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

5141-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

5238-680: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

5335-525: The details of the heist ambiguous. By not showing the robbery and having the characters describe it, Tarantino explained, the film is allowed to be "about other things", similar to the way in which the burglary in Glengarry Glen Ross and its film adaptation is discussed, described, and debated, but never shown. Tarantino compared the technique to the work of a novelist, and said he wanted the film to be about something not seen and to "play with

5432-484: The ear-cutting scene to the shower murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock 's Psycho and Tarantino to David Lynch . He furthermore explored parallels between Reservoir Dogs and Glengarry Glen Ross . Todd McCarthy, who called the film "undeniably impressive", was of the opinion that it was influenced by Mean Streets , Goodfellas , and Stanley Kubrick 's The Killing . After this film, Tarantino himself

5529-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

5626-416: The end of the first week of production. The warehouse scenes were filmed in an unused mortuary filled with coffins, funeral equipment, embalming fluid, and a hearse. Mr. Orange's apartment was a room on the second floor of the mortuary, set to look like living quarters. The building has since been demolished. Tarantino's decision not to film the diamond robbery was twofold: for budgetary reasons, and to keep

5723-522: The festival's 40th anniversary. In the United Kingdom, release of the VHS rental video was delayed until 1995 due to the British Board of Film Classification initially refusing the film a home video certificate (UK releases are required to be certified separately for theatrical release and for viewing at home). The latter is a requirement by law due to the Video Recordings Act 1984 . Following

5820-399: The film an approval rating of 90% based on 81 reviews, and an average rating of 8.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Thrumming with intelligence and energy, Reservoir Dogs opens Quentin Tarantino's filmmaking career with hard-hitting style." On Metacritic the film has an average score of 81 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Empire magazine named it

5917-551: The film to have a 1950s feel while using '70s music. A prominent instance of this is the torture scene to the tune of " Stuck in the Middle with You ". A video game based on the film was released in 2006 for PC , Xbox , and PlayStation 2 . However, the game does not feature the likeness of any of the actors with the exception of Michael Madsen . The game was received unfavorably, with GameSpot calling it "an out and out failure". It caused controversy for its amount of violence and it

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6014-1056: The film's plot is out of chronological order. Kaante , a Bollywood film released in 2002, is a remake of Reservoir Dogs , combined with elements of City on Fire . The film also borrows plot points from Heat and The Killing . Tarantino has been quoted as saying that Kaante is his favorite among the many films inspired by his work. Tarantino later screened Kaante at his New Beverly Cinema alongside Reservoir Dogs and City on Fire . Tarantino revealed in June 2021 that he had at one point considered remaking Reservoir Dogs as his tenth and final directed film, though he quickly iterated that he "won't do it". Crime film Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

6111-456: The film, along with several video store and acting class buddies, and worked on the crew, which included fellow Video Archives employees Rand Vossler and Roger Avary . It is the most overtly comedic film that Tarantino has made. In an interview with Charlie Rose (available on the Region 1 Collector's Edition DVD of Pulp Fiction ), he referred to it as a " Martin and Lewis kind of thing." It

6208-424: The film: the original letterbox 2.39:1 widescreen version and an open matte 1.33:1 full screen version. Five years later, on August 27, 2002, Artisan Entertainment (who changed their name from LIVE Entertainment in the interim) released a two-disc 10th anniversary edition on DVD and VHS featuring multiple covers color-coded to match the nicknames of five of the characters (Pink, White, Orange, Blonde, and Brown) and

6305-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

6402-463: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. My Best Friend%27s Birthday My Best Friend's Birthday is an unfinished 1987 amateur comedy film directed, edited, co-written, co-produced by and starring Quentin Tarantino . The film

6499-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

6596-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

6693-526: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

6790-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

6887-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

6984-531: The only black actor in the film). Critic Elvis Mitchell suggested that Reitman's version of the script was taking the source material back to its roots since the characters "all sound like black dudes." The film was screened out of competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival . It won the Critic's Award at the 4th Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in February 1993, which Tarantino attended. The film

7081-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

7178-413: The originally white cast: Laurence Fishburne as Mr. White; Terrence Howard as Mr. Blonde; Anthony Mackie as Mr. Pink; Cuba Gooding Jr. as Mr. Orange; Chi McBride as Joe Cabot; Anthony Anderson as Nice Guy Eddie (Joe Cabot's son); Common as both Mr. Brown and Officer Nash (the torture victim of Mr. Blonde), and Patton Oswalt as Holdaway (the mentor cop who was originally played by Randy Brooks,

7275-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

7372-504: The scene where a police officer is tortured in a chair. Having the main characters named after colors (Mr. Pink, White, Brown, etc.) was first seen in the 1974 film The Taking of Pelham One Two Three . The film also contains key elements similar to those found in Ringo Lam 's 1987 film City on Fire . Tarantino praised the film City on Fire and mentioned it as a major influence. Tarantino said that everybody hated Lawrence Tierney by

7469-536: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

7566-498: The style of dialogue and narrative that Tarantino incorporates into both films. Specifically the relationship between white people and black people plays a big part in the films—though underplayed in Reservoir Dogs . Stanley Crouch of The New York Times compared the way the white criminals speak of black people in Reservoir Dogs to the way they are spoken of in Scorsese's Mean Streets and Goodfellas . Crouch observed

7663-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

7760-573: The success of Tarantino's next film, Pulp Fiction (1994). A soundtrack was released featuring songs used in the film, which are mostly from the 1970s. It was named "Greatest Independent Film of All Time" by the British film magazine Empire , who in 2008 also named it the 97th-greatest film ever made. Eight men eat breakfast at a diner. All but the boss and his son, Joe Cabot and "Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot, use aliases: Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange, and Mr. Pink. The men carry out

7857-525: The theatrical release. There is an unseen accomplice of Joe and Eddie who speaks to Eddie on the phone. His name is Dov Schwarz, named after the sound editor on My Best Friend's Birthday . Quentin Tarantino had been working at Video Archives , a video store in Manhattan Beach, California , and originally planned to shoot the film with his friends on a budget of $ 30,000 in a 16 mm black-and-white format, with producer Lawrence Bender playing

7954-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

8051-444: The walkout as a "compliment" and explained that he found the violence unnerving because of its heightened sense of realism. Tarantino commented about it at the time: "It happens at every single screening. For some people the violence, or the rudeness of the language, is a mountain they can't climb. That's OK. It's not their cup of tea. But I am affecting them. I wanted that scene to be disturbing." Reservoir Dogs has often been seen as

8148-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

8245-508: The way black people are looked down upon in Reservoir Dogs , but also the way that the criminals accuse each other of "verbally imitating" black men and the characters' apparent sexual attraction to black actress Pam Grier . In February 2012, as part of an ongoing series of live dramatic readings of film scripts being staged with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), director Jason Reitman cast black actors in

8342-434: Was also compared to Martin Scorsese , Sam Peckinpah , John Singleton , Gus Van Sant , and Abel Ferrara . A frequently cited comparison has been to Tarantino's second and more successful film Pulp Fiction , especially since the majority of audiences saw Reservoir Dogs after the success of Pulp Fiction . Comparisons have been made regarding the black humor in both the films, the theme of accidents, and more concretely,

8439-636: Was also nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics . Steve Buscemi won the 1992 Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male . Reservoir Dogs ranks at No. 97 in Empire magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time. In 2024, Reservoir Dogs was ranked second on the list of the Sundance Film Festival 's Top 10 films of All Time based on a survey conducted with 500 filmmakers and critics in honor of

8536-419: Was asked to audition for the role of Mr. Pink, but he backed out at the last minute. James Woods was also considered for Mr. Pink, but his agent turned it down without telling him. Viggo Mortensen and George Clooney also read for roles, while Tim Roth's agents originally wanted him to be Mr. Pink or Mr. Blonde, but he preferred Mr. Orange because he would "be an English actor pretending to be American playing

8633-606: Was banned in Australia, Germany and New Zealand. Another video game, Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days , was released in 2017. On December 14, 2017, Overkill Software added a heist to Payday 2 inspired by Reservoir Dogs in which the player is contracted to rob a jewelry store in Los Angeles with the Cabot family. It is unique in that the heist is played in reverse order, with day two occurring prior to day one, similar to how

8730-532: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

8827-494: Was long alleged that the original cut was about 70 minutes long, but due to a film lab fire, only 36 minutes of the film still exist. In 2019, a book titled My Best Friend's Birthday: The Making of a Quentin Tarantino Film , written by Andrew J. Rausch, was published by BearManor Media. The book features interviews with all of the film's principal personnel, including Quentin Tarantino , Craig Hamann, and Roger Avary . In

8924-426: Was loyal to his father. Joe arrives with news that the police have killed Blue. He is about to execute Orange, who he suspects is the traitor behind the setup, but White intervenes and holds Joe at gunpoint, insisting that Orange is not a police officer. Eddie aims his gun at White, creating a Mexican standoff . All three fire. Both Cabots are killed, and White and Orange are hit. Pink takes the diamonds and flees, but

9021-441: Was of a similar opinion; he complimented both the cast and Tarantino's dialogue writing abilities. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post was also enthusiastic about the cast, complimenting the film on its "deadpan sense of humor". Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic, as he felt that the script could have been better and said that the film "feels like it's going to be terrific", but Tarantino's script does not have much curiosity about

9118-542: Was shot in black-and-white and was originally meant to have a runtime of seventy minutes, but only 36 minutes of the film are edited altogether, leaving the project unfinished. It’s Mickey’s birthday, and his girlfriend just left him. His friend Clarence shows up to give him a birthday he'll never forget. The film was made while Tarantino was working at the Video Archives , now closed, in Manhattan Beach, California . The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote

9215-416: Was the ear-cutting scene. Madsen himself reportedly had great difficulty finishing it, especially after Kirk Baltz ad-libbed the desperate plea "I've got a little kid at home." Many people walked out during the film. During a screening at Sitges Film Festival , 15 people walked out, including horror film director Wes Craven and special makeup effects artist Rick Baker . Baker later told Tarantino to take

9312-468: Was the first soundtrack for a Tarantino film and set the structure his later soundtracks would follow. This includes the extensive use of snippets of dialogue from the film. The soundtrack has selections of songs from the 1960s to '80s. Only the group Bedlam recorded original songs for the film. Reasoning that the film takes place over a weekend, Tarantino decided to set it to a fictional radio station 'K-Billy' (presumably KBLY)'s show "K-Billy's Super Sounds of

9409-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

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