Quentin Tarantino has named Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” the best movie of the 21st century, saying Scott’s “feat of direction is beyond extraordinary.” The Oscar-winning filmmaker revealed his top 10 picks during an interview on “The Bret Easton Ellis” podcast (via World of Reel).

The list also features Lee Unkrich’s “Toy Story 3” (#2), Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (#3), Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” (#4), Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” (#5), David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (#6), Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” (#7), George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” (#8), Edgar Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” (#9) and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” (#10).

“I liked it when I first saw it, but I actually think it was so intense that it stopped working for me, and I didn’t carry it with me the way that I should’ve,” Tarantino said about selecting “Black Hawk Down” as his top pick. “Since then, I’ve seen it a couple of times, not a bunch of times, but I think it’s a masterwork, and one of the things I love so much about it is […] this is the only movie that actually goes completely for an ‘Apocalypse Now’ sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling, and I think it achieves it. It keeps up the intensity for 2 hours 45 minutes, or whatever it is, and I watched it again recently, my heart was going through the entire runtime of the movie; it had me and never let me go, and I hadn’t seen it in a while. The feat of direction is beyond extraordinary.”

Tarantino called his second place pick, “Toy Story 3,” an “almost perfect movie,” adding: “That last five minutes ripped my fucking heart out, and if I even try to describe the end, I’ll start crying and get choked up […] It’s just remarkable.”

In a more surprising reveal, Tarantino said that he did not actually like Nolan’s “Dunkirk” when he first saw it. The movies is now his fourth favorite of the century.

“What I now love about it is that I feel there’s a real mastery to it, and I came around to it watching it again and again and again,” he said. “The first time, it’s not like it left me cold — it was so kind of gobsmacking, I didn’t really know what I saw, it was almost too much, and then the second time I saw it, my brain was able to take it in a little bit more, and then the third time and the fourth time, it was just like, wow, it just blew me away.”

Tarantino previously unveiled his #11 to 20 picks, which included the following films: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (#20), Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” (#19), Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” (#18), Prachya Pinkaew’s “Chocolate” (#17), Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects” (#16), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” (#15), Richard Linklater’s “School of Rock” (#14), Jeff Tremaine’s “Jackass: The Movie” (#13), Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s “Big Bad Wolves” (#12) and Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” (#11).

During this portion of “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast,” Tarantino went viral for noting the similarities between his #11 pick, “Battle Royale,” and “The Hunger Games” franchise.

“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every fucking thing she owns,” Tarantino said. “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 fuck! This is just “Battle Royale” except PG!’”

Tarantino has shared variations of his favorite-films list over the years. In 2020, he named David Fincher’s “The Social Network” the best movie of the 2010s, saying in an interview with Premiere (via IndieWire):  “It’s ‘The Social Network,’ hands down. It is number one because it’s the best, that’s all! It crushes all the competition.”

Listen to Tarantino’s interview on the “Bret Easton Ellis Podcast” here.