How Stanley Kubrick’sThe KillingShaped Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs
You know, when people talk about Quentin Tarantino, they often jump straight to Pulp Fiction , Kill Bill , or Inglourious Basterds . But if you really want to understand where Tarantino’s cinematic journey began, you have to go back even further—not just to his first film, Reservoir Dogs , but to the film that inspired it: Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing .
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Now, The Killing isn’t usually the first title that pops up when discussing Kubrick’s legendary career. Most people think of 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining . But back in 1956, Kubrick crafted a lean, intense noir heist film that would quietly lay the groundwork for generations of filmmakers. And among the most prominent of them? A young Quentin Tarantino.
Kubrick’s The Killing
Tarantino, who’s never been shy about sharing his influences, once said that while he didn’t deliberately try to copy The Killing , he absolutely saw Reservoir Dogs as his own version of that kind of film. And it shows. When Reservoir Dogs exploded onto the scene in 1992, it stunned audiences not just with its razor-sharp dialogue and explosive violence, but with its structure. The story jumps around in time. We don’t see the actual heist. We see the aftermath. The mistrust. The paranoia. The chaos.
It’s no coincidence that Tarantino used similar techniques to Kubrick—overlapping timelines, fractured perspectives, slow-burn tension. Reservoir Dogs feels like a spiritual successor to The Killing , just updated for a new era. Black suits replace trench coats, and sunglasses take the place of fedoras, but the DNA is the same.
Kubrick took a risk back then, breaking away from traditional Hollywood storytelling. And that risk paid off—not just in his own career, but in the influence it had on bold new voices like Tarantino. Without The Killing , there’s a good chance Reservoir Dogs wouldn’t exist in the form we know it.
So the next time you hear someone say Tarantino redefined the crime genre, remember that he stood on the shoulders of a master. Kubrick’s forgotten gem wasn’t just a heist film—it was a blueprint. And Quentin Tarantino followed it all the way to cinematic history.
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