Reservoir Dogs (October 23, 1992)

Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 debut as a feature film director. It introduced many of the themes and aesthetics that have become Tarantino's hallmarks — violent crime; pop culture references; memorable dialogue; and nonlinear stories. It features Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, and Lawrence Tierney. Tarantino has a minor role, as does criminal-turned-author Eddie Bunker. Tarantino (who had been working as a video store clerk in Los Angeles) was originally going to shoot it with his friends on a budget of $30,000 on 16mm with producer Lawrence Bender playing Nice Guy Eddie. However, actor Harvey Keitel became involved via the wife of Bender's acting class teacher, who had managed to get a copy of the script to him. He agreed not only to act in the film, but to co-produce. With Keitel's assistance, the filmmakers were able to raise $1.2 million to make the film, fairly large for an independently-financed film, but a small fraction of the typical Hollywood production. The movie has since come to be seen as an important and highly-influential milestone of independent filmmaking. Film critic Jami Bernard of New York Daily News said of the film's premier at Sundance: "I don't think people were ready. They didn't know what to make of it. It's like the first silent movie when audiences saw the train coming toward the camera and scattered."

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