Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. Director and co-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino synthesized such seemingly disparate traditions as the syncopated language of David Mamet; the serious violence of American gangster movies, crime movies, and films noirs mixed up with the wacky violence of cartoons, video games, and Japanese animation; and the fragmented story-telling structures of such experimental classics as Citizen Kane, Rashomon, and La jetée.

The Oscar-winning script by Tarantino and Roger Avary intertwines three stories, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, in the role that single-handedly reignited his career, as hit men who have philosophical interchanges on such topics as the French names for American fast food products; Bruce Willis as a boxer out of a 1940s B-movie; and such other stalwarts as Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Christopher Walken, Eric Stoltz, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, whose dance sequence with Travolta proved an instant classic.

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MPAA Rating: R

Run Time: 154 minutes

• Quentin Tarantino wrote two of the three stories before he wrote Reservoir Dogs and True Romance. After the success of those films, he decided to write a third story, intending to have each segment directed by a different person.
• Quentin Tarantino wrote the role of Jules specifically for Samuel L. Jackson, however it was almost given to Paul Calderon after a great audition. When Jackson heard this, he flew to Los Angeles and auditioned again to secure the role. Calderon ended up with a small role as Paul.
• Jules’s character was originally written to have a gigantic afro, but a crewmember obtained a variety of afro wigs and one jheri curl wig. Quentin Tarantino had never thought about a jheri curl wig, but Samuel L. Jackson tried it on, Tarantino liked it, and it was kept.
• The shot of Vincent plunging the syringe into Mia’s chest was filmed by having John Travolta pull the needle out, then running the film backwards.
• The marquee where Butch boxes advertises the following fights: “Coolidge vs Wilson” and “Vossler vs Martinez”. The first is a reference to United States Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson, the second is a reference to Russell Vossler and Jerry Martinez, who are two friends of Tarantino’s from when he worked in a video store.
• When Vincent calls Lance on his cell phone, Lance is eating a bowl of Fruit Brute, a cereal from the older monster cereal family. Fruit Brute (which, along with Yummy Mummy, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula, make up the monster cereals) was later discontinued, along with “Yummy Mummy.” Quentin Tarantino has held onto a box and drops it into scenes from time to time. It appeared in Reservoir Dogs, too.
• Knoxville, Tennessee, where Butch was meeting his connection and where his great-grandfather bought the gold watch, is also Quentin Tarantino’s birthplace.
• The role of Vincent Vega was written for Michael Madsen, who played the character’s brother, Vic Vega, in Reservoir Dogs, but he couldn’t do the film due to scheduling conflicts for another film.
• The word “fuck” is used 265 times.

Cult film (n), also known as a cult movie/picture or a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences. Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become recognized as classics; others are of the “so bad it’s good” variety and are destined to remain in obscurity. Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a devoted fanbase is necessarily a cult film. Usually, cult films have limited but very special, noted appeal. Cult films are often known to be eccentric, often do not follow traditional standards of mainstream cinema and usually explore topics not considered in any way mainstream—yet there are examples that are relatively normal. Many are often considered controversial because they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions.