Pulp Fiction review: 30 years on, still the best talker
Thirty years on, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction still gets quoted at the bar. Here’s why its dialogue holds up, what has dated, and where to stream it in the UK.
Reviewed, edited and approved by Editor-in-chief Daniel Sköld · Updated 25 October 2026
Contents
Every British pub has one. He’s propped against the fruit machine, and sooner or later he’ll ask whether you know what they call a burger in France. He saw Pulp Fiction in 1994 and never really got over it. It’s quite possible that he’s you. It’s definitely been me.
Three decades on, Quentin Tarantino’s second feature is still on ITVX, Prime Video and Paramount+, it’s still rated 18, and people still quote it to each other. So does it hold up, or have we just been repeating our favourite lines for 30 years out of habit?
Premiere1994-09-10
GenreThriller, Crime, Comedy
CastJohn Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis
Directed byQuentin Tarantino
Running time154 min
Rated18
Watch onITVX, Prime Video, Paramount+
85%
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Three stories, one very bad week in Los Angeles
The set-up is simple, and the way it’s told isn’t. A hitman who loves his burgers and his more philosophical partner are out on a job. A gangster’s moll with a drug habit needs an escort for the evening. A boxer past his best has been told to take a fall. Their paths cross across three linked stories that jump backwards and forwards in time, so the film is less a straight line than a deck of cards somebody has shuffled with a lot of swagger.
No spoilers here. Half the fun is working out where each scene sits on the timeline, and the other half is watching ordinary errands go spectacularly wrong. It runs 154 minutes and doesn’t feel like it, which is more than most of today’s three-hour superhero films can say.
The cast that rebooted a few careers
John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson play the two hitmen, and it’s the double act the film is built on. Uma Thurman is the moll and Bruce Willis is the boxer. Ving Rhames is the man everyone is scared of, and Harvey Keitel turns up as the kind of professional you only call when things are truly beyond saving.
For anyone who remembers Travolta’s career around the time of those talking-baby films, his comeback here is still a pleasure. Jackson, meanwhile, delivers scripture and menace in the same breath and makes it look effortless. Tarantino wrote and directed it, and you can tell he wrote it first. Every actor gets to sound cleverer, funnier and more dangerous than people really are.
Why we still quote it down the pub
This is the reason the film lasts. Before Pulp Fiction, crime films mostly talked about the plot. Tarantino’s characters talk about everything except the plot: fast food, foot massages, the morality of TV pilots, whether a pig can ever be a respectable animal. The killing is almost an interruption to the conversation.
Pulp Fiction worked out that the bits between the shootouts were the real film, and it made a generation of men think small talk could be thrilling.
That’s why it travels so well to a British bar. The lines are short and rhythmic, and they’re funny out of context. You don’t need to explain the scene to get a laugh from a mate who’s seen it. It’s the Monty Python effect: a shared script for men who would rather quote a film than talk about their feelings.
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What works and what has aged
The structure still feels bold. The soundtrack, a mix of surf guitar and soul, is still the best mixtape of 1994. Scene after scene runs on tension and comedy at once, and nobody, Tarantino included, has quite managed it this well since.
It hasn’t all aged gracefully, though. The casual racial slurs, some from Tarantino himself in a cameo, land much harder now than they did in a 1994 multiplex, and you may wince more than you remember. The violence, though short, is still nasty. A sequence in the boxer’s story goes to a dark place that some viewers won’t want to revisit. And the swagger that dazzled us at 20-something can, now and then, play as a young film-maker showing off.
The critics and where to watch it in the UK
It was a hit with the critics from the start. Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1994, and Tarantino and Roger Avary went on to win the Oscar for best original screenplay. Its place on the all-time lists has barely moved since, and it’s still ranked among the highest-rated films on IMDb, where users regularly put it in their top tier of crime films.
In the UK it’s currently streaming on ITVX, Prime Video and Paramount+. ITVX is the cheapest way to watch, but expect ad breaks at awkward moments unless you pay for ITVX Premium. Prime Video and Paramount+ come with their own subscriptions, so check which one you’re already paying for before signing up for another. It’s rated 18, so save it for after the grandkids have gone home. If one of the independent cinemas near you puts on a revival screening, as they do from time to time, it’s worth going for that soundtrack on proper speakers alone.
Verdict
Thirty years on, Pulp Fiction is still the sharpest-talking crime film around, even if some of its swagger and language has soured with age. It’s essential viewing for anyone who remembers the 90s video shop. It’s also a reminder of why the bloke by the fruit machine won’t stop quoting it. Watch it again, then accept that you’re going to become that bloke.
Ashley Isaacs picks what's worth your evening – film, TV, streaming, music and books for men 45 and over with limited evenings and too many subscriptions. Reviews of what's new on Netflix, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and the rest, crime dramas worth a weekend, and classics worth a second look. What's worth watching, what isn't, and where to find it in the UK.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to ashley@midcent.uk.
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