Director/screenwriter/actor Quentin Tarantino was the most distinctive and volatile talent to emerge in American film in the early '90s. Unlike the previous generation of American filmmakers, Tarantino didn't learn his craft in film school -- he learned it from videos. Consequently, he developed an audacious fusion of pop culture and independent art-house cinema; his films were thrillers that were distinguished as much by their clever, twisting dialogue as their outbursts of extreme violence. Tarantino initially began his career as an actor (his biggest role was an Elvis impersonator on an episode of "The Golden Girls"), taking classes while he was working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California.

During his time at Video Archives, he began writing screenplays, completing his first, True Romance, in 1987. With his co-worker Roger Avary (who would later also become a director), Tarantino tried to get financial backing to film the script. After years of negotiations, he decided to sell the script, which wound up in the hands of director Tony Scott. During this time, Tarantino wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers. Again, he was unable to come up with enough investors to make a movie and gave the script to his partner Rand Vossler. Tarantino used the money he made from True Romance to begin preproduction on Reservoir Dogs, a film about a failed heist. Reservoir Dogs received financial backing from LIVE Entertainment after Harvey Keitel agreed to star in the movie. Word-of-mouth on Reservoir Dogs began to build at the 1992 Sundance film festival, which led to scores of glowing reviews, making the film a cult hit. While many critics and fans were praising Tarantino, he developed a sizable amount of detractors. Claiming he ripped off the obscure Hong Kong thriller City on Fire, the critics only added to the buzz about Tarantino. During 1993, he wrote and directed his next feature, Pulp Fiction, which featured three interweaving crime story lines; Tony Scott's big-budget production of True Romance was also released in 1993. The following year, Tarantino was elevated from a cult figure to a major celebrity. In May, Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'or at Cannes Film Festival, beginning the flood of good reviews for the picture. Before Pulp Fiction was released in October, Oliver Stone's bombastic version of Natural Born Killers hit the theaters in August; Tarantino distanced himself from the film and was only credited for writing the basic story. Pulp Fiction soon eclipsed Natural Born Killers in both acclaim and popularity. Made for $8 million, the film eventually grossed over $100 million and topped many critics' top ten lists. Pulp Fiction earned seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino and Avary), Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), and Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman).

After the film became a hit, Tarantino was everywhere, from talk-shows to a cameo in the low-budget Sleep With Me. At the beginning of 1995, he directed a segment of the anthology film Four Rooms. In the meantime, he directed an episode of the NBC TV hit, "ER," appeared in Margaret Cho's sitcom "All-American Girl," and had a starring role in the comedy Destiny Turns On The Radio.