Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has many shots of bare feet, which has resurrected an old question: what's up with Quentin Tarantino and feet?

There are a number of elements that make Quentin Tarantino’s movies so unique – from their level and style of violence, to the dialogue and multiple pop culture references, to the frequent shots of feet (especially women’s feet). With the release of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, first as a 2019 movie and then a subsequent novelization (also by Tarantino), an old question has arisen again: What’s up with Tarantino and feet anyway?

Tarantino’s directorial debut was My Best Friend’s Birthday in 1987, the script for which served as the basis for True Romance after the final reel was almost completely destroyed after a fire during editing. However, his filmmaking career as the world has come to know it began with Reservoir Dogs in 1992, and while it was praised by critics, his big break came in 1994 with Pulp Fiction. With it the first examples of his fixation with feet, which has continued even in films where he had a role but weren’t actually directed by him.

These shots of feet don’t serve a narrative purpose most of the time nor even an aesthetic one – they’re just there because Tarantino wants them to be. Tarantino’s seeming foot fetish is no secret in the film industry and viewers have noticed it in all his films. Reservoir Dogs has an all-male cast so there aren't shots displaying a fixation with feet, but Pulp Fiction shows Uma Thurman barefoot a couple of times and there’s also the “foot massage” dialogue between Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta). Jackie Brown also has its dose of feet thanks to Melanie Ralston (Bridget Fonda), who even wears jewelry on her toes. These shots are not necessarily of bare feet all the time – Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 have a lot of shots of feet with different shoes, as well as Uma Thurman’s bare feet. Death Proof took it a bit further with Jungle Julia’s (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) leg being chopped and flying out of the car, and more directly with Mike McKay (Kurt Russell) later on touching and licking Abethany Ross’ (Rosario Dawson) feet.

Inglourious Basterds has the scene with Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) verifying that the shoe he found at the tavern was Bridget von Hammersmark’s (Diane Kruger), who at the same time has one foot in a cast, with her toes popping out. Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight also have shots of feet, although not bare feet, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had a lot of these - especially from Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Pussycat (Margaret Qualley). Tate reportedly enjoyed being barefoot all the time, and Tarantino saw an opportunity and ran with it. It’s also worth noting that, although he didn’t direct From Dusk Till Dawn, he co-wrote it with Robert Rodriguez. During, Tarantino (who also starred) has a scene with Salma Hayek’s Santanico Pandemonium where she puts her foot on the mouth of his character.

So yes, Tarantino appears to have a foot fetish and is not shy about it. It doesn’t seem to bother his actors either, as Uma Thurman herself let him drink champagne from her shoe at an event back in 2010, and Margot Robbie shared that she felt the same as Tate about not liking to wear shoes. Regardless, Tarantino addressed the matter in a recent interview with GQ. When asked what he makes of people thinking he has a foot fetish, he said: "I don't take it seriously. There's a lot of feet in a lot of good directors' movies. That's just good direction. Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Hitchcock was accused of it and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it." Whatever the case, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is a real “foot fest” and many viewers continue to comment about it on social media. Equally, it’s not the first and definitely will not be the last time that Quentin Tarantino showcases his fixation with feet.

Next: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Breaks Tarantino Formula (& That's Why It's Great)