Quentin Tarantino has a reputation for making movies with a good deal of graphic violence. His early movies were characterized by their criminal characters, dialogue that was frequently profane as it was witty, and large quantities of blood being spilled. Not all his movies are absolute bloodbaths, but all these movies feature multiple deaths and at least one or two bursts of intense violence (and sometimes many more than just one or two).
One way to assess the level of violence in the films of Quentin Tarantino is to look at the body count, here definable as the number of on-screen casualties per film. They're ranked below from lowest to highest, with his least death-filled movies having a handful of casualties, and his most deadly featuring large quantities of characters who don't make it to the end credits alive.
10 'Kill Bill Vol. 2' (2004) - 3 deaths
The second volume of Kill Bill pales in comparison to the first when it comes to on-screen deaths. The Bride's quest for revenge in the first volume had her facing down a small army in the climax, while the second volume dials back the action, and only features The Bride killing a single person (Bill, as referenced in the title).
There are only two other casualties in the film: Elle Driver - one of The Bride's targets - kills Budd, who was another target for revenge, and Elle is also shown killing The Bride's mentor - kung-fu master Pai Mei - in a flashback. The Bride even gets revenge on Elle without directly killing her, instead leaving her blind and fending for herself inside a trailer with a deadly snake on the loose. It's unlikely she survived long, but her fate was never confirmed.
9 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' (2019) - 3 deaths
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was something of a departure from Quentin Tarantino's usual style. It was a slower-paced movie than his others, focusing on an idealized version of Hollywood in the late 1960s, with a mostly laidback story about the friendship between a fledgling actor and his loyal stuntman.
Still, things ultimately explode in a darkly funny climax which sees the two main characters emerging victorious from a deadly battle with several members of the infamous Manson Family. There are three on-screen deaths as a result, though you could argue there are four if you believe stuntman Cliff Booth murdered his wife, which is built up and implied in a brief flashback.
8 'Jackie Brown' (1997) - 4 deaths
Quentin Tarantino eased up on the violence and bloodshed for his third feature film, 1997's Jackie Brown. Not only did it have fewer on-screen deaths than his previous films, but it also didn't depict those deaths in particularly graphic detail, making it arguably Tarantino's least bloody film.
This makes it no less worthy as a film, though, because it stands as a compelling crime/thriller about a flight attendant getting wrapped up with gun smugglers and the detectives on their trail. It's got an amazing cast, fun characters, and a unique style, while also showing that the writing of Elmore Leonard fits Tarantino's sensibilities as a director well.
7 'Death Proof' (2007) - 6 deaths
Forming one half of the 2007 double feature Grindhouse, Death Proof marks the point in Tarantino's filmography where things start to get quite violent, at least when ranking his films from least to most deadly. The central character of Death Proof is a serial killer stunt driver, after all, who spends the first half of the film targeting one group of young women, and the second half targeting another group of young women.
The killer succeeds in taking out five women in the first half, but the tides turn in the second when the next group of girls fight back, and eventually successfully eliminate him after an extended car chase. It's a satisfying comeuppance and a memorable death for this Tarantino film to end on.
6 'Pulp Fiction' (1994) - 9 deaths
Pulp Fiction is made up of three intersecting stories, all involving crime and violence. It unfolds in a non-chronological and thrillingly unpredictable way and is littered with plenty of dark humor and a good number of deaths throughout.
It's hard to confirm an exact death count for Pulp Fiction. Some characters appear to suffer injuries that may be fatal without being able to confirm it (like the infamous gimp), while other sources include deaths that are mentioned in dialogue, though happen off-screen. Just going by what happens on-screen, it qualifies as a movie that shows nine deaths, indicating a moderately deadly film by Tarantino's standards.
5 'Reservoir Dogs' (1992) - 12 deaths
Tarantino's debut feature film had a sizable body count, establishing his preference for bloodshed right from the beginning of his career. That debut movie was Reservoir Dogs, and it was a tense thriller about a jewel heist gone wrong, and the dramatic aftermath involving the perpetrators expecting that one among them might be an undercover police officer.
While it might not be his most death-filled movie, Reservoir Dogs has a cast that's not much bigger than the number of deaths, meaning it's one of the most deadly films of his per characters who appear on-screen. Indeed, there's only one member of the heist's crew whose fate is left slightly ambiguous... and even then, attentive viewers will hear gunshots happening in the distance, implying that he doesn't make it out of the movie alive either.
4 'The Hateful Eight' (2015) - 14 deaths
Befitting the title, there are eight main characters in The Hateful Eight. They find themselves confined to a cabin in the middle of a snowstorm, with tension immediately arising because they're all morally shady people, and it turns out many of them have some sort of twisted history with one another.
Naturally, this leads to a great deal of violence and bloodshed erupting, with the second of The Hateful Eight containing some of the most gruesome violence of Tarantino's career so far. Thanks to one particularly grisly flashback, it also manages to exceed well over eight on-screen deaths, ending up with 14.
3 'Django Unchained' (2012) - 52 deaths
There are three Tarantino movies that pull off showing more than 50 deaths on-screen, and Django Unchained is the first of them. This 2012 film is a blood-soaked Western that follows a freed slave teaming up with a bounty hunter to rescue his enslaved wife from a sadistic plantation owner and get revenge against the forces who wish him to remain a slave.
Given it's one of Tarantino's longest movies at well over 2.5 hours, it naturally has a little extra time to squeeze in all that additional violence. It's also got a sweeping scope and some fairly explosive shootouts, ensuring there are plenty of opportunities for the title character to blast his way through various evildoers in his vengeance-filled rescue mission.
2 'Kill Bill Vol. 1' (2003) - 95 deaths
Even though the second volume of Kill Bill concludes the epic revenge story in a satisfying manner, the first volume is where much of the action lies. The reason it gets to almost 100 on-screen deaths is largely thanks to its big climactic action scene, which features The Bride slicing through a gang/small army known as the Crazy 88 to get to the first target on her kill list, O-Ren Ishi.
There's also a flashback that details O-Ren Ishi's backstory (told using anime) which features a significant number of people dying, leading to Kill Bill Vol. 1 being one of Tarantino's bloodiest films. It's definitely his most action-packed and would be his most deadly if it weren't for one other film.
1 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009) - 397 deaths
The most death-heavy movie in Quentin Tarantino's filmography by far is 2009's Inglourious Basterds, with its body count more than quadrupling the number of deaths seen in the next deadliest, Kill Bill Vol. 1. It's fitting, considering it takes place during World War 2, the deadliest war of all time, and features various violent characters who are all seeking their own brand of vengeance.
Many of those deaths come during the film's bloody climax, which features more than 200 high-ranking Nazis being shot and/or blown up inside a movie theater. The rest of the movie is no slouch when it comes to on-screen deaths either, making Inglourious Basterds Tarantino's magnum opus when it comes to on-screen murders.