Quentin Tarantino Admits One Movie Scene Is Too Perfect for Him to Beat

Quentin Tarantino has long been known as one of Hollywood’s most knowledgeable directors, and when he names a scene as the best in movie history, people listen. The Pulp Fiction creator recently revealed that there’s one sequence he believes he could never top: the final showdown in Sergio Leone’s 1966 classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Tarantino told audiences on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast that the “Sad Hill Cemetery” scene is the pinnacle of cinematic storytelling. “When those things work, and they really connect – and an example could be the final gunfight scene in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, like a sequence I can’t ever imagine topping,” he admitted.

Even for a director of his stature, Tarantino says the scene is unmatched. “For the one sequence, I can’t ever imagine doing anything that good,” he said. He described how the combination of visuals, music, and tension creates an experience unlike anything else.

“It’s like, you forget to breathe, you are really transported to a different place, and music doesn’t quite do that on its own, and novels don’t quite do it, and painting doesn’t quite do it,” he explained. Tarantino added that watching it in a theater with a crowd makes the moment even more intense. “They do it their way, but in cinema – especially if you’re in a theatre and you’re sharing the experience with a bunch of other people, so it’s this mass thing going on – oh, it’s just truly, truly thrilling.”

In an interview with Empire, he even pointed to the exact moment that hits him the hardest: the “Ecstasy of Gold” build-up just before the bullets start flying. “That’s easy,” he said when asked for his favorite shot. “During the three-way bullring showdown at the end, the music builds to the giant orchestra crescendo, and when it gets to the first big explosion of the theme, there’s a wide shot of the bullring.”

Tarantino highlighted the way the editing adds to the drama. “After you’ve seen all the little shots of the guys getting into position, you suddenly see the whole wideness of the bullring and all the graves around them,” he said. “It’s my favourite shot in the movie, but I’ll even say it’s my favourite cut in the history of movies.”

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is considered the ultimate Spaghetti Western. Clint Eastwood stars as “the Good,” Lee Van Cleef as “the Bad,” and Eli Wallach as “the Ugly.” The story follows the three gunslingers as they compete to find buried Confederate gold during the chaos of the Civil War. It was the third film in Leone’s Dollars Trilogy and is now seen as a landmark in cinema, even though critics at the time were mixed.

@cinemaman5413 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. | Final scene | #thegoodthebadandtheugly #clinteastwood #movie #standoff ♬ die (sped up) – lucidbeatz & key kelly

As of 2026, Tarantino is at a turning point in his career. He recently canceled his planned tenth film, The Movie Critic, which would have starred Brad Pitt, and is working on a new concept for his final movie. He has also been spending more time writing non-fiction books about film history.

Tarantino’s admiration for the cemetery showdown shows just how much the sequence resonates with filmmakers and audiences alike. “I can’t ever imagine doing anything that good,” he said, underlining just how legendary that scene has become.

Tell us if you think the cemetery showdown deserves the title of the greatest scene in film history in the comments.