Quentin Tarantino Refuses to Watch ‘The Hunger Games’ for One Petty but Passionate Reason

Quentin Tarantino has built his reputation on being one of the most vocal and unfiltered voices in modern American cinema, someone who never shies away from sharing exactly what he thinks about other filmmakers’ work. That reputation risks tipping him into the exact kind of “out-of-touch old director” persona he has always seemed determined to avoid, especially as he continues to delay production on what he has repeatedly called his tenth and final film.

That extra free time has clearly given him plenty of opportunities for public commentary, and one particular grudge keeps resurfacing. Tarantino has long championed the 2000 Japanese film ‘Battle Royale’ as one of his all-time favorites, a connection that goes back to a personal friendship with director Kinji Fukasaku, who invited Tarantino to a private screening of the film while he was in Japan scouting locations for ‘Kill Bill.’

That devotion to ‘Battle Royale’ has translated into an outright refusal to watch a certain massively popular franchise he believes ripped the film off entirely. Tarantino revealed there’s one film he’ll never watch on principle, calling it a copy of a movie he holds dear, and naming ‘The Hunger Games’ as the culprit.

Speaking on a podcast appearance, Tarantino didn’t hold back on his frustration with how closely he believes ‘The Hunger Games’ mirrors ‘Battle Royale’s premise of teenagers forced by a totalitarian government into a fight to the death. He went as far as saying, “I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins,” arguing that book critics simply never made the connection because they hadn’t seen the obscure Japanese film themselves.

Despite his refusal to watch the franchise, Tarantino did carve out an exception for its star. He mentioned that he appreciates Jennifer Lawrence as an actress and would genuinely like to work with her someday, just not in her role as Katniss Everdeen, making clear his issue lies specifically with the franchise’s premise rather than the people involved in making it.

Not everyone connected to ‘The Hunger Games’ has taken Tarantino’s criticism lying down. Franchise star Josh Hutcherson pushed back on the comparison, arguing that in an era where completely original ideas are increasingly rare, stories are bound to echo each other without that automatically making one a ripoff of the other. Author Suzanne Collins has also previously denied that her series was based on ‘Battle Royale.’

Ironically, critics have pointed out that Tarantino’s own filmography is famously built on paying homage to, and sometimes directly borrowing from, the films he loves most, making his stance against ‘The Hunger Games’ feel especially pointed given his own well-documented influences. Whether or not the comparison to ‘Battle Royale’ holds up, it’s clear Tarantino has no plans to soften his position anytime soon.

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