When Mr Quentin Tarantino presented Pulp Fiction at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, audiences couldn’t believe what they’d just seen. Even the legendary film critic Mr Roger Ebert didn’t know what to make of it. “Seeing this movie… I knew it was either one of the year’s best films, or one of the worst,” he wrote in his review. Of course, with hindsight, we can see that it was revolutionary – breaking almost every major filmmaking convention at the time (for context, the Best Picture winner at the 1995 Oscars was Forrest Gump).

Whether it’s Mr Christopher Nolan, who was “fascinated with what Tarantino had done” before injecting his cult thriller Memento with a non-linear storyline, or Mr Drew Goddard, whose 2018 neo-noir Bad Times At The El Royale borrowed from the Mr Tarantino playbook heavily; 25 years on, Mr Tarantino’s influence runs rife through cinema. With his new film, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, set to be a return to his roots, one thing’s clear: with a revered filmography of nine movies, his idiosyncratic style of filmmaking has put him firmly in the pantheon of modern cinema greats – whether he chooses to retire after movie number 10 or not. (Will he really bow out on a non-original Star Trek movie?)

For many viewers, Pulp Fiction would be the first time they witnessed such graphic scenes as male rape or an overdose. From that torture scene in his breakout film, Reservoir Dogs, to the myriad decapitated bodies spraying fountains of blood thanks to Ms Uma Thurman’s Hattori Hanzo blade, explicit violence is one of Mr Tarantino’s most immediate calling cards.

“I feel like a conductor and the audience’s feelings are my instruments,” said the director in an interview with The Telegraph back in 2010. “I’ll be like, ‘Laugh, laugh, now be horrified’. When someone does that to me, I’ve had a good time at the movies.” And ever since the director burst onto the scene, movies have become increasingly, and stylishly, violent – bucking the received Hollywood wisdom that R-rated movies just don’t make money. 2017, in particular, was a banner year for violence in mainstream movies, with the likes of Logan, Get Out and It all cashing in at the box office.

Of course, violence isn’t the only thing that sets a Mr Tarantino film apart. Over the course of his career the filmmaker has cemented his status as a unique writer of whip-smart dialogue. After all, who could forget the argument between Jules (played by Mr Samuel L Jackson) and Vincent (played by Mr John Travolta) about the meaning of a foot massage in Pulp Fiction – which comes into play later when Vincent takes his boss’s girl out for dinner? Or the sweat-inducing opening of Inglourious Basterds, which, for all its talk of milk, hawks and rats tells us everything we need to know about SS Colonel Hans Landa – played by Mr Christoph Waltz?

While these entertaining conversations between characters may at first appear to be about nothing in particular, they are, in fact, Mr Tarantino masterfully using dialogue to keep audiences on his rollercoaster ride. And his particular way with words has made the conversations we see on screen today infinitely more off-kilter – if not as effective. Just look at the way the Guardians of the Galaxy mock Peter Quill, played by Mr Chris Pratt, and his ballooning weight in Avengers: Infinity War. Or Teddy Sanders, played by Mr Jeff Daniels, gunning for a Lord Of The Rings-inspired code name in The Martian.

And then there’s Mr Tarantino’s own, esoteric influences. “I steal from every movie ever made,” he said in a 1994 interview. “Great artists steal; they don’t do homages.” Watch his filmography, and you’ll realise that the director is, first and foremost, a fan of cinema – whether it’s Jackie Brown’s tribute to 1970s blaxploitation movies (and what better tribute than to cast Ms Pam Grier?), Kill Bill’s nod to Shaw Brothers’ wuxia films or Django Unchained’s take on his favourite genre: the spaghetti western. He even managed to bag Mr Ennio Morricone, legendary composer of Mr Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, to score The Hateful Eight.

There are, of course, other ways that Mr Tarantino has changed movie making since he released Reservoir Dogs in 1992. His pioneering use of music, the way he rails against traditional, chronological storytelling structures, the use of novelistic devices such as chapters. Ultimately, he is a filmmaker of singular vision. Mr John Walsh called him “Quentin Tarantino, the troublemaker, the connoisseur of badassery, the Billy the Kid of modern filmmaking”. Really, it’s hard to disagree.