Barefoot Girls: Does Quentin Tarantino Have A Foot Fetish?

You don’t have to be an eagle-eyed viewer of Quentin Tarantino movies to have noticed his preference for barefoot women. The man behind cult crime classics Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown rarely misses an opportunity to strip his female stars of their shoes. It’s hardly subtle – Tarantino has a thing for women’s feet.

In Tarantino’s best movie since Pulp Fiction, Once Upon A Time In The Hollywood, audiences couldn’t help but notice the prevalence of women’s bare feet. Whether it was Margot Robbie taking off her shiny white go-go boots when visiting a movie theatre and sticking her naked feet on the seat in front of her, or a barefoot Margaret Qualley presenting her dirty soles on Brad Pitt’s dashboard, audiences couldn’t miss the display of tootsies.

Qualley spoke about Tarantino’s insistence to display her feet in an interview after the film was released, saying she was hesitant because she considered her feet to be undesirable. “I was in pointe shoes for far too long to have toes that can be shown to the world,” she told IndieWire. “I genuinely was like, ‘Quentin, this is a bad idea. I don’t have good feet.”

Bridget Fonda wiggles her toes in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997).

But she relented. And she’s perhaps glad that she did. Both Tarantino and Pitt told her not to worry. “I know that I undermine myself pretty regularly, but I’m genuinely telling you these are not good feet,” she recalled telling the director and her co-star. “I know I’m self-deprecating, but I’m not being in this particular instance.”

Of course, we know Qualley did the scene and allowed Tarantino’s camera to linger on her bare feet. She says she has no regrets. “I used to actually be pretty mortified with my feet,” she said. “Maybe I can finally just give up that now.”

Margaret Qualley’s feet in Once Upon A Time in America.

In the same movie, Margot Robbie not only shows off her naked feet – which take up half the screen – while watching The Wrecking Crew in a Los Angeles movie theatre, but Tarantino introduces her character with a slow pan from her toes to her head.

Some have criticised Tarantino for blatantly wallowing in his foot fetish through his movies, arguing that it has no artistic merit. His favoured cinematographer Robert Richardson, the Oscar-winner who has worked with the filmmaker since the Kill Bill movies, might not be in agreement but does acknowledge the feet shots are not scripted.

In an interview with Business Insider, he laughs when asked about Tarantino’s foot fetish. “I have no clue when a foot is going to show up. It’s just suddenly, ‘Oh, okay! Got it. There it is. Let’s go.'”

He adds, “I’m used to it. It’s not like they are scripted. It’s more Quentin just reacting. ‘This is what I want to shoot now and let’s start there and come to here.’ That’s it.”

Exploring Quentin Tarantino’s foot fetish

Quentin Tarantino is aware of those who have criticised his blatant display of women’s feet in his movies. But he’s not fussed. He told G2 in 2021 he doesn’t “take it seriously” and added that he feels it’s “just good direction”. Arguing his point of view, he adds: “There’s a lot of feet in a lot of good directors’ movies. Before me, foot fetishism was defined by Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Hitchcock was accused of it and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it.”

Tarantino’s love of female feet has its fans. American fetish model Skyelen Riley wrote on Twitter: “People make fun of Quentin Tarantino for putting a foot scene in every movie he makes. But I think there’s something hot about a man who can see the beauty in feet and help others see it too.”

Foot fetish model Sativa | IMAGE: Twitter

The writer-director has been indulging in his foot fetish ever since he got the chance to suck Salma Hayek’s toes in From Dusk Till Dawn. In the film, which he wrote, Hayek’s dancing vampire shoves her foot in Tarantino’s mouth as he drinks liquor from her toes.

Salma Hayek’s vampire lets Quentin Tarantino suck her toes in From Dusk Till Dawn.

After From Dusk Till Dawn, Tarantino was quick to add feet to his own movies. With no women in Reservoir Dogs however, he had to wait until he worked with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Her character is essentially introduced through her feet as this is the first thing we see of her.

Uma Thurman’s feet in Pulp Fiction.

Thurman’s feet and toes are also prominently displayed in the Kill Bill films, as are Bridget Fonda’s in Jackie Brown, Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Rosario Dawson’s in Death Proof.

In Death Proof, Tarantino saved a special place in his story for Poitier’s feet as, after introducing them in a shot within a car, we later see her foot as part of a flying decapitated leg following a car crash with Kurt Russell’s Mike McKay.

Jungle Julia’s feet in Death Proof.

Death Proof also features a scene in which the psychotic McKay shows off his own foot fetish through his admiration of Abernathy’s (Rosario Dawson) feet.

Rosario Dawson’s feet in Death Proof.

Even in films where there is little chance of indulging in the sight of a woman’s feet, Tarantino finds a way as in Inglourious Basterds. In the scene in question, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) verifies that the shoe he found at the tavern was Diane Kruger’s Bridget von Hammersmark’s.

Diane Kruger’s toes in Inglourious Basterds.

It leads to her death. But instead of focusing on her face or other parts of her body while she is being killed, Tarantino shows us her foot going limp. It’s actually a very powerful scene and arguably the director’s best use of the “foot shot”.

Diane Kruger death scene in Inglourious Basterds.

After Uma Thurman, Bridget Fonda is probably the most foot-fetishized actor within Tarantino’s movies as her legs and feet are on constant display in Jackie Brown including close-ups of her toes with jewellery on.

Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown.

The filmmaker’s love of female feet even saw Brad Pitt making a joke of it at the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When accepting his award for best supporting actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood he joked: “I want to thank my co-stars, Leo [DiCaprio], Margot Robbie, Margot Robbie’s feet, Margaret Qualley’s feet, Dakota Fanning’s feet. Seriously, Quentin has separated more women from their shoes than the TSA.”

Why Are Margot Robbie’s Feet So Dirty In “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”?

Why does Margot Robbie have dirty feet in Once Upon A Time in America and does Quentin Tarantino have a foot fetish?