Jackie Brown

Snubbed: Pam Grier

Dir. Quentin Tarantino. 1997, U.S. 154 mins. 35mm. With Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Chris Tucker, Michael Keaton. Expectations were so high for Tarantino’s first film since Pulp Fiction that, even despite solid initial reviews, there was a sense of disappointment around his Elmore Leonard adaptation when it came out in 1997. It was so casual, so deliberately paced, so…mature. Of course, as everyone ought to know by now, Jackie Brown is one of Tarantino’s greatest films (maybe his best?), a deliciously convoluted, impossibly entertaining movie about and for adults whose measured approach to narrative and character gradually reveals its true beating heart: the quiet, burgeoning romance between Grier’s fatigued forty-something flight attendant and reluctant money smuggler Jackie Brown and Forster’s cucumber-cool bail bondsman Max Cherry. Forster was rightly nominated, but overlooking Grier’s mesmerizing, poignant leading role was, frankly, criminal. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.