--- description: We counted every line in every Tarantino movie to see how much dialogue is given to his male and female characters. title: How Often Do Women Talk in Quentin Tarantino Films? image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc5f37b62904c547d/698a00f7929fad1d24bf4b5b/tarantino-margot-robbie.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [film](/tag/film/) ## film Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # We Counted Every Line in Every Quentin Tarantino Film to See How Often Women Talk by [Anna Purna Kambhampaty](/author/anna-purna-kambhampaty/) and [Elijah Wolfson](/author/elijah-wolfson/) Aug 6, 2019 6:50 PM CUT  Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio (from left to right) at the German premiere of "Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood" at CineStar in Berlin, on Aug. 01, 2019. Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio (from left to right) at the German premiere of "Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood" at CineStar in Berlin, on Aug. 01, 2019.Adam Berry—Getty Images by [Anna Purna Kambhampaty](/author/anna-purna-kambhampaty/) and [Elijah Wolfson](/author/elijah-wolfson/) Aug 6, 2019 6:50 PM CUT A[ _New York Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/movies/quentin-tarantino-margot-robbie.html "undefined") reporter, in a recent interview with Quentin Tarantino, implied that the director had made a deliberate choice not to give Oscar-nominated actress Margot Robbie more lines in his latest release, _Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood_. Tarantino responded, “Well, I just reject your hypotheses.” Whether or not you accept Tarantino’s implicit argument that he had no choice when it came to scripting the character of Sharon Tate, it is certainly the case that, historically, female characters in his films have had fewer lines of dialogue than their male counterparts. We watched all 10 of his feature-length films and counted how many lines of dialogue were spoken by male and female characters in each. Before watching, we created a set of rules for what exactly would count as a line: 1. a “line” had to be at least three words long (e.g., “stop!” did not count as a line) 2. narration voice-overs counted so long as they hit the word cutoff 3. off-screen dialogue counted so long as it hit the word cutoff We decided to count while watching the released films themselves rather than counting lines from scripts, as what was said on-screen often differed significantly from the script. For example, in the _Reservoir Dogs_ script, there is a waitress who has a few lines in the famous diner opening scene, but in the actual scene, the waitress seems to have been cut entirely. The data show clearly that men have gotten the majority of dialogue in Tarantino’s films. In part that’s because most of the director’s films have male leads as well as a majority-male cast. But even Tarantino films with female leads and more female characters tend to give more dialogue to men: in _Kill Bill: Volume 2,_ for example, the share of lines going to male actors was 17.5 percentage points higher than those given to women; in _Jackie Brown,_ it’s a startling 39.8 percentage points higher. Tarantino has two feature films where women have more lines than men: _Kill Bill: Volume 1_ and _Death Proof._ But the gap in _Kill Bill: Volume 1_—13.5 percentage points—is much smaller than even the smallest gap in favor of male dialogue, _Kill Bill: Volume 2,_ noted above. _Death Proof_ breaks the mold, and it does so significantly: female characters outweigh male characters by 31 percentage points, and the share of lines given to women is 59.5 percentage points higher than those given to men. Interestingly enough, _Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood_ is almost a perfect microcosm of the gender breakdown in Tarantino films, coming surprisingly close to matching the average share of male vs. female lines across his entire body of work. _Additional reporting by Currie Engel, Madeline Fitzgerald, and Chris Wilson._ --- **Update, Aug. 6, 11 PM EST:** Initially, we had decided to not include _Death Proof_ because it was released as part of a double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s _Planet Terror_, and not as a stand-alone feature. 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