20 Great Movies That Were Accused Of Being Rip-Offs

16. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino arguably made the coolest film ever when he wrote and directed Reservoir Dogs, a tight little crime flick about the aftermath of a heist gone wrong - ultra violent, with a killer soundtrack and the sharpest dialogue this side of... well, a Quentin Tarantino movie... it changed the face of cinema forever. But foreign film fans could not be deceived: there were echoes of another heist gone wrong movie in Dogs: Ringo Lam's City On Fire. How Much Of A Rip-Off Are We Talking? City On Fire is pretty darn similar: jewel heist, guy executes an employee, mexican stand-off - all there. Thing is, Tarantino's style bears comparisons to that of a hip-hop artist: he takes moments, scenes, dialogue cues, characters and storylines from across the expanse of cinema, and throws them into his pop cultural blender. And he's never acknowledged otherwise - his homages and references are far too frequent. Still, this being his first film, back when it wasn't quite as well known that Tarantino's style was entirely homage-clad, this seems like a much bigger deal. Overall Rip-Off Rating: 4/5