The movie Quentin Tarantino calls his “masterpiece” – Inglorious Basterds – was released exactly 16 years ago, setting a standard the iconic director’s yet-to-be-announced final film will have to match or beat.

The Movie Critic was to be Tarantino’s long-speculated-upon last film, until the moviemaker abruptly scrapped the project, later explaining why. In brief, the director felt that by making another movie set in Los Angeles in the era of his youth, he would just be repeating what he did on Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.

It’s not yet known what Tarantino will do for his send-off movie, but it’s a cinch it won’t be a mere repeat of a past work (so no Kill Bill 3, probably). If his final film is to be hailed as a crowning achievement, it will have to match or even beat the 16-year-old movie Tarantino himself considers his best.

Inglourious Basterds Is Tarantino’s Masterpiece (& The Director Himself Agrees)

Pulp Fiction may have been the movie that put Tarantino on the map as a major filmmaker, but the director’s best work is 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. An ultra-violent WW2 epic and revenge story, the movie was nominated for eight Oscars, while grossing $120 million domestically ($180 million adjusted for inflation).

The much-hyped recent NYT poll ranking the best films of the 21st Century nodded to Basterds over Tarantino’s other post-2000 works, slotting the bloody war movie in at #14 overall. That Basterds is his best movie, even over Pulp Fiction, is a take Tarantino himself agrees with, as he revealed in a recent podcast interview (via The Church of Tarantino):

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is my favorite, Inglourious Basterds is my best. But I think Kill Bill is the ultimate Quentin movie, like nobody else could’ve made it. Every aspect about it is so particularly ripped, like with tentacles and bloody tissue, from my imagination and my id and my loves and my pᴀssion and my obsession.

So I think Kill Bill is the movie I was born to make, I think Inglourious Basterds is my masterpiece, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is my favorite.

Inglourious Basterds sees Tarantino executing his craft at the highest level. The movie has all the bloody mayhem any QT fan could possibly want, but it’s also incredibly suspenseful, as well as wickedly funny, delivering one of cinema’s great war movie experiences while simultaneously deconstructing the entire genre.

There is great acting all over Inglourious Basterds, highlighted by Christoph Waltz’s Oscar-winning turn as steely SS man Hans Landa. Brad Pitt is hilariously terrifying as gung-ho Lt. Aldo Raine, while Melanie Laurent, Michael Fᴀssbender and Diane Kruger turn in performances that helped establish them as stars in America.

Inglourious Basterds Is The Standard Tarantino’s Final Movie Will Be Held Against

Tarantino indeed set a high bar with Inglourious Basterds. The director himself agrees that it’s a standard his subsequent films have failed to match. If Tarantino wants his career to end with a truly triumphant flourish, his as-yet-unrevealed final movie has Basterds to beat.

It’s perhaps unrealistic to expect a Basterds-level masterpiece, but Tarantino himself seems intent on making sure his final film reaches that high standard. That’s why he scrapped his uninspiring Movie Critic plans, preferring to seek out a more challenging idea.

The pressure he’s putting on himself to top Inglourious Basterds, and all his other movies, may delay the arrival of Tarantino’s final film, as he seeks the perfect project. Even if he finds that greatest of all possible ideas, it will be hard for the director to reach the heights he scaled with his 16-year-old self-declared masterpiece.