Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (stylized as Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood) is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures and Heyday Films, it is an international co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, alongside Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Al Pacino. The film is set in 1960s Los Angeles in an alternate timeline where an aging television actor and his stunt double embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the Hollywood film industry.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019, and is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on July 26, 2019 and on August 14, 2019 in the United Kingdom. The film was critically acclaimed, with critics calling it “Tarantino’s love letter to ’60s L.A.'” and praising its cast, “though some are divided on its ending.”
About the Story
In 1969 Los Angeles, actor Rick Dalton, who starred in a black-and-white Western television series called Bounty Law that began in the late ’50s, finds his career is faltering due to ongoing alcoholism issues. Dalton dwindles into a drawling functional binge alongside Cliff Booth, his longtime stunt double and best friend where he laments that his career is over. Booth, by contrast, is a Vietnam war veteran who lives in a derelict trailer next to the Van Nuys Drive-In but seems happy and satisfied. Booth is also rumored to have murdered his wife, and gotten away with it.
While passing the day by, Booth participates in a fists-meets-martial-arts duel on the set of The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee. Later, Dalton, playing a black-hatted villain on a new series called Lancer, gets into a philosophical chat about acting with his 8-year-old costar, a budding feminist and method actress.
Meanwhile Sharon Tate, along with her Polish husband, Roman Polanski, have rented their new home next to Dalton’s at 10050 Cielo Drive. At a Playboy Mansion party, The Great Escape superstar Steve McQueen hangs out with Cass Elliot. McQueen, talking to Dalton, fills in the backstory of Tate, Polanski, and their friend Jay Sebring, a hairdresser who is in love with Tate and, according to McQueen, is hanging around with them to bide his time and wait for Polanski to sabotage his marriage.
After his performance in Lancer receives positive reviews, casting agent Marvin Schwartz offers Dalton the opportunity to shoot a Spaghetti Western in Rome. The prospect fills him with despair; he thinks Spaghetti Westerns are the bottom rung of the entertainment totem pole. Dalton also takes Booth with him, and he spends six months there, making several films while eventually marrying an Italian crew member, Francesca Cappucci.
Back in Los Angeles, while escorting the flirtatious Pussycat to the Spahn Movie Ranch, Booth learns Pussycat is a member of the Manson Family, a cult notorious for stalking and preying on the locals, and that hippie guitarist Charles Manson has established the ranch as a safehouse.
Suspiciously, Booth and Dalton arrive at the ranch where they walk into a murder plot as the Manson Family have kidnapped Tate, Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger and several other hostages, with the intent to kill them. Dalton, Booth and Lee brutally defeat the Manson Family in a shoot-out/kung-fu showdown, and Manson is shot dead by Booth. Tate is saved, but Booth dies from fatal injuries sustained in the fight. Despite his career having not amounted to his ambition, Dalton acknowledges that it is the end of the 1960s, and the Hollywood spirit will live on.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Margot Robbie, James Marsden, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Al Pacino, Lena Dunham, Sydney Sweeney, Kurt Russell, Luke Perry
Screenplay by: Quentin Tarantino
Production Design by: Barbara Ling
Cinematography by: Robert Richardson
Film Editing by: Fred Raskin
Costume Design by: Arianne Phillips
Set Decoration by: Nancy Haigh
Art Direction by: John Dexter, Jann K. Engel, Helena Holmes, Richard L. Johnson, Eric Sundahl
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: July 26, 2019 (United States), May 21, 2019 (Cannes Film Festival)
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