Pulp Fiction changed everything. Not only is it a great film in its own right, it’s also directly responsible for practically every good film you’ve seen in the years since, and are likely to see for the rest of this century. In a world without it, there is no Usual Suspects, nor Boogie Nights, nor Get Shorty, nor Trainspotting, nor even LA Confidential. Just imagine that world...

Samuel L Jackson is not a movie star, so the best hits of Die Hard With A Vengeance and The Long Kiss Goodnight no longer exist. Bruce Willis is a movie star, but he lacks range and credibility. John Travolta is a has been, growing ever fatter on a diet of talking baby flicks. Thus John Woo doesn’t find his State side feet with Broken Arrow, and never makes Face/Off Soundtrack albums continue to be lazily built around cock-rock power ballads or glaringly obvious Motown golden oldie faves of the baby-boomer generation. As a filmgoer, you are obliged to choose between multiplex (check your brain at the popcorn concession) and art-house, where you’re forced to fake delight at the cleverness of Jim Jarmusch or lap up the ironic whimsy of Hal Hartley. Think about that for a moment, and then think about the enormous debt you owe Quentin Tarantino.

America’s biggest independent success before Pulp Fiction was Stephen Soderbergh’s 1989 Palme D’Or winner sex, lies and videotape. This charmless exercise in navel-and-below-gazing traded on supposedly shocking "Hey, everybody masturbates!" subject matter and a misleadingly provocative poster of’ pouting star Laura San Giacomo to rake in $25 million — as well as acres of newsprint in quality broadsheet art-section think pieces. Hollywood execs spoke longingly of unearthing "The next sex, lies..." (no, really).

Although a smash in Britain, Reservoir Dogs was comparatively small beer in the States, taking only $3 million and garnering mixed reviews. Indeed, when Natural Born Killers hit the Can, an Oliver Stone acolyte sneered that "This guy makes a movie that takes less money than Leprechaun. And he’s gonna tell Oliver what to do?" But Tarantino used his debut as a calling card, both at film festivals, where his talent for relentless self-promotion made him an international media darling, and with actors, who were desperate to wrap their gums around some caustic, gleefully profane, unforgettable dialogue.

When the time came to cast his sophomore effort, the director could afford to turn down the likes of Holly Hunter, Meg Ryan and Daniel Day-Lewis. Bruce Willis altered the production schedules of two other films to secure his part, and only Michael Madsen refused (the part was Vincent Vega), opting instead for a supporting role in Costner’s Wyatt Earp tanker, but leaving the door open for John Travolta. All the actors took significant pay cuts, keeping the budget down to a manageable $8 million.

Pulp Fiction premiered at Cannes in1.994, scooping the Palme D’Or, and opened worldwide that autumn. The effect was seismic. In America alone, it grossed $100 million and earned eight Oscar nominations. More than that, it took off as a cultural phenomenon, globally bridging the gap between arthouse and ale house: everybody saw it, everybody had an opinion on it. Its influence was felt in music, advertising, TV and literature. "Tarantinoesque" became an adjective, a selling point. The world had developed an appetite for the pop-culture stew he’d served up, and Pulp Fiction became the first masterpiece of post-modern cinema that is, genuinely post-modern without being self-consciously so. Instead, this was a deeply personal movie that just happened to have been made by a brilliant post-modern artist.

And just as Coppola's breakthrough with The Godfather paved the way for the movie brats of the ‘70s (De Palma, Scorsese, Milius, Spielberg), so Tarantino’s success created an environment in which Bryan Singer, Danny Boyle and Paul Thomas Anderson were given their chances to shine. Although they may not slavishly imitate the QT style (in fact, they generally go on record to distance their work from his), each owes his career - to varying degrees - to Tarantino’s unprecedented success. Any film-makers striving today to create work that’s popular but not populist, intelligent but not intellectual, cutting-edge but not avant-garde are, whether they admit it or not, aiming for Tarantino’s audience.

So, what makes it so special? In a word: words. To-die-for dialogue. The slim tome handsomely presented in hygienic cellophane on the front of this magazine also revolutionised the publishing industry’, shifting an unheard-of 200,000 units of a product previously the province of the hardcore movie theorist. Since Tarantino’s words are so rich and sparky, they are as enjoyable to read at home in your armchair as they are to hear in the cheap seats of the local UCI. Open the screenplay at Captain Koons’ "Gold Watch" speech and be amazed all over again. It works perfectly to set up the action which follows, but it’s also a self-contained comic/dramatic monologue and a beautifully structured short stow That it also happens to chronicle the 20th century history of the United States military is almost incidental.

Check out the beautifully simple lines which define Jules’ character - not just the (admittedly fantastic) biblical grandstanding on shepherds and tyranny and vengeance, but the perfectly judged half-asides that fit and form his personality. ("This morning air’s some chilly shit... Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie; I’ll never know because even if it did I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker... I wouldn’t go so far as to call the brother fat..."). Easy to see why Samuel L Jackson called it the best script he’d ever read (despite being greeted at his audition by one exec with the words "Before we start, I just want to say I really admired your work in What’s Love Got To Do With It?").

Willis also gets a degree of light and shade not found elsewhere in his career, all thanks to the expertly tailored dialogue.. Okay, so the hard-boiled stuff ("I’m an American — our names don’t mean shit") might come as second nature, but, however intrusive you feel the motel scene is, he’s rarely been tested on moments of tenderness like those he shares with the fragile Fabienne. It’s hard to imagine John McClane using the endearment "My beautiful tulip". This is the guy who, in The Last Boy Scout, achieved reconciliation with his wife thanks to the line ‘Fuck you Sarah. You’re a lying bitch, and if these cops weren’t here, I’d spit in your face."

Scrutiny of the published screenplay also scuppers those who accuse QT of over-egging the verbal pudding. An entertaining but artificial scene in which Mia quizzes Vincent on the great issues of the age (Elvis versus Beatles, Partridge Family versus Brady Bunch) adds to the reader’s pleasure, like hearing a demo of a favorite song. The rough edges increase your appreciation of the finished article (spookily; Vincent confesses to a fantasy of being beaten up by Emma Peel, subsequently incarnated as Uma in the big-screen Avengers. Butch’s heavy handed "What’s my motivation?" monologue was also cut, underlining Tarantino’s confidence in the skill of his actors and the brain power of his audience.

 By Rob Fraser