Tarantino Says He's Written His 10th and Final Film Script — But Won't Shoot It Yet

Quentin Tarantino told Graham Norton, during an October 16, 2026 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, that he has finished writing a screenplay for what he still plans as his tenth and final film as a director. The filmmaker said he likes the script but is not ready to start making the movie.

Tarantino's remark revives a long-standing promise: for years he has said he intends to direct exactly ten features and then stop, and a tenth film would complete that stated plan.

What Tarantino actually said

According to the Graham Norton Show appearance, Tarantino described having a script for the potential final film that he is satisfied with, but said he wants to direct his new London stage play first and "live a little" before deciding what comes next, according to coverage of the interview by Yahoo Entertainment and CBR.

No title, plot details, or cast for the tenth film have been disclosed. Tarantino has not set a timeline for making a final decision on production, according to CBR's account of the interview.

The play comes first

Before any work on the film, Tarantino is directing his first stage production, The Popinjay Cavalier, which marks his West End debut. The play is described in production materials, cited by NME, as a swashbuckling stage comedy set in 1830s Europe.

Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Rupert Sebastian Thomas Jr., an actor who causes a scandal at the Comédie-Française and flees to England, per details on the production's Wikipedia entry. The play is produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Sony Pictures Entertainment, with a score by Tim Phillips.

Reporting on how the play relates to the tenth-film script is not consistent. tbreak.com described The Popinjay Cavalier as a separate project from the script Tarantino mentioned on The Graham Norton Show. However, according to Wikipedia's entry on the production and to CBR, Tarantino originally conceived The Popinjay Cavalier itself as a screenplay for his tenth and final film, before deciding the material worked better as a stage play. Available reporting does not make clear whether the script Tarantino referred to in the Graham Norton interview is this same original screenplay or a different one.

A script that has changed course before

Tarantino has reached this point before. In 2023 he said he had finished the script for a film then known as The Movie Critic, which was expected to shoot that year, only for reports in April 2024 to confirm he had abandoned the project during preproduction, despite still liking the writing, according to CBR and the Yahoo report.

That history is why outlets covering the latest comments stress that a completed script does not guarantee a finished film. Tarantino himself has said he wants a project that offers him genuine creative difficulty rather than repeating earlier work, a reasoning CBR traces back to his decision to shelve The Movie Critic.

Why it matters now

Interest in the story stems from Tarantino's own rule: he has said publicly for years that he will direct only ten films before stepping back. Confirmation that a tenth script exists is the clearest sign yet that the long-promised final film could eventually be made, even though Tarantino himself has declined to set a date.

For now, his attention is on the stage. The Popinjay Cavalier runs at London's Phoenix Theatre from February 23 to June 13, 2027, and Tarantino has indicated any decision on the film will come only after that run and a period of personal time with his family.