The Aaron Sorkin Show Quentin Tarantino Would Watch 3 Times Has Some Of HBO's Best Dialogue Ever

Published Oct 20, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

If anyone is qualified to name the show with the best dialogue on television, it’s Quentin Tarantino. Since his debut feature, Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino’s verbose, stylized dialogue has been what sets him apart. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown are about the only crime movies where the talky scenes are just as compelling as the scenes where people are getting shot. Tarantino has a very specific voice; all his characters talk like him, and yet they all have their own particular cadence and vocabulary and sensibility.

In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino had two assassins discussing the differences between American and European McDonald’s menus on the way to a hit. In Kill Bill, he had two katana-wielding ninjas recite the “Trix are for kids” cereal commercial before their epic showdown. In Inglourious Basterds, he had a basement full of Nazis and undercover spies play the Name Game for 20 minutes straight. This is a guy who understands dialogue, and has an ear for the music of conversation.

Tarantino is known for having controversial hot takes on movies and TV shows. He thought Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a better Indiana Jones movie than Last Crusade, he thinks Paul Dano is the weakest actor in SAG, and he found the first season of True Detective — a veritable masterpiece of a Southern Gothic murder mystery — to be boring.

But Tarantino talks a lot, and it’s not always negative. Occasionally, he’ll shed a light on an underrated gem. After slamming True Detective, Tarantino changed the subject to an HBO drama he was actually enjoying at the time: The Newsroom, created by Aaron Sorkin.

“Now, the HBO show I loved was Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. That was the only show that I literally watched three times. I would watch it at seven o’clock on Sunday, when the new one would come on. Then after it was over, I’d watch it all over again. Then I would usually end up watching it once during the week, just so I could listen to the dialogue one more time.”

It’s always great to see one master appreciate the work of another. Tarantino has one real rival in his claim to the title of Hollywood’s greatest dialogue writer, and it’s Aaron Sorkin.

The Newsroom Is A Perfect Aaron Sorkin Drama

What makes Sorkin’s dialogue work so well is its rhythm. Sorkin understands that the way a line sounds — the way it hits the ear — is just as important as the meaning of the actual words. We’ve seen this recently in The Social Reckoning, which is carried by the snappy repartee between Mikey Madison’s tech-savvy Facebook whistleblower and Jeremy Allen White’s tech-phobic Wall Street Journal reporter.

But at the same time, the meaning of the words is still pretty important. The best works of Sorkin’s career (like the one that launched it, A Few Good Men) have used this screwball banter to make heavy themes and subject matter more accessible and digestible. The West Wing showed us the inner workings of the White House through the soapy interpersonal drama of the President’s staff. The Social Network highlighted the absurdity of the tech business through the true story of a few entitled Harvard yuppies who stumbled into a billion-dollar idea.

The Newsroom is a perfect Aaron Sorkin show. It takes us inside a cable TV news show and examines how corporate and political influences are shaping the modern journalistic landscape. Jeff Daniels’ jaded anchorman Will McAvoy and his trusty team are just trying to inform the public on world events, but they face an uphill battle every day. The Newsroom is both a captivating, dialogue-driven ensemble piece, and a sobering look at the contemporary news media landscape.

Daniels is a perfect fit for Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue. We could see that from the very first scene, which sees McAvoy launching into a tirade on America’s failings as a country during a Q&A session at Northwestern University. Much like the opening scene of The Social Network, which saw Mark Zuckerberg tanking a date with Rooney Mara, that opening established the tone, pace, and characterization of The Newsroom right off the bat.

The Newsroom

6/10