The "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" director loves Alexandre Aja's nifty horror movie about a woman terrorized by alligators during a Florida hurricane.

Always count on genre movie buff Quentin Tarantino to zig when others zag. The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” writer/director, according to Deadline awards writer Pete Hammond, has a favorite movie of the year up his sleeve, and it’s Alexandre Aja’s summer sleeper “Crawl.” (Tarantino’s favorite movies, in any year, are always a wildly eclectic sampling to peruse.)

Aja’s film scared up nearly $90 million at the box office when it released back in July. It stars Kaya Scodelario as a woman terrorized by alligators during a Florida hurricane, and received praise for its nifty thrills, including from IndieWire’s Eric Kohn.

“Tarantino told me that, as incredible as he says it might sound, he thinks his favorite film so far this year just might be — wait for it — Crawl. That’s right, the alligators-in-a-hurricane movie directed by Alexandre Aja that Paramount released a couple of weeks before QT’s movie came out in July,” Hammond wrote.

Tarantino is currently hovering on the awards circuit to promote “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which Sony Pictures is pushing squarely into the Academy Awards race with hoped-for bids for stars Leonardo DiCaprio (Best Actor) and Brad Pitt (Best Supporting Actor) and, of course, Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for this adoring valentine to Hollywood in 1969.

Though it released over the summer, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is now touring theaters of an extended cut that adds even more period texture to Tarantino’s vision of Los Angeles in the days of Charles Manson and Sharon Tate. As IndieWire previously wrote, “It’s nothing that significantly adds to the experience or can’t wait to be watched on the Blu-ray, but the bonus footage that now bookends the film is a swell incentive for anyone looking for an excuse to revisit one of the year’s best films on the big screen.”

For “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” completists, the special-edition 4K edition of the movie arriving December 10 will include a 7-inch vinyl featuring songs from the film, a Rick Dalton poster, and a Mad Magazine parody of the fictional Dalton series “Bounty Law.” Before the home video release, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” will land on digital platforms November 26 — right in time for Thanksgiving, and in the thick of awards consideration season.

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