Awesome / Inglourious Basterds

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

• The entirety of Chapter 1. It's just two characters talking, yet Tarantino leaves you on edge the entire time.
• The introduction of Lt. Aldo Raine and his recruits, establishing the backstory, motivation, and goals of the supposed "heroes" of the film in one great monologue.
  Lt. Aldo Raine: Ten-hut! My name is Lt. Aldo Raine, and I'm puttin' together a special team; and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might've heard rumours about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doing one thang and one thang only … killin' Nazis. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin' aer-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac, and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why any and every sumbitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. Now, I am the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger, and that means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disembowelled, dismembered and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the Germans won't be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, and the Germans will talk about us, and the Germans will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil that they've done, it will be with thoughts of us that they are tortured with. ["tench-hut" cadence] Sound good?
  Soldiers: YES, SIR!!
  Lt. Aldo Raine: That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning for all you would-be warriors: when you join my command, you take on a debt, a debt you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me ONE. HUNDRED. NAZI. SCALPS! And I want my scalps! And all y'all will get me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis, or you will die tryin'!
  • Also, whilst Raine is describing the tortures he intends them to visit on the Germans, Sgt. Donowitz, off to the side, is seen with a sadistic grin on his face, setting up the reputation for brutality we'll see firsthand in the following sequences.
• The flashback to when Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz murdered thirteen Nazi officers. Major Squick abounds, but either way, it's pure awesome.
• When the Basterds are breaking Stiglitz out of prison, they gun down the Nazi guards, and he just casually sits there without twitching as the guards are being blown away.
  • For that matter, his introduction a few seconds earlier, with hilarious guitar riff.
• When Sgt. Rachtman nobly refuses to betray his country. And when Sgt. Donny Donowitz, the Bear Jew, beats his brains out with a baseball bat while pretending to be baseball legend Ted Williams. Wow.
  Aldo: Donnie! Got us a German here wants to die for his country. Obliiiige him.
  • Added to that is the utter lack of such "bravery" in the next soldier they interrogate, how he gives up everything they want to know, and they keep their word to let him live, setting up the obvious Chekhov's Gun of Raine's scarifying his Nazi survivors so he can recognize them "just like that [fingersnap]."
• When Hicox smoothly switches back to English after realizing he's been caught, and then Stiglitz's snarky "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner:
  Hicox: There's a special rung in Hell for people who waste good scotch. Seeing as I may be rapping on the door momentarily... (downs the glass) I must say... damn good stuff, sir. Now... about this pickle we find ourselves in... it would appear there's only one thing left for you to do.
  Hellstrom: And what would that be...?
  Hicox: Stiglitz.
  Stiglitz: (in English, to Hellstrom) Say "Auf Wiedersehn" to your Nazi balls! (fires several handgun rounds into Hellstrom's crotch)
• Von Hammersmark holding up under torture at the hands of her own overly suspicious comrades and regaining control of the situation. And then snarking at them.
• When Diane Kruger gets to show off her language skills. She's fluent in English, German, and French. Her character Bridget von Hammersmark also survives the Mexican Standoff at the end of the basement bar scene by coldly gunning down the new father of a German soldier after he dropped his guard. It doesn't save her from being choked out by Hans Landa in the end, but it's still a badass scene for one of the only named female characters in the movie.
• The climax has Landa play one mean game of Xanatos Speed Chess, starting with his investigation of the bar shootout where he deduces exactly what happened. He then spends Chapter 5 running circles around everyone, cooly dismantling von Hammersmark's story before killing her and capturing Raine, then making a deal with the Basterds and helping them blow up Hitler, and almost comes out of it without a scratch.
• When the theater burns as Shosanna's giant face laughs maniacally on-screen, and Donny and Omar shoot the living daylights out of everyone. Bonus points for Donny shooting Hitler over and over and over just to make sure he's really dead, turning his face into pudding.
• Shosanna's hijacking the screening, full stop. Unlike the Basterds, she operates with no major plan that can go hare-brained and off the rails, she just edits the film to mockingly undermine the Nazis and declare she has a message for Germany, and then has the place burned to the ground. Even before he's shot to death, Hitler starts freaking out that a Jew has hijacked Goebbels' great work.
  Shoshanna: (as the movie screen and walls burn down) My name is Shoshanna Dreyfus. And this is the face... of Jewish vengeance.
• The last scene when Lt. Aldo Raine gives Landa a swastika scar on his forehead while Utivich grins like crazy.
  • "Nah, I don't think so. More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before."
  • Doubly awesome for Raine's "The Reason You Suck" Speech right before. He points out that, given the circumstances, he's willing to let Landa have a nice little home on Nantucket Island as a condition for helping the Allies end the war that night. But at the end of the day, Landa is still a Nazi, and would try to hide that reality from the rest of the world as he lives in retirement. And, as Raine puts it: "That, I can't abide."
    Lt. Aldo Raine: I mean, if I had my way... you'd wear that goddamn uniform for the rest of your pecker-suckin' life. But I'm aware that ain't practical, I mean, at some point, you gotta have to take it off. [unsheathes knife] So... I'm gonna give you a little somethin' you can't take off.
• Christoph Waltz deserves a mention for his performance. He won (for Best Supporting Actor) an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, a BFCA award, two Critic's Choice Awards (one for ensemble), two CinEuphoria awards (one for ensemble) an Alliance of Women Film Journalists award, two ACCA awards (one for ensemble), two Gold Derby Awards (one for ensemble, and a nomination for Actor of the Decade), two Golden Schmoes Awards, an SFCAA award, an ICSA award, an INOCA award, a Jupiter Award, an FFCCA award, and NSFCA award, a Bambi Award, an Empire Award, two OSFTA awards, an Online Film Critic award, a Satellite Award, a SAG award, and won for film festivals or critics awards in Cannes, Austin, Austria, Boston, Brazil (twice), Central Ohio (plus one for ensemble), Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Denver, Hollywood, Indiana, IndieWire, Iowa, Italy, Kansas City, Las Vegas, London, LA, New York (twice), North Texas, Oklahoma, Phoenix (plus one for ensemble), San Diego, Santa Barbara, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington DC. In case you lost count, that's over sixty awards for a single role.