As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The very first scene of the movie is full of this underneath the surface
. The French farmer LaPadite is chopping wood outside his home when one of his daughters notices a squad of Nazis approaching. SS Colonel Hans Landa rolls up and invites himself inside for a "chat" about the whereabouts of the the last Jewish family unaccounted for in the area, the Dreyfuses. LaPadite attempts to feed him misinformation, and for one small Hope Spot, Landa seems to buy it, but then he reveals that he has been playing mind games the entire time: he knows that LaPadite is sheltering the Dreyfus family and forces him to take part in betraying them. As LaPadite watches tearfully, Landa announces his departure to "LaPadite's daughters" while directing the soldiers into the farmhouse. And then they open fire on the Dreyfus family, including 10-year-old Amos, huddled beneath the floorboards.- As an added layer of horror, Landa starts the conversation in French, but eventually switches to English. Initially, this seems to be for the audience's benefit, but it soon becomes apparent he is aware the Jews are present and he has LaPadite sell out the refugees while they are oblivious as to their impending fate thanks to the language barrier.
- Shosanna manages to escape out the cellar window, covered in dirt (and her family's blood) and sobbing in anguish and terror. Landa elects not to pursue her but sadistically calls out "Au revoir, Shosanna!" as she runs for her life.
- The Ominous Knocking as Donowitz emerges from the a tunnel with the baseball bat he uses as a bludgeon, and whenever Raine scalps the Nazis and carves swastikas onto the foreheads of the survivors, in full graphic detail, well-deserved as it may be. His best one goes to his "masterpiece", Hans Landa.
- Shosanna, under her Gentile alias "Emmanuelle Mimieux", is forced into a car by a German official and driven to a meeting full of high-ranking Nazis, including the one responsible for her family's death. It turns out that her Stalker with a Crush has just pulled some strings to get the premiere of his movie screened at her cinema, but she doesn't know that, and she's terrified that she's been discovered.
- Just before she's taken away, she looks toward the entrance of the theater where Marcel has just gone. Not only is she realizing that she's alone, but also that she may never see Marcel again and that he may never know what happened to her.
- There's also the moment during the meeting, where Landa arrives off-screen, so without any warning Goebbels greets Landa right as the camera reveals the man that had her family killed is standing right behind Shosanna. The subsequent one-on-one meeting is even more tense as Landa drops ambiguous lines and actions (like ordering a glass of milk for her) that may or may not indicate he knows who she is.
- Hicox realizing that no one is leaving the bar in Nadine alive.
- Raine has no issue with hurrying von Hammersmark's interrogation along by sticking a finger into the bullet wound in her leg.
- They're less scared than disturbed, but Donny and Omar, two Jewish men, are horrified to walk into a theater packed with Nazis. Including Hitler.
- Landa killing Bridget von Hammersmark. He maintains his Faux Affably Evil facade right up until he lunges across the room to choke the life out of her. There's no Discretion Shot either. We're treated to close-ups of her face as she's strangled to death. (Even more disturbing, that's Tarantino himself choking her in the close-up!) To add insult to injury, Landa then takes credit for her actions as an Allied mole. Those who worked with her will remember that she was the true mastermind behind Operation Kino, but history will reward the Nazi war criminal who murdered her for her deeds. That is, if Landa manages to get away with it. Raine seems to have other ideas …
- The Cinema Massacre. Yes, it happens to Nazis, but it's still horrific: you're in a film theater, when suddenly the movie changes to a woman declaring you are going to die in a language you might very likely not be able to understand. You rush out of your chair, but the doors are locked, so you either get shot from above, suffocate/burn thanks to the fire, or perish in the explosion, amongst hundreds of your peers.
- Shosanna's cackling face projected on to the smoke is a striking image and perfectly fits with the cacophony of screaming.
- Some of the audience members are children in the Hitler Youth (HJ)/League of German Girls (BDM). You can see one of the girls getting shot twice in the pile up.
- For the Nazis themselves, the Basterds are very much living nightmares. A group of Jewish-American soldiers, one who is built like a golem or a bear and wields a big club, and a German traitor, wreaking havoc across the countryside and killing, torturing, maiming, mutilating, and disfiguring any and every Nazi soldier they come across. The lucky ones are simply killed, the less fortunate are tortured to death, and the truly unfortunate are left to live with the memory of the horrors they've witnessed, and a permanent reminder of it carved into their forehead. Honestly, if Raine and his Basterds were going after someone other than Nazis, then they would be considered the villains of the movie.
