As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- Played completely straight with the farmer at the start of the film. The farmer is probably one of the most sympathetic characters in the entire film. He tries hiding Jews, has a German officer basically tell him "I know the last guys searched up high, but I think they're down below, and I think they're here" (which they are), so he knows that pretending they aren't down there is pointless, knows that his family will be killed if he's found to be lying, and clearly doesn't want to give them up even though he knows there's nothing he can do for them.
- When Landa asks LaPadite how many people were in the Dreyfus family, their names, the ages of their children... we already know what's going to happen, and it is miserable.
- And is 10x as worse on a rewatch. Knowing what is going to happen makes you realize that Landa already knows everything; exactly how many there are and where they are hiding. He could have simply marched into the house from the start and executed them. Instead the entire scene is him breaking down LaPadite and forcing him to betray the people he has spent years trying to save, and serves no purpose other than psychologically torturing LaPadite with the knowledge that he betrayed them to execution.
- The opening at the milk farmer's cottage is almost a tragic short film unto itself, showing so much about the nature of evil and when good people are powerless to stop it. There's Landa's hammy moments, but once the milk farmer realizes the jig is up your heart just sinks.
- Not to mention that you see a close-up on Shoshanna's face as she flees for her life. She's already sobbing and you can hear her pained cries.
- When Landa asks LaPadite how many people were in the Dreyfus family, their names, the ages of their children... we already know what's going to happen, and it is miserable.
- The German soldier who gets given the Mark of Shame first must watch his commanding officer beaten to death with a baseball bat, and his comrade shot in the back. He doesn't understand English, so he doesn't know that the second guy was shot by accident — and he's holding back tears the whole time. He also says the first thing he'll do when he returns home after the war is hug his mother like he's never hugged her before.
- After Landa leaves Shosanna in the restaurant, she gives it a couple seconds before completely bursting into tears and hyperventilating. The amount of fear she was feeling through the entire scene comes to a head in that moment, and it's heartbreaking.
- After Shosanna shoots Zoller, she looks over at his body while sad dramatic music plays, making him seem so very sympathetic. Then subverted as she leans in out of remorse, and the whole emotional scene is stopped with Zoller shooting her repeatedly in the gut.
- This doesn't make it less tearjerking, though, as you can see that Zoller's expression when he shoots her is painful and sad. And dramatic music then rises to the crescendo as Shosanna falls dead and the camera pans above their prostrated bodies. QT deliberately planned this scene to look all Romeo and Juliet-like, and boy, did he succeed. Bonus tearjerking points? The bittersweet song that plays in this scene is called Un amico — 'A friend'.
- "Oui, Shosanna." Marcel and Shosanna have scant screentime together, but their love for one another is palpable even as he goes to die for her.
