Inglourious Basterds opens in US cinemas and becomes Tarantino's biggest hit

Inglourious Basterds, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, was released in US cinemas on 21 August 2009. The film imagines a group of Jewish-American soldiers, led by Brad Pitt's character Aldo Raine, who hunt Nazis in occupied France, while a young cinema owner in Paris plans her own revenge. Mélanie Laurent played that cinema owner, Shosanna Dreyfus.

The film was a commercial success and became the highest-grossing film of Tarantino's career up to that point. It had premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in 2009, and much of its dialogue was in French, German and English, a choice that was unusual for a big-budget Hollywood release.

It also made an international star of Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who played the SS officer Hans Landa. Waltz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role, following the film's release. The film was nominated for several other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.