Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells the fictional story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi Germany political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish-American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt). The title of the film was inspired by director Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 Macaroni Combat film, The Inglorious Bastards.

Development began in 1998, when Tarantino wrote the script. The director struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and moved on to direct the two-part film Kill Bill. After directing Death Proof in 2007 (as part of the double feature Grindhouse), Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds.