Inglourious Basterds: 10 Best Supporting Characters

For years, in between projects, Quentin Tarantino would tout his long-awaited World War II epic in interviews. Eventually, after suffering his first box office disappointment with Death Proof, Tarantino managed to finalize his Inglourious Basterds script and get the project off the ground. As one of the iconic writer-director’s most acclaimed films, commonly ranked among the greatest war movies ever made, it’s fair to say that Inglourious Basterds was worth the wait.

The alternate-history gem is led by Brad Pitt as Apache-style Basterds leader Lt. Aldo Raine and Mélanie Laurent as vengeful Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus but, as with any Tarantino movie, there are plenty of unforgettable supporting players padding out the ensemble.

10 Fredrick Zoller

Tarantino gets meta in Inglourious Basterds. He openly declares the film to be his “masterpiece” in Aldo Raine’s final line and he uses the propaganda machine to explore cinema’s role in World War II. Daniel Brühl plays Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper whose war efforts have been turned into a propaganda movie.

But Zoller’s role in the film extends beyond being a propaganda tool. Brühl surprisingly humanizes Zoller as he falls for Shoshanna. This romantic subplot has an interesting conflict: Shoshanna can’t reveal that she’s Jewish, but similarly, she wants nothing to do with a Nazi suitor.

9 Lt. Archie Hicox

In the middle act of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino takes a long break from the action with an extended sequence set in a basement bar full of German officers and undercover Allied spies. Tarantino builds the tension masterfully in this scene, because one slip-up from the non-native German speakers will tip off the Nazis.

Michael Fassbender gives a typically charismatic turn as film critic-turned-British commando Lt. Archie Hicox, who breaks into an eloquent English-language monologue when he realizes he’s been rumbled.

8 Marcel

Jacky Ido gives a minor but memorable turn as Marcel, Shoshanna’s business partner. Marcel works at the theater with Shoshanna and wants to wipe out Hitler and his top cronies just as much as she does.

Marcel ends up being a key player in her Hitler assassination plot. While Shoshanna is up in the projection room, Marcel lights the match that burns the film that sets the theater ablaze.

7 Winston Churchill

Tarantino had a lot of fun satirizing historical figures in his ‘60s-set opus Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but Inglourious Basterds was his first venture into portraying real-life people (unless Zoë Bell and the 5.6.7.8’s playing themselves in Death Proof and Kill Bill, respectively, counts).

Rod Taylor makes a brief appearance as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds. This ended up being the screen legend’s final film role.

6 Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz

According to WhatCulture, before Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds offer came through, Til Schweiger had always refused to wear a Nazi uniform for an acting role. Since his Basterds character, Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, is a German turncoat who slaughtered Gestapo officers, he made an exception.

Stiglitz is one of the most ruthless Nazi killers in the movie. As soon as the Basterds heard about Stiglitz’s efforts, it wasn’t long before they sprung him from death row and recruited him to the squad.

5 The Narrator

In the eight years between cameoing as a piano player in Kill Bill: Volume 2 and giving one of the best performances of his career as house slave Stephen in Django Unchained, Samuel L. Jackson didn’t make any live-action appearances in Tarantino’s movies.

But his rich, booming voice appears in Inglourious Basterds. As the film’s narrator, Jackson explains crucial exposition like the flammability of film stock.

4 Bridget Von Hammersmark

The link between acting and going undercover is a recurring theme in Tarantino’s work. In Reservoir Dogs, an undercover cop is told that he needs to be “Marlon f***ing Brando.” Before going to Candyland in Django Unchained, Dr. Schultz tells Django he’ll be “playing a character.”

In Inglourious Basterds, this theme is embodied by Diane Kruger’s Bridget Von Hammersmark, a German movie star who goes undercover in a Nazi bar for the Allies.

3 Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler has a supporting role in Inglourious Basterds, but Tarantino isn’t concerned with historical accuracy – he’s more concerned with the satisfaction of cinematic revenge. In the big finale, of course, Hitler is killed off in a fictional, delightfully brutal fashion.

Martin Wuttke gives a hilariously cartoonish portrayal of the infamous genocidal dictator. In an early scene in which Hitler is informed of the Basterds’ blood-soaked rampage across Nazi-occupied Europe, he furiously bangs his fist against a table and cries out, “Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!”

2 Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz

Whenever a German officer refuses to give information to the Basterds, they’re introduced to “The Bear Jew.” Sgt. Donny Donowitz is a Jewish American soldier who, before going to war, went around his neighborhood, collecting Jewish signatures on a baseball bat that he intended to use to bludgeon German soldiers to death.

Donowitz is one of the most iconic symbols of Tarantino’s vengeful historical revisionism. Horror filmmaker Eli Roth plays the pleasure that Donny takes in beating Nazis to death with sadistic joy.

1 Col. Hans Landa

Christoph Waltz earned a much-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his haunting portrayal of S.S. Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. Nicknamed “The Jew Hunter,” Landa is one of the most chilling villains in movie history.

Landa is such a compelling character that he takes the spotlight away from the lead protagonists. The opening scene, in which Landa arrives at a French dairy farm and interrogates a farmer harboring Jewish refugees under his floorboards, is so suspenseful and captivating that some critics argued it overshadowed the rest of the movie.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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