The film tells an alternate history story of two converging plots to assassinate Nazi Germany 's leadership at a Paris cinema —one through a British operation largely carried out by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine Pitt , and another by French Jewish cinema proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus Laurent who seeks to avenge her murdered family.
The title but not the story was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. The film received critical acclaim, with Waltz's performance as Hans Landa being singled out for praise, but some criticized the historical liberties taken. Landa boasts about his nickname, "The Jew Hunter," then urges LaPadite to give up the Dreyfuses for the safety of his own family. After LaPadite tearfully admits that they are hiding under his floorboards, Landa directs his men to massacre them.
One of them, young Shosanna, escapes unharmed. Three years later, U. Army Lieutenant Aldo Raine recruits Jewish-American soldiers to the "Basterds," a black ops commando unit tasked with instilling fear among Nazis in occupied France by killing and scalping them.
In Germany, Adolf Hitler interviews a German soldier, who reveals that Raine carved a swastika into his forehead after massacring his squad. Raine leaves this mark on all surviving German soldiers as a way to make their Nazi affiliations clear even after the war. Infatuated with "Emmanuelle," Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the film's premiere at her cinema. Landa, as the premiere's head of security, interrogates Shosanna but does not reveal if he recognizes her.
She plots with her Afro-French lover and projectionist, Marcel, to kill the German leaders by burning down the cinema with her collection of highly flammable nitrate films.
