Satisfaction Guaranteed: The 10 Best Comeuppances In Cinema

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Quentin Tarantino’s World War II movie is a bold, dramatic adventure that sees the ultimate in fictional movie comeuppances perpetrated against a very real-life evil-doer. As a group of U.S soldiers infiltrate Nazi-occupied France, they work with a theatre owner who is desperate for revenge to create the perfect set of circumstances to assassinate Nazi leaders.

This is not just any assassination scene, however. This is a Tarantino assassination scene. Having taken his time getting to the pivotal moment, the writer-director builds tension within the theatre setting by having the various characters – the good guys and the bad – unknowingly converge.

As obstacle after obstacle is dealt with and overcome, the appointed hour arrives and the heroes of the hour rain a torrent of bullets upon the assembled war criminals. The sequence of rapid-fire lead lethally penetrating the person of Adolf Hitler in the perceived safety of his private box continues for what would ordinarily be an uncomfortable amount of time – but this is the Big Bad of the 20th century, and he is getting his comeuppance, Tarantino-style.