No one stages movie deaths quite as exquisitely as Quentin Tarantino. Typically preceded by carefully crafted, poetically waxed dialogue that builds tension to a fever pitch, fatality in a Tarantino movie is over the top but visceral, gruesome but real. And in most cases, the bastards basterds had it coming.In his latest, 'Inglourious Basterds,' Tarantino sets his sights on his most deserving targets yet -- not just all of the Nazis in WWII France, but also World History's Hugest D-Bag, Adolf Hitler. Does the Fuhrer get a revisionist's taste of Tarantino-style comeuppance? We wouldn't dare ruin it for you. But we do dare count down QT's most glourious death scenes yet.
WARNING: (Extremely!) graphic, spoiler-ific content below.
'Death Proof' (2007)
After terrorizing a band of hipster chicks via sadistic road rage spanning an entire highway system, Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) proves he's not so tough after all, crying like a Britney Spears fan on YouTube before getting his face pummeled by a trio of very pissed off ladies. It's just too bad it took 80-something minutes of chitchat to get to these 60 seconds of twisted bliss.
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'Jackie Brown' (1997)
One minute they're sharing a quality quickie, the next minute he's busting two caps into that ass in a mall parking lot. Unlike other Tarantino kills, it isn't so much the splendor of the method that makes Robert De Niro's slaying of Bridget Fonda a memorable one, but the pure spontaneity of it all. He did tell her not to say another word.
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'Kill Bill Vol. 1' (2003)
The Crazy 88s scene is insane, but really that was just training camp for The Bride's (Uma Thurman) showdown with sexy psychotic killing machine O-Ren Ishii. The carnage takes place in a Japanese Garden at night that's like a surreal and magical wintry wonderland. Fighting to the death has never been so gorgeous.
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'Reservoir Dogs' (1992)
After tacos, Corona, lucha libre and Guillermo Del Toro, the stand-off has to be our fifth favorite thing to come out of Mexico. We get three for the price of one (four, if you count the already-bleeding-to-death Mr. Orange) in this climactic Mexican stand-off, a Tarantino device of choice (there's another in 'Basterds'). Best dismemberment, of course, would go to the infamous "ear scene."
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'Kill Bill Vol. 2' (2004)
Let's face it, Bill's the big kahuna (RIP David Carradine), but his demise isn't nearly as fun as those of his foot soldiers. The Bride's beautifully choreographed, mobile home-set clash with Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah) is case in point: You haven't really lived until you've seen a freshly popped eyeball stepped on. (Elle's death isn't actually shown, but a freshly freed poisonous snake makes it inevitable).
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'Pulp Fiction' (1994)
It's the scene that singlehandedly made Samuel L. Jackson the King of Cool. He'll taste that burger, quote the Bible and rebuke any notion of Marsellus Wallace's bitchness in one of American film's all-time great monologues. Big-brained Brad's actual kill is an afterthought, really. Runner-up: John Travolta's Vincent Vega nearly becomes world's second most famous man to die on a toilet.
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