Inglourious Basterds currently dominates Reservoir Dogs 73–27

The WWII epic overwhelms the debut. Tarantino's ambition buries his economy.

27% 73%

Based on 15 head-to-head votes across 1 bracket

The Verdict Director's Cut

This matchup has 15 votes. The picture may shift as more people weigh in.

Basterds dominating Reservoir Dogs at this margin says ambition overwhelms economy when the ambition is this fully realized. Waltz's Hans Landa is the performance that makes the case: the farmhouse interrogation is Tarantino's single best-written scene, sustained across languages and subtext and a glass of milk that becomes the most menacing prop in cinema. The basement tavern scene stacks three kinds of tension on top of each other until the room explodes. Reservoir Dogs has the debut's lean intensity, the warehouse pressure, the dialogue that made Tarantino's name. At this margin it's not enough. The glass of milk in the farmhouse is worth more than the entire warehouse.

The Numbers

	Reservoir Dogs	Inglourious Basterds
Head-to-Head	27%	73%
Overall Win Rate	58%	62%
Championships	16	28
Budget	$1M	$70M
Return	2.4x	4.6x

Where This Matchup Sits

Different genres, but both carry weight: Reservoir Dogs sits at #8 in Crime on BingeBracket, and Inglourious Basterds sits at #6 in Drama.

Looking at Quentin Tarantino's 8 films on BingeBracket, Reservoir Dogs ranks #2 and Inglourious Basterds ranks #1.

The championship record tells the same story: Inglourious Basterds has 28 tournament wins to Reservoir Dogs's 16. The pedigree gap matches the head-to-head gap.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Inglourious Basterds (2009) are 17 years apart, which makes raw box office comparisons misleading. Relative to their budgets, both returned a similar multiple — but Inglourious Basterds wins the head-to-head.