8 Famous Movie Plot Holes With Shockingly Simple Solutions

7. Why Don't Other Nazis Recognise Hugo Stiglitz? - Inglourious Basterds

The "Plot Hole"

The "Basterds" in Quentin Tarantino's giddy war time exploitation homage are a rag tag bunch if you ever saw one: Lt. Aldo Raine's crew are made up of mostly Jewish-American soldiers, but there are a couple of Germans in there too, including Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz.

Stiglitz was originally a German-enlisted man but turned on his allies and joined the Basterds after offing members of the Nazi High Command. He's "famous" in Germany as a result. If that's the case, why doesn't Major Hellstrom recognise him in the film's famous basement sequence?

The Simple Solution

Simple logic would dictate that Major Hellstrom, the extemporary soldier that he is supposedly is, would know exactly what a notorious traitor such as Hugo Stiglitz looked like, given the circumstances. That makes sense. But what people forget when they point to this plot hole is that, in the months that have passed between Stiglitz's escape and rescue by way of the Basterds, Hellstrom likely wouldn't have had the man's face imprinted on his memory - not to recognise him in a situation like this, anyway.

Months have passed, remember. One might also consider that, given the situation, Hellstrom has no real reason to believe that Stiglitz would actually be sitting next to him - without that suspicion anywhere in his brain, isn't it more likely that he just believe him to be another soldier?

The fact is, though, that there are far too many variables here to call this a plot hole: we don't know why Hellstrom doesn't recognise Stiglitz. He might be bad with faces. He might have never seen a picture of the guy. Maybe it's far simpler: the two men are never sitting opposite one another, after all - perhaps he didn't get a good enough look.