For cinephiles (pronounced “movie nerds”), the works of Quentin Tarantino aren’t just fun on their own terms: They’re packed with nods, winks, and say-no-mores to other movies, genre clichés, and Tarantino’s own conventions. His characters are no exception, though some of them may pop us for saying so.

When Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds rides a pile of Nazi corpses into a theater near you, it’s a pretty safe bet that some of the writer-director’s favorite stock characters will be along for the genoride. And yes, many of them will be movie buffs. Here are the ones to watch for with your one good eye through a hail of bullets, sleet of blood, and freezing rain of gore.

10. The Professional

Whether the movie is about drug dealers, hitmen, or drug-dealing hitmen, Tarantino always needs someone around to contrast with the asylum escapees who make up most of the principal cast. The Professional will treat the situation with the gravitas it deserves, and is more likely than other characters to win the audience’s sympathies thanks to his or her distaste for the murder of innocents, jail time, or vampires. The Professional has spent a little too much time in Tarantinotown for his or her tastes, but is generally apportioned three discrete moments of levity and will take full advantage of them.

The Professional also benefits from his or her tendency to look like Harvey Keitel.
And yes, The Professional knows Tarantino “only” wrote From Dusk till Dawn.

So who fits the bill?

Lt. Aldo “The Apache” Raine (Brad Pitt) is more unhinged than Tarantino’s typical Professional, but he’s willing to honor a gentlemen’s agreement behind enemy lines and comes the closest of any of the Basterds to espousing a code of honor. Look, sometimes a code of honor allows for a terror campaign and ritual mutilation or two.

9. The Ingénue

Another character that provides something of an audience entry point, The Ingénue knows too little of Tarantino’s murder-driven world rather than too much, and the veterans either take advantage of that or are enraged by it. The Ingénue doesn’t expect the old lady to carry a magnum, has no idea what Christopher Walken did for that watch, and hasn’t even seen Vanishing Point. He or she usually can’t compete in Tarantino’s world, but the attempt is usually fun to watch … with some exceptions.

Welcome to the neighborhood. Now who wants a fatal gut wound or off-camera rape?

So who fits the bill?

Private Smithson Utivich, played by Ryan “B.J. Novak” Howard, as you might expect. Sure, he swears a couple times, but he’s just too clean-cut and fresh-faced for a Tarantino movie. Of course, we said the same thing about Lawrence Tierney. On the German side, Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) is the quintessential boy-next-door-with-a-sniper-rifle.

8. The Sensei

Sometimes the audience needs a hit of exposition, not just a POV character. Sometimes it needs 20 hits of exposition. That’s where The Sensei comes in, whether to teach the principles of a lost martial art or the far-from-lost art of BS. It may slow the movie down, but The Sensei knows you just need to keep saying it and saying it and saying it, whether “it” is a 10-minute story about the time you almost got busted or “Kiyaaaaaa!”

Because only the best type of exposition also teaches you a valuable skill.

So who fits the bill?

Both Madame Ada Mimeux (Maggie Cheung) and Mrs. Himmelstein (Cloris Leachman) play The Sensei in brief flashbacks in Tarantino’s original script. Unfortunately, both were cut from the version shown at Cannes. To be fair, though, neither woman killed a single Nazi. In retrospect, this was a tremendous waste of the legendary kung fu talents of Cloris Leachman.

7. The Wormy Guy

There’s always someone around who could care less what The Sensei has to say. Someone who’s been around enough to be terrified of the consequences for what he’s doing, but is dug in too deep already. He’s a part of Tarantino’s world, for sure, but he’s seen the body count and understands basic statistics.

Who are we kidding? It’s Steve Buscemi. Okay, maybe Madsen in Kill Bill.

So who fits the bill?

Given the unconscionable omission of Steve Buscemi, the closest we really come is the minor part of Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), a man more sympathetic than your typical Wormy Guy because he A) has a lovely wife and three daughters to protect and B) is up against the Nazis. Studies show that most men’s natural worminess increases by roughly 400 percent when they go up against storm troopers whose blasters aren’t set to stun.

6. Tarantino Himself

Okay, stupid question. He tends to play bit parts, but Tarantino doesn’t limit himself to a Hitchcock-style pop-in cameo: Sometimes he deconstructs “Like a Virgin” and takes a bullet in the head; other times, he’s just the bartender who tells you that Stuntman Mike is Stuntman Mike. In any case, there aren’t a whole lot of actors who can perform Tarantino dialogue better than the man, himself.

Trust these men’s movie recommendations and little else.

So who fits the bill?

In another glaring omission, Tarantino does not appear in his latest movie, as far as we can tell. Shame. If he could pull off an accent, he might have been a lock for one of its many film buffs: Say, the snappy and handsome young British Lt. Archie Hicox, or, uh, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

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