The first scene is top-class, for the performance of the weary farmer when forced to make an unpleasant choice, the sort where I feel self-death is better. The best performance of the movie however is that of Christoph Waltz, who plays the Nazi officer questioning him. Brad Pitt is quite limited in terms of talent but not charisma, and here provides the weakest performance of all key characters. Quentin Tarantino is a weirdo who possesses the freedom (perhaps too much) to paint whatever he pleases on screen, and luckily got the talent. He gives this one superb suspense, exciting dialog, unusual (and unpredictable) story, and wonderful editing. It's my favorite and best of all his works, followed by Reservoir Dogs.
One interesting, and rare, thing is I enjoyed the movie a lot more on a revisit. The second revisit was not so impressive... felt like an overlong and pompous waste. The praise remains though.