This weekend, Conan O’Brien will host the 97th Academy Awards, but the beloved comedian is obviously no stranger to spending with folks from the film and TV industry. For nearly three decades on his three talk shows, he spoke to actors, directors and other talent from Hollywood, and often that entailed watching whatever new project they were promoting ahead of time. Unfortunately, some miscommunication resulted in his first viewing of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds being a less than ideal experience.
During his visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live! to chat with the title host ahead of the winners of this year’s Oscars nominees being announced on the 2025 TV schedule, O’Brien recalled the time in 2009 when he was given extremely short notice about Tarantino stopping by to plug the Brad Pitt-starring World War II movie. He said:
The worst experience I had in my life with movies was Quentin Tarantino was coming on. It was a booking I didn’t know about, and this is a bunch of years ago and he’s my favorite filmmaker… I get to work that day and they said, ‘Oh, he has a movie.’ And I went, ‘Wait, no one told me he was coming on. What’s the movie?’ It’s Inglorious Basterds, which has come to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I love that movie! And someone says, ‘Well he’s gonna be here in like an hour. Watch it really fast!’
He went on to compare the situation he found himself in to if Francis Ford Coppola was coming on his show and someone suggested he speed watch The Godfather and The Godfather Part II shortly before the interview. Since Inglourious Basterds now ranks so highly for him, that makes it all the more disappointing that he couldn’t properly absorb it for his first viewing. As he described it:
It was awful. It was like the greatest meal in your life, and I had to eat it at high speed.
With a runtime of a little over two and a half hours, having to condense Inglourious Basterds in just the span of an hour just isn’t right. Still, at least it made enough of an impression on Conan O’Brien that he made the time to view the flick at the proper pace and now holds it in high esteem. He’s certainly not alone, as Inglourious Basterds is one of the higher-ranked of Quentin Tarantino’s movies.
You can watch Conan O’Brien host the Oscars this Sunday at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT on ABC, and it will also be available to stream live with a Hulu subscription. You can also stream O’Brien’s series Conan O’Brien Must Go with a Max subscription. Unfortunately, as of this writing, Inglourious Basterds is not available to watch on any of the best streaming services.