Quentin Tarantino should hire Brad Pitt to play roles in his movies more often. Sure, for the first time in his directorial career Tarantino has been completely upstaged by his starring actor but perhaps it's a small price to pay for the biggest financial success of any of his movies to date.

Inglorious Basterds topped the box office with $37 million, the largest opening weekend for any of Tarantino's films. The healthy debut also puts the movie on track to be his biggest domestic grossing film. The current record holder Pulp Fiction took in $108 million in 1994.

Tarantino's Grindhouse partner also debuted a film this weekend, but as he's want to do he ventured in the opposite direction. Robet Rodriguexz' children's flick Shorts trickled into theaters earning an unimpressive $6.6 million for a weak sixth place.

Post Grad made an even poorer show. A film designed to empathize with all those newly graduated college students who can't find a job seems to have forgotten that its target audience is too poor to go to teh movies. It barely eeked into tenth place with an abysmal $2.8 million.

For the full weekend top ten check out the chart below:

1. Inglourious Basterds * $37,602,000  -  Total: $37,602,000 LW: N     WR: 1     THTRS: 3,165

2. District 9 $18,900,000  -  Total: $73,491,000 LW: 1     WR: 2     THTRS: 3,050

3. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra $12,500,000  -  Total: $120,531,000 LW: 2     WR: 3     THTRS: 3,953

4. The Time Traveler's Wife $10,025,000  -  Total: $37,448,000 LW: 3     WR: 2     THTRS: 2,988

5. Julie & Julia $9,000,000  -  Total: $59,288,000 LW: 4     WR: 3     THTRS: 2,463

6. Shorts * $6,600,000  -  Total: $6,600,000 LW: N     WR: 1     THTRS: 3,105

7. G-Force $4,205,000  -  Total: $107,315,000 LW: 5     WR: 5     THTRS: 2,561

8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince $3,515,000  -  Total: $290,275,000 LW: 7     WR: 6     THTRS: 1,936

9. The Ugly Truth $2,850,000  -  Total: $82,887,000 LW: 8     WR: 5     THTRS: 1,971

10. Post Grad * $2,800,000  -  Total: $2,800,000 LW: N     WR: 1     THTRS: 1,959