$ python -m timeit -s "
from operator import itemgetter
from random import randint
lis = [(randint(0, 1000), randint(0, 1000)) for x in range(1000)]
" "
max(lis, itemgetter(1))
"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.658 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "
from random import randint
lis = [(randint(0, 1000), randint(0, 1000)) for x in range(1000)]
" "
max(lis, lambda x: x[1])
"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.547 usec per loop