The Housemaid premiered at the Axa Equitable Center in New York City on December 2, 2025, and was released in the United States by Lionsgate
on December 19. The film received positive reviews from critics and has
grossed $198 million worldwide against a $35 million budget. A sequel
is in development, with Feig, Sweeney and Morrone set to return.
Plot
Millie Calloway becomes the live-in maid of the wealthy Winchester family in Great Neck, Long Island while on parole.
Her room is based in the attic with a sealed window, and a door that
locks from the outside. Nina, the mother and wife of the family, shows
signs of severe mental illness, and repeatedly puts Millie in double bind
situations. Millie learns from neighbors that Nina was orphaned by a
fire she is suspected of setting, and that years prior, Nina attempted
to kill her daughter Cecelia (Cece) by drowning her, and attempted to
take her own life by overdosing.
Nina asks Millie to arrange a weekend in the city for Nina and her husband Andrew to see a Broadway musical called Showdown
and stay in a hotel. Millie makes the arrangements, only for Nina to
deny having asked her to do so, stating the cost will be deducted from
her paycheck as a consequence. Nina is occupied that weekend driving
Cece to ballet camp in Washington, D.C.,
so Millie and Andrew secretly agree to attend the show together after
Andrew is unable to get the tickets refunded. After enjoying the show,
eating out, and checking into the hotel, Millie realizes she has missed
many angry texts from Nina, including one firing her. She goes into
Andrew's room to show him the texts, he consoles Millie, and initiates
sex. After their return home, Nina finds a Playbill from the show,
leading to a fight where Andrew demands Nina leave. She does, and Andrew
and Millie begin living together as a couple. One morning, Millie is
preparing breakfast when she accidentally breaks an heirloom china plate
given by Andrew’s mother. Andrew reassures her and mentions that it can
be fixed. Millie cleans up the mess and puts all the broken china into a
plastic bag. After Andrew returns home, he and Millie go up to her old
room in the attic where he locks her inside.
Nina is shown happy to be leaving, and explains her past in a
letter to Cece. Early in their relationship, after a minor dispute,
Andrew tricked her into entering the attic storage room (later Millie's
room) before locking her inside. Andrew demanded that, before he free
her, Nina pull one hundred strands of hair out of her scalp, follicles
still attached. He then leaves her with only three small bottles of
water. After she did as instructed, Andrew demanded she do it again,
claiming one lacked the follicle. When he finally let her go, he brought
her a small bottle of water which she drank immediately before running
to see Cece. Nina then realizes that the water was drugged and passes
out, whereupon Andrew staged events to appear as if Nina attempted to
kill Cece and then herself. Nina was subsequently sent to a psychiatric
hospital and was kept there until she falsely confessed. Groundskeeper
Enzo realized what had happened and tried to get Nina out, but was
foiled by Andrew. Nina intentionally hired Millie knowing that Andrew
would romantically pursue her and leave Nina for her, believing
Millie—having been charged with murder (though only convicted of
manslaughter)—capable of protecting herself against him.
Back in the present, Andrew tells Millie she is being punished
for having broken the china and storing the broken pieces unwashed. He
gives her a piece of broken china and demands she deeply cut her stomach
21 times (matching the number of shards) before he will free her. After
she does, Andrew enters the room to let her out, but Millie stabs him
in the neck with a cheese knife Nina stashed there for herself. After a
struggle, she locks him in the room, forcing him to rip out one of his
teeth with pliers while she breaks more of the china.
Meanwhile, Nina is preparing to leave for good, but returns to
the house on Cece's suggestion to rescue Millie. Seeing the light on in
the attic and assuming Millie is locked inside, she sneaks in and
unlocks the door before Millie can stop her. Andrew attacks her and
Millie, but Millie seems to escape. After Nina refuses to resume her
life with Andrew, he attempts to kill her, before Millie reappears and
pushes him over the edge of a spiral staircase, killing him. Nina drops a
light bulb which shatters next to him to make it appear he was trying
to fix the chandelier light and stages an accidental death with Enzo's
help.
Investigating the incident, policewoman Jessica Connors notices
inconsistencies in Nina's story, but knowing what happened to Andrew's
first fiancée, being her sister, she does not investigate further. After
Andrew's funeral, Millie returns, and Nina gives her a check worth one
hundred thousand dollars to help her start a new life. Millie later
attends another housemaid interview with Lisa Killefer. Lisa says she
was recommended to her by Nina, and indicates that her husband is
abusing her. Millie replies by asking when she can start working.
Theodore Shapiro composed the film's score, marking his eighth collaboration with Feig.[16]
Release
The Housemaid was released in the United States on December 19, 2025.[9]
Reception
Box office
As of January 16, 2026, The Housemaid has grossed $101 million
in the United States and Canada, and $98 million in other territories,
for a worldwide total of $198 million.[4][3]
In the United States and Canada, The Housemaid was released alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, and David, and was projected to gross $20–25 million from 3,015 theaters.[2]
The film made $8 million on its first day, including $2.3 million from
Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $19 million, finishing
in third behind Fire and Ash and David.[17]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,
73% of 186 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus
reads: "A sly throwback to the lurid thrillers that used to dominate
multiplexes, The Housemaid cleans up nicely thanks to its wicked sense of fun and a delightfully unnerving performance from Amanda Seyfried."[18]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[19] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an 84% overall positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend the film.[17]
TheWrap's William Bibbiani gave the film a positive review and wrote, "The Housemaid
has its twists, and you'll probably see some of them coming a mile off,
even if you don't know exactly how the secrets will be revealed or what
form the danger will take. On more than one occasion, the twist is that
The Housemaid is even weirder and funnier than you expect — and that's a welcome surprise."[20] Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph
gave a four stars rating out of five for the film, stating, "This is a
full-tilt throwback to "erotic thriller" tropes from the 1990s."[7]Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "The Housemaid is a delightful hall of mirrors in which reality turns out to be subject to infinite modification."[21] Marta Medina del Valle of El Confidencial rated the "post-postmodern artifact" 4 out of 5 stars, declaring it the "best worst movie" of recent times.[22]
In a negative review for Slant Magazine, Anzhe Zhang wrote, "The Housemaid's twist is a doozy, but it falls just short of being a deconstruction of tradwife values."[23]
In January 2026, Lionsgate announced that a sequel had been greenlit, with Feig, Sweeney and Morrone returning. The sequel is set to be an adaptation of The Housemaid's Secret, the second book in The Housemaid series by Freida McFadden.[29][30][31]
Based
on actual events of American serial killer Edmund Kemper, who murdered
his grandparents at age 15 and, after being paroled for that crime,
killed eight women in 1972 and 1973 including his own mother.
Based
on actual events of American serial killer Edmund Kemper, who murdered
his grandparents at age 15 and, after being paroled for that crime,
killed eight women in 1972 and 1973 including his own mother.
Development of Django Unchained began in 2007, when Tarantino was writing a book on Corbucci. By April 2011, Tarantino sent his final draft of the script to The Weinstein Company (TWC). Casting began in the summer of 2011, with Michael K. Williams and Will Smith
being considered for the role of the title character before Foxx was
cast. Principal photography took place from November 2011 to March 2012
in California, Wyoming, and Louisiana.
The film premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre
in New York City on December 11, 2012, and was theatrically released by
The Weinstein Company on December 25, in the United States, with Sony Pictures Releasing International
handling international distribution. It was a commercial success,
grossing $449.8 million worldwide against a $100 million budget,
becoming Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date, as well as the
highest-grossing Western film of all time.
In 1858 Texas, several male African Americanslaves
are being "driven" by the Speck Brothers, Ace and Dicky. Among the
shackled slaves is Django, sold off and separated from his wife,
Broomhilda. The Speck Brothers are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German
ex-dentist and bounty hunter from Düsseldorf.
Schultz asks to buy one of the slaves, but while questioning Django
about his knowledge of the Brittle Brothers, for whom Schultz is
carrying a warrant,
he irritates Ace, who aims his shotgun at Schultz. Schultz quickly
kills Ace and leaves Dicky at the mercy of the other newly freed slaves,
who kill him. Since Django can identify the Brittle Brothers, Schultz
offers Django his freedom in exchange for his help in tracking them
down.
Django discovers Schultz is a bounty hunter, as Schultz kills an outlaw named Willard Peck, who was posing as the Sheriff in a small town. Schultz and Django then track the Brittle Brothers down, leading them to a plantation.
Django shoots dead the first brother, brutally whips the second before
shooting him too, while Schultz kills the third brother. They then
ambush and kill the plantation owner who leads a group of lynchers.
Django partners with Schultz through the winter and becomes his
apprentice, and Schultz discovers Django's natural ability with gunslinging.
Schultz explains that, being the first person he has ever given freedom
to, he feels responsible for Django and is driven to help him in his
quest to rescue Broomhilda.
Django, now fully trained, collects his first bounty, keeping the handbill as a good luck charm. In Mississippi,
Schultz uncovers the identity of Broomhilda's owner: Calvin Candie, the
charming but brutal owner of the Candyland Plantation, where black
slaves are forced to fight in wrestling deathmatches called "Mandingo
fights". Schultz, expecting Candie will not sell Broomhilda if they ask
for her directly, plots to feign interest in purchasing one of Candie's
prized fighters, offer to purchase Broomhilda on the side for a
reasonable sum, then take her and escape before the Mandingo deal is
finalized. Schultz and Django meet Candie at his gentleman's club in Greenville
and submit their offer. His greed tickled, Candie invites them to
Candyland. After secretly briefing Broomhilda on the plan, Schultz
claims to be charmed by the German-speaking Broomhilda and offers to buy
her after arranging to buy a fighting slave.
During dinner, Candie's staunchly loyal
house slave, Stephen, becomes suspicious. Deducing that Django and
Broomhilda know each other and that the sale of the Mandingo fighter is
just a misdirection, Stephen alerts and privately admonishes Candie on
his greed. Candie is humiliated at being fooled by a black man, but he
contains his anger long enough to theatrically display his knowledge of phrenology which he uses to justify white superiority
and black inferiority. Candie's bodyguard suddenly bursts into the room
with his shotgun trained on the two bounty hunters, and Candie
furiously threatening to kill Broomhilda. He extorts Schultz for the
complete bid amount, and taunts him by demanding a formal handshake to
finalize the deal before he leaves. Tired of his arrogance, Schultz
fatally shoots Candie with a concealed derringer
and his henchman kills him in turn. Django grabs a revolver and, after a
violent shootout, is forced to surrender when Broomhilda is taken
hostage at gunpoint.
The next morning, Stephen tells Django that he will be sold to a mine where he will labor for the rest of his life. En route
to the mine, Django proves to his dim-witted Australian escorts that he
is a bounty hunter by showing them the handbill from his first kill. He
convinces them that there is a large bounty for outlaws who are hiding
at Candyland, and promises that they would receive most of the money.
The escorts release him and give him a pistol, and he kills them before
stealing a horse and leaving for Candyland.
Django returns to the plantation and kills more of Candie's
henchmen. He takes Broomhilda's freedom papers from Schultz's pocket,
bidding his friend and mentor a final farewell before freeing Hildi from
a nearby cabin. When Candie's mourners return from his burial, Django
kills Candie's few remaining henchmen and his sister Lara, releases the
two remaining house slaves, and kneecaps Stephen. Django then ignites dynamite
that he has planted throughout the mansion. He and Broomhilda watch
from a distance as the mansion explodes, killing Stephen, before riding
off together.
Other roles include: James Russo as Dicky Speck, brother of Ace Speck and erstwhile owner of Django; Tom Wopat, Omar J. Dorsey, and Don Stroud play US Marshal Gill Tatum, Chicken Charlie, and as Sheriff Bill Sharp / Willard Peck respectively; Bruce Dern appears as Old Man Carrucan, the owner of the Carrucan Plantation; M. C. Gainey, Cooper Huckabee,
and Doc Duhame portray brothers Big John Brittle, Roger "Lil Raj"
Brittle, and Ellis Brittle respectively, overseers of both Carrucan and
Big Daddy's plantations.
"...to do movies that deal with
America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like
Spaghetti Westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like
they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has
never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't
really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to."[10]
Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea:
I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci
when I came up with a way to tell the story. ... I was writing about
how his movies have this evil Wild West, a horrible Wild West. It was
surreal, it dealt a lot with fascism.
So I'm writing this whole piece on this, and I'm thinking: 'I don't
really know if Sergio was thinking [this] while he was doing this. But I
know I'm thinking about it now. And I can do it!'[11]
Tarantino finished the script on April 26, 2011, and handed in the final draft to The Weinstein Company.[12] In October 2012, frequent Tarantino collaborator RZA said that he and Tarantino had intended to cross overDjango Unchained with RZA's Tarantino-presented martial-arts film The Man with the Iron Fists.
The crossover would have seen a younger version of the blacksmith
character from RZA's film appear as a slave in an auction. However,
scheduling conflicts prevented RZA's participation.[13]
One inspiration for the film is Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western Django, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained.[14] Another inspiration is the 1975 film Mandingo, about a slave trained to fight other slaves.[15] Tarantino included scenes in the snow as a homage to the 1968 film The Great Silence.[16] "Silenzio takes place in the snow. I liked the action in the snow so much, Django Unchained has a big snow section in the middle," Tarantino said in an interview.[16] Tarantino credits the character and attitude of the German dentist turned bounty hunter King Schultz to the German Karl May Wild West films of the 1960s, namely their hero Old Shatterhand.[17]
The title Django Unchained alludes to the titles of the 1966 Corbucci film Django; Hercules Unchained, the American title for the 1959 Italian epic fantasy film Ercole e la regina di Lidia, about the mythical hero's escape from enslavement to a wicked master; and to Angel Unchained, the 1970 American biker film about a biker exacting revenge on a large group of rednecks.[18][19]
Casting
Among those considered for the title role of Django, Michael K. Williams, Will Smith, and Idris Elba were mentioned as possibilities, but in the end Jamie Foxx was cast in the role.[20][21][22]
Smith later said he turned down the role because it "wasn't the lead"
and was "not for me," but stated he thought the movie was brilliant.[23]Tyrese Gibson sent in an audition tape as the character.[24]Franco Nero, the original Django from the 1966 Italian film, was rumored for the role of Calvin Candie,[25]
but instead was given a cameo appearance as a minor character. Nero
suggested that he play a mysterious horseman who haunts Django in
visions and is revealed in an ending flashback to be Django's father;
Tarantino opted not to use the idea.[26][27]Kevin Costner was in negotiations to join as Ace Woody,[28] a Mandingo trainer and Candie's right-hand man, but Costner dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.[29]Kurt Russell was cast instead[30] but also later left the role.[31] When Kurt Russell dropped out, the role of Ace Woody was not recast; instead, the character was merged with Walton Goggins's character, Billy Crash.[32]
Jonah Hill was offered the role of Scotty Harmony, a gambler who loses Broomhilda to Candie in a poker game,[33] but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with The Watch.[34][35]Sacha Baron Cohen was also offered the role, but declined in order to appear in Les Misérables. Neither Scotty nor the poker game appear in the final cut of the film.[33] Hill later appeared in the film in a different role.[36]Joseph Gordon-Levitt
said that he "would have loved, loved to have" been in the film but
would be unable to appear because of a prior commitment to direct his
first film, Don Jon.[37]
In a January 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, costume designer Sharen Davis
said much of the film's wardrobe was inspired by spaghetti Westerns and
other works of art. For Django's wardrobe, Davis and Tarantino watched
the television series Bonanza and referred to it frequently. The pair even hired the hatmaker who designed the hat worn by the Bonanza character Little Joe, played by Michael Landon. Davis described Django's look as a "rock-n-roll take on the character". Django's sunglasses were inspired by Charles Bronson's character in The White Buffalo (1977). Davis used Thomas Gainsborough oil painting The Blue Boy (c. 1770) as a reference for Django's valet outfit.[38]
In the final scene, Broomhilda wears a dress similar to that of Ida Galli's character in Blood for a Silver Dollar (1965). Davis said the idea of Calvin Candie's costume came partly from Rhett Butler, and that Don Johnson's signature Miami Vice look inspired Big Daddy's cream-colored linen suit in the film. King Schultz's faux chinchilla coat was inspired by Telly Savalas in Kojak.
Davis also revealed that many of her costume ideas did not make the
final cut of the film, leaving some unexplained characters such as Zoë
Bell's tracker, who was intended to drop her bandana to reveal an absent
jaw.[39]
Filming
Principal photography for Django Unchained started in California in November 2011[40] continuing in Wyoming in February 2012[41] and at the National Historic Landmark Evergreen Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, outside of New Orleans, in March 2012.[42] The film was shot in the anamorphic format on 35 mm film.[43]
Although originally scripted, a sub-plot centering on Zoë Bell's masked
tracker was cut, and remained unfilmed, due to time constraints.[44] After 130 shooting days, the film wrapped up principal photography in July 2012.[45]Kerry Washington
sought to bring authenticity to her performance in several ways. The
actor playing her overseer used a fake whip, but Washington insisted the
lashings really hit her back. And to dramatize her punishment inside an
underground, coffin-size metal container, she and Tarantino agreed she
would spend time barely clothed in the "hot box" before the filming
began so the feeling of confinement would be as realistic as possible.[46]
During the scene when DiCaprio's character explains phrenology,
DiCaprio cut his left hand upon striking the table and smashing a small
glass. Despite his hand bleeding profusely, DiCaprio barely reacted and
remained in character under the astonished eyes of his fellow actors.
He is seen taking out pieces of broken glass from his hand during the
scene. After Tarantino's cut, there was a standing ovation by the other
actors to praise DiCaprio's performance despite the incident;[49]
Tarantino, therefore, decided to keep this sequence in the final cut.
DiCaprio is seen with his left hand bandaged in the scene after when he
is signing Broomhilda's papers. Contrary to popular belief, DiCaprio
wiped fake blood on Washington's face in a separate take.[50]
The film features both original and existing music tracks. Tracks
composed specifically for the film include "100 Black Coffins" by Rick Ross and produced by and featuring Jamie Foxx, "Who Did That To You?" by John Legend, "Ancora qui" by Ennio Morricone and Elisa, and "Freedom" by Anthony Hamilton and Elayna Boynton.[51] The theme, "Django", was also the theme song of the 1966 film.[52]
Musician Frank Ocean
wrote an original song for the film's soundtrack, but it was rejected
by Tarantino, who explained that "Ocean wrote a fantastic ballad that
was truly lovely and poetic in every way, but there just wasn't a scene
for it."[53] Ocean later published the song, entitled "Wiseman", on his Tumblr blog. The film also features a few famous pieces of western classical music, including Beethoven's "Für Elise" and "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem.
Tarantino has stated that he avoids using full scores of original
music: "I just don't like the idea of giving that much power to anybody
on one of my movies."[54][55] The film's soundtrack album was released on December 18, 2012.[51]
Morricone made statements criticizing Tarantino's use of his music in Django Unchained and stated that he would "never work" with the director after this film,[56] but later agreed to compose an original film score for Tarantino's The Hateful Eight in 2015. In a scholarly essay on the film's music, Hollis Robbins
notes that the vast majority of film music borrowings comes from films
made between 1966 and 1974 and argues that the political and musical
resonances of these allusions situate Django Unchained squarely in the Vietnam and Watergate era, during the rise and decline of Black Power cinema.[57]Jim Croce's hit "I Got a Name" was featured in the soundtrack.
Release
Marketing
The first teaser poster was inspired by a fan-art poster by Italian
artist Federico Mancosu. His artwork was published in May 2011, a few
days after the synopsis and the official title were released to the
public. In August 2011, at Tarantino's request, the production companies
bought the concept artwork from Mancosu to use for promotional purposes
as well as on the crew passes and clothing for staff during filming.[58]
The film was released on March 22, 2013, by Sony Pictures in India.[63] In March 2013, Django Unchained was announced to be the first Tarantino film approved for official distribution in China's strictly controlled film market.[64] Lily Kuo, writing for Quartz,
wrote that "the film depicts one of America's darker periods, when
slavery was legal, which Chinese officials like to use to push back
against criticism from the United States".[65] The film was released in China on May 12, 2013.[66]
Home media
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download on April 16, 2013.[67]
In the United States, the film has grossed $35.5 million from DVD sales
and $31.1 million from Blu-ray sales, making a total of $66.6 million.[6]
Reception
Box office
Django Unchained grossed $162.8 million in the United States
and Canada and $287 million in other territories, for a worldwide total
of $449.8 million,[note 1] against a production budget of $100 million.[5][6] As of 2025, Django Unchained is Tarantino's highest-grossing film, surpassing his previous film, Inglourious Basterds (2009), which grossed $321.4 million worldwide.[68][69] It is also the highest-grossing Western film of all time, having surpassed the previous record holder, Dances With Wolves (1990).[70][71]
In North America, the film made $15 million on Christmas Day, finishing second behind fellow opener Les Misérables.[72] It was the third-biggest opening day figure for a film on Christmas, following Sherlock Holmes ($24.6 million) and Les Misérables ($18.1 million).[73] It went on to make $30.1 million in its opening weekend (a six-day total of $63.4 million), finishing second behind holdover The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.[74]
Critical response
Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as the antagonist "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie earned notable acclaim from critics.
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes,
the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 296 reviews, and an
average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bold,
bloody, and stylistically daring, Django Unchained is another incendiary masterpiece from Quentin Tarantino."[75]Metacritic,
which assigns a rating to reviews, gives the film a weighted average
score of 81 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "universal
acclaim".[76] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[77]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the film four stars out of four and said: "The film offers one
sensational sequence after another, all set around these two intriguing
characters who seem opposites but share pragmatic, financial and
personal issues." Ebert also added, "had I not been prevented from
seeing it sooner because of an injury, this would have been on my year's
best films list."[78]Peter Bradshaw, film critic for The Guardian, awarded the film five stars, writing: "I can only say Django
delivers, wholesale, that particular narcotic and delirious pleasure
that Tarantino still knows how to confect in the cinema, something to do
with the manipulation of surfaces. It's as unwholesome, deplorable and
delicious as a forbidden cigarette."[15]
Writing in The New York Times, critic A. O. Scott compared Django to Tarantino's earlier Inglourious Basterds: "Like Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained
is crazily entertaining, brazenly irresponsible and also ethically
serious in a way that is entirely consistent with its playfulness."
Designating the film a Times "critics" pick, Scott said Django is "a troubling and important movie about slavery and racism."[79] Filmmaker Michael Moore praised Django, tweeting that the movie "is one of the best film satires ever."[80] Dan Jolin of Empire magazine
praised DiCaprio's performance, saying he "plays [the role of Candie]
to hateful perfection: a spiteful, brown-toothed bully, avaricious, vain
and prone to flattery", but criticized Foxx as a comparatively weak
link whose "soft, musical voice [...] jars against Django's terse
deliveries".[81]
To the contrary, Owen Gleiberman, film critic for the Entertainment Weekly, wrote: "Django isn't nearly the film that Inglourious
was. It's less clever, and it doesn't have enough major characters – or
enough of Tarantino's trademark structural ingenuity – to earn its
two-hour-and-45-minute running time."[82] In his review for the Indy Week, David Fellerath wrote: "Django Unchained shows signs that Tarantino did little research beyond repeated viewings of Sergio Corbucci's 1966 spaghetti Western Django and a blaxploitation from 1975 called Boss Nigger, written by and starring Fred Williamson."[83]New Yorker's Anthony Lane
was "disturbed by their [Tarantino's fans'] yelps of triumphant
laughter, at the screening I attended, as a white woman was blown away
by Django's guns."[84]
An entire issue of the academic journal Safundi was devoted to Django Unchained in "Django Unchained and the Global Western," featuring scholars who contextualize Tarantino's film as a classic "Western".[85]
Dana Phillips writes: "Tarantino's film is immensely entertaining, not
despite but because it is so very audacious—even, at times, downright
lurid, thanks to its treatment of slavery, race relations, and that
staple of the Western, violence. No doubt these are matters that another
director would have handled more delicately, and with less stylistic
excess, than Tarantino, who has never been bashful. Another director
also would have been less willing to proclaim his film the first in a
new genre, the 'Southern'."[86]
In 2025, it ranked number 59 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of the "100 Best Movies of the 21st Century."[87]
Top ten lists
Django Unchained was listed on many critics' top ten lists of 2012.[88]
Some commentators thought that the film's over-usage of the word "nigger" was inappropriate; they objected to that even more than to the extensive violence depicted against the slaves.[100] Other reviewers[101] have defended the usage of the language in the historical context of race and slavery in the United States.[102]
African American filmmaker Spike Lee, in an interview with Vibe,
said he would not see the film, explaining "All I'm going to say is
that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me ... I'm not
speaking on behalf of anybody else."[103] Lee later wrote, "American slavery was not a Sergio LeoneSpaghetti Western. It was a Holocaust. My ancestors are slaves stolen from Africa. I will honor them."[104]
Actor and activist Jesse Williams
has contrasted accuracy of the racist language used in the film with
what he sees as the film's lack of accuracy about the general lives of
slaves, too often portrayed as "well-dressed Negresses in flowing gowns,
frolicking on swings and enjoying leisurely strolls through the
grounds, as if the setting is Versailles, mixed in with occasional acts
of barbarism against slaves ... That authenticity card that Tarantino
uses to buy all those 'niggers' has an awfully selective memory."[105]
He also criticizes what seems to be a lack of solidarity among slave
characters, and their general lack of a will to escape from slavery,
with Django as the notable exception.[105]
Jackson said that he believed his character to have "the same moral compass as Clarence Thomas does".[107]
Jackson defended the extensive use of the word "nigger": "Saying
Tarantino said 'nigger' too many times is like complaining they said 'kyke' [sic] too many times in a movie about Nazis."[108]
The review by Jesse Williams notes, however, that these antisemitic
terms were not used nearly as frequently in Tarantino's film about
Nazis, Inglourious Basterds, as he used "nigger" in Django. He suggested that the Jewish community would not have accepted it.[105]
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan noted the difference between Tarantino's Jackie Brown and Django Unchained: "It is an institution whose horrors need no exaggerating, yet Django does exactly that, either to enlighten or entertain. A white director slinging around the n-word in a homage to '70s blaxploitation à la Jackie Brown is one thing, but the same director turning the savageness of slavery into pulp fiction is quite another."[109]
While hosting NBC's Saturday Night Live, Jamie Foxx joked about being excited "to kill all the white people in the movie".[110] Conservative columnist Jeff Kuhner responded to the SNL skit for The Washington Times, saying: "Anti-white bigotry has become embedded in our postmodern culture. Take Django Unchained. The movie boils down to one central theme: the white man as devil—a moral scourge who must be eradicated like a lethal virus."[111]
Samuel L. Jackson said to Vogue Man that "Django Unchained was a harder and more detailed exploration of what the slavery experience was than 12 Years a Slave, but director Steve McQueen is an artist and since he's respected for making supposedly art films, it's held in higher esteem than Django, because that was basically a blaxploitation movie."[112]
Violence
The film became infamous for its brutality, with some reviews criticizing it for being much too violent.[113] The originally planned premiere of Django was postponed following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012.[114]Thomas Frank criticized the film's use of violence as follows:
Not surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino has lately become the
focus for this sort of criticism (about the relationship between the
movies and acts of violence). The fact that Django Unchained
arrived in theaters right around the time of the Sandy Hook massacre
didn't help. Yet he has refused to give an inch in discussing the link
between movie violence and real life. Obviously I don't think one has to
do with the other. Movies are about make-believe. It's about
imagination. Part of the thing is trying to create a realistic
experience, but we are faking it. Is it possible that anyone in our
cynical world credits a self-serving sophistry like this? Of course an industry under fire will claim that its hands are clean, just as the NRA has done – and of course a favorite son, be it Tarantino or LaPierre,
can be counted on to make the claim louder than anyone else. But do
they really believe that imaginative expression is without consequence?[115]
The Independent
said the movie was part of "the new sadism in cinema" and added, "There
is something disconcerting about sitting in a crowded cinema as an
audience guffaws at the latest garroting or falls about in hysterics as someone is beheaded or has a limb lopped off".[116]
Adam Serwer from Mother Jones said, "Django,
like many Tarantino films, also has been criticized as cartoonishly
violent, but it is only so when Django is killing slave owners and
overseers. The violence against slaves is always appropriately
terrifying. This, if nothing else, puts Django in the running for
Tarantino's best film, the first one in which he discovers violence as
horror rather than just spectacle. When Schultz turns his head away from
a slave being torn apart by dogs, Django explains to Calvin Candie—the
plantation owner played by Leo DiCaprio—that Schultz just isn't used to
Americans."[117]
"Mandingo" fights
Although Tarantino has said about Mandingo fighting, "I was always
aware those things existed", there is no definitive historical evidence
that slave owners ever staged gladiator-like fights to the death between male slaves like the fight depicted in the movie.[118][119] Historian Edna Greene Medford notes that there are only undocumented rumors that such fights took place.[120]David Blight, the director of Yale's center for the study of slavery,
said it was not a matter of moral or ethical reservations that
prevented slave owners from pitting slaves against each other in combat,
but rather economic self-interest: slave owners would not have wanted
to put their substantial financial investments at risk in gladiatorial
battles.[118][119]
The non-historical term "Mandingo" for a fine fighting or breeding slave comes not from Tarantino, but the 1975 film Mandingo,[121] which was itself based on a 1957 novel with the same title.
Historical inaccuracies
Writing in The New Yorker, William Jelani Cobb
observed that Tarantino's occasional historical elasticity sometimes
worked to the film's advantage. "There are moments," Cobb wrote, "where
this convex history works brilliantly, like when Tarantino depicts the Ku Klux Klan a decade prior to its actual formation in order to thoroughly ridicule its members' veiled racism."[122]
Tarantino holds that the masked marauders depicted in the film were not
the KKK, but a group known as "The Regulators". They were depicted as
spiritual forebears of the later post-civil war KKK and not as the
actual KKK.[123][124]
On the matter of historical accuracy, Christopher Caldwell wrote in the Financial Times:
"Of course, we must not mistake a feature film for a public television
documentary", pointing out that the film should be treated as
entertainment, not as a historical account of the period it is set in. "Django
uses slavery the way a pornographic film might use a nurses'
convention: as a pretext for what is really meant to entertain us. What
is really meant to entertain us in Django is violence."[125] Richard Brody, however, wrote in The New Yorker
that Tarantino's "vision of slavery's monstrosity is historically
accurate.... Tarantino rightly depicts slavery as no mere administrative
ownership but a grievous and monstrous infliction of cruelty."[126]
Tarantino has said in an interview that he has 90 minutes of unused material and considered re-editing Django Unchained into a four-hour, four-night cable miniseries.
Tarantino said that breaking the story into four parts would be more
satisfying to audiences than a four-hour movie: "... it wouldn't be an
endurance test. It would be a miniseries. And people love those."[130]
Cancelled crossover sequel
Tarantino's first attempt at a Django Unchained sequel was with the unpublished paperback novel titled Django in White Hell.
However, after Tarantino decided that the tone of the developing story
did not fit with the character's morals, he began re-writing it as an
original screenplay which later became the director's follow-up film, The Hateful Eight.[131]
In June 2019, Tarantino had picked Jerrod Carmichael to co-write a film adaptation based on the Django/Zorro crossover comic book series.[132] Tarantino and Jamie Foxx have both expressed interest in having Antonio Banderas reprise his role as Zorro from The Mask of Zorro (1998) and The Legend of Zorro (2005) in the film in addition to Foxx himself reprising his role as Django.[133] In a 2022 interview with GQ, Carmichael revealed that the film had been canceled.[134]
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