8. Django Unchained (2012)
Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino's self proclaimed "Southern revenge western" was one of the most heated of all films released last year. The film deals with racism and slavery the only way Tarantino knows how to handle it, by peppering it as a story of revenge and redemption with a slyly nuanced sense of humour that only he would have the bold audacity to deliver. What makes Django Unchained so controversial is at its core the film seems at times to show a lighter side of the dark chapter of American history that was the slave trade. In a handful of pitch perfect scenes of comedic brilliance we see how numerous white characters deal with their disdain for blacks and in particular Django (Jamie Foxx) and his white mentor Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). One of the most racially charged elements of the film is the character of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a ruthless plantation owner who's main source of income and entertainment seems to running a stable of slaves who fight each other to the death. He is aided by Stephen (Samuel L Jackson) who, as a black man in a film about slavery is the most unsympathetic character in the film, a man that knows nothing better than what his masters have taught him. Tarantino makes some brash choices in his Oscar winning screenplay, yet his contributions have not been easily swallowed by African-American groups of the white film-makers blatant use of the "N-word" in this film, a choice Tarantino and his cast have stood behind to polarizing effect.