The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025
14. 2012 - Django Unchained
Honourable Mentions: Argo, The Hunt, Lincoln
Like Inglourious Basterds before it, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is a story of righteous revenge - an antebellum warpath that tells the story of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and his quest to rescue his beloved Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Tarantino's eighth film also reteamed him with Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz, with the Austrian actor reversing moral polarity by playing a charismatic hero in Dr. King Schultz instead of a charismatic villain.
It's a winning combination once again, with Tarantino bringing to bear his love for Spaghetti Westerns in a similar genre landscape, pulling notes from Sergios Leone and Corbucci while accompanied by a soundtrack that fuses Ennio Morricone with hip hop and R&B.
Django Unchained is perhaps overdrawn in some regards, stretching past the two-hour 45-minute mark while lacking the taut pacing of the even beefier The Hateful Eight, but when the sparks start flying and squibs erupt like boiling geysers from the worst humanity has to offer, it's hard not to feel giddy about the carnage unfolding.