8. Signature Tarantino Dialogue
Even if I don't find Tarantino's script for Django to be a refined as the likes of Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Volume 1, Reservoir Dogs, Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown, that's not to say it's not a great script, because it is. It might lack the tension that made the opening farmhouse scene of Basterds a genuine nail-biter, but it's awash in hilarious one-liners, and of course, the classic anecdotes and tall tales that define the director's films. Perhaps the most memorable dialogues of all are Django and Schultz discussing the German legend of Broomhilda, and then Candie brandishing the skull of his former childhood carer, before slicing it open and claiming that black people have a biological disposition to subservience. Even if these don't pop quite as potently as the diner dialogue in Dogs, or the Superman speech in Kill Bill 2, they're still consistently engaging and more often than not pretty damn funny. Throwing in gratuitous use of the n-word for historic effect, Tarantino manages to grab at the darkness of this period of American history, while also cleverly making light of it, which would be a difficult trapeze act for any filmmaker.