Quentin Tarantino has never been particularly interested in making a traditional Western. Instead, the filmmaker has spent much of his career borrowing the genre’s imagery, rhythms, and archetypes and reshaping them into something distinctly his own. Kill Bill blended spaghetti Western influences with martial arts and revenge epics, while The Hateful Eight turned a snowbound cabin into the setting for a single-room, paranoia-filled Western. Even Once Upon a Time in Hollywood played with the mythology of the Old West through its fading television cowboy Rick Dalton and the changing face of Hollywood. But one of Tarantino’s biggest swings at the genre remains his most successful — and more than a decade after its theatrical release, audiences are still showing up for it.
Django Unchained, Tarantino’s 2012 Western revenge tale starring Jamie Foxx, is currently the No. 1 movie on Pluto TV in the United States, according to FlixPatrol. The movie has spent roughly a month on the free streaming service’s chart and currently holds the top spot.
That’s an impressive second life for one of Tarantino’s biggest and most acclaimed hits over a decade after its release.
What is Django Unchained about?
Set shortly before the Civil War, Django Unchained stars Foxx as Django, an enslaved man who is freed by German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz. Schultz needs Django’s help identifying a group of wanted men and the two quickly become unlikely partners as they hunt down their targets.
Django has a much more personal goal, however: finding his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was separated from him and sold into slavery. Their search eventually leads to Candyland, a Mississippi plantation owned by the charming but sadistic Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Samuel L. Jackson also stars as Stephen, Candie’s manipulative slave.
The movie combines the revenge fantasy of Tarantino’s earlier work with the iconography of spaghetti Westerns, resulting in an extremely violent reimagining of the genre.
The film was both a critical and commercial success. Along with its nearly $450 million global box office haul, Django Unchained received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Best Supporting Actor for Waltz.
Django Unchained was already one of Tarantino’s most broadly successful films, but its latest streaming run is another reminder of how durable that appeal has been. More than a decade later, audiences are still showing up for his blood-soaked spin on the Western.