[School of Movies 2025]

An absolutely blistering black revenge fantasy by a white guy at the top of his game. Aside from the name, some repurposed music and the presence of carnage, this has nothing to do with the 1966 Sergio Corbucci spaghetti western, Django.

What it does present us with is a deep immersion in the ugliness and inhumanity of slavery in the pre-Civil-War American South from the perspective of a freed black man and an increasingly disturbed German gentleman as they hunt bounties together and ultimately quest to rescue Django's beloved Brunhilda from the hellfire of the Candyland plantation, presided over by the hideous Calvin Candy.

The stage is set for some of the most tense standoffs and explosively violent culminations in cinema history. This film is a masterpiece, and has proved wildly influential on my own work.

This episode kicks off a Tarantino Season that will be running throughout the next year. We will be covering the films intermittently and out of chronological release order (and we will be recording a brand new pair of episodes on Kill Bill).

Next Week: Sinners!