10 More Movies Like Django Unchanged
November 2012 gave us the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Starring Jamie Foxx in the title role, it is about a freed slave who assists a bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).
Their pairing makes for success, and then their journey takes a turn as they decide to hunt down the vicious plantation owner, Clavin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Django learns that his long-lost love, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), is the property of Candies.
Whether it’s his podcast or just him doing press, it’s pretty easy to get to know the films that inspire Tarantino. He has tackled all the genres he loves and made his own films in those worlds.
Django Unchained was inspired by many westerns that are American classics directed by John Ford, all the way to grindhouse-level spaghetti westerns. And even some contemporary films make for a great pairing with Django Unchained. Here are 10 movies very similar to Tarantino’s Oscar-winning western.
The Lone Ranger
The 2013 Western, with a big budget to back it, it is by no means any good. Fans hated it for many reasons that ranged from Johnny Depp playing Tonto all the way to it just being a convoluted plot. However, the case can be made that it works well with Django Unchained, for the sole reason that the two protagonists are amazing to watch on screen.
Both films are about two heroes teaming up to take on a batch of bad guys, and they both have amazing on-screen chemistry. Both films are also done on a big budget. This may not be the most popular pairing, but that’s why there are nine more films on this list.
Django (1966)
The 1966 Spaghetti Western, directed by Sergio Corbucci, shares part of the same name as the film in comparison and shares the same theme song. In this film, Django is an ex-Union soldier on the U.S./Mexico border who goes to war with white supremacists.
The film stars genre film icon Franco Nero, who oddly has a cameo in Tarantino’s film. The famous “Django, the D is silent” scene in which he appears opposite Jamie Foxx. Tarantino has spoken highly about Sergio Corbucci’s work over the years, and it feels like he is drawing from some of it in Django Unchained.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Westerns are few and far in between these days. But occasionally, a few come along that hold a lot of merit in this day and age. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford came out a few years prior to Django Unchained.
The film’s pace is a little differently, but both share beautiful cinematography of the landscapes that they take place in. Jesse James is a film about the troubles among the James Gang in the Wild West. It has a great train robbery scene, and Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck deliver some of the best performances of their careers.
13th
Here’s a change of pace for this list. A documentary directed by Ava DuVernay is about the inequality in America in regards to the number of African Americans incarcerated in prison. Django Unchained is a film that takes place pre-Civil War, thus showing us the world of slavery in a way that Quentin Tarantino can seem to pull off. 13th is a documentary that shows us that maybe we are not that far from the 1850s in terms of how we keep black men and women incarcerated in this country. It’s a gripping documentary that rose to the front of the Netflix algorithm shortly after the George Floyd incident in 2020.
3:10 to Yuma
3:10 to Yuma is a great western/action film from director James Mangold that stars Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. It’s a film about an outlaw and a rancher who volunteers to escort him to justice. The film goes from being a plot-driven western to a character-driven one by the midway point. The shift works incredibly well and makes for a great movie. One that helped get some more films like this back on the map and opened the door for rediscoveries of great films in the genre. It also must be mentioned that the film is technically a remake. The original film came out in 1957.
True Grit (2010)
True Grit is a remake of the original classic, starring John Wayne. And it is also adapted from the novel of the same name about a fourteen-year-old girl named Maddie Ross who asks a lawman to help her hunt down the man who killed her father. The remake of True Grit was directed by the Coen Brothers. It’s a western that has a great pace to it that appeals to modern audiences, yet it never loses the flare of a great American western tale that it is. A lot like Django, it is produced in a way to appeal to modern audiences and our short attention spans while still feeling like a slow-burn western.
The Hateful Eight
Tarantino would keep his knack for films about gunslingers going even into his next film, The Hateful Eight. The film is a near-three-hour journey about a group of bounty hunters whose journeys come to a temporary stop as they take refuge from a snowstorm in a secluded cabin.
What follows is a lot of dialogue that eventually leads to a lot of bloodshed. Tarantino reunites again with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, and Kurt Russell.
Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone’s epic tale of the American West has characters in it that make you realize why Quentin Tarantino makes movies. A mysterious harmonica-playing cowboy and a ruthless outlaw join forces to protect a widowed woman from the hands of an evil assassin working for the railroad, which is the plot at the center of all of this.
Leone’s spaghetti western is hyper stylized and hypnotic, and Tarantino undoubtedly took notes on it and used them when he got his turn to make a western.
Unforgiven
Some argue that Unforgiven is the last true western to ever be made. The Clint Eastwood-directed and starring film about an old gunfighter who is on a collision course with a brutal sheriff makes for an unforgettable piece of cinema.
Although their styles are a bit of a mismatch in terms of approach to the genre, Tarantino and Eastwood both know how to deliver on the material. Either it be over-the-top violence and witty dialogue in Django Unchained or a calming yet dark tone in Unforgvien. These two films are some of the best westerns to be made over the last thirty years.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
There hasn’t been a western that has taken a nod from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly ever since it came out. Sergio Leone has created one of the most entertaining westerns of all time that has violence, great drama, and hilarious moments. Its characters are well thought out, and all have arcs that audiences get invested in. It’s a slick screenplay that must have been a page-turner for the cast when reading it. Like Django, it is also an ensemble cast of characters in unforgettable roles. It’s one of the, if not the greatest, westerns ever made.
So there we have it, our 10 Movie picks to keep you busy after watching Django Unchained.
What do you think of our picks? Do you agree? Are there any notable omissions? Let us know in the comments below!