Django Unchained
Metascore
81 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 42 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 42
  3. Negative: 0 out of 42
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  1. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    Dec 26, 2012
    88
    The movie Quentin Tarantino has written and directed is corkscrewed, inside-out, upside-down, simultaneously clear-eyed and completely out of its mind.
  2. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: James Rocchi
    Dec 12, 2012
    100
    A sharp shock of a film in an Awards season very full of movies so noble they become immobile. It's wildly unlikely to get much love from the Academy, and that's fine-bluntly, it's too good for them. With its bloody stew of history and hysteria, action taken from movies and atrocities taken from fact, Django isn't just a movie only America could make-it's also a movie only America needs to.
  3. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Jan 8, 2013
    100
    What Tarantino has is an appreciation for gut-level exploitation film appeal, combined with an artist's desire to transform that gut element with something higher, better, more daring. His films challenge taboos in our society in the most direct possible way, and at the same time add an element of parody or satire.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    Dec 26, 2012
    100
    In "Django," Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.
  5. New York Observer
    Reviewed by: Rex Reed
    Dec 18, 2012
    100
    Exactly what you might expect from the fearless, controversial director of "Pulp Fiction" - it's overlong, raunchy, shocking, grim, exaggerated, self-indulgently over-the-top and so politically incorrect it demands a new definition of the term. It is also bold, original, mesmerizing, stylish and one hell of a piece of entertainment.
  6. NPR
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    Dec 27, 2012
    90
    Django Unchained is by turns exhilarating, hilarious, horrifying and poetic.
  7. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    Dec 26, 2012
    91
    Django doesn't have the razor-sharp chronological complexity of "Pulp Fiction," but it's ably paced. A very funny scene involving a proto-Ku Klux Klan lynch mob and their poorly made hoods nevertheless seems a bit out of place, but there's plenty of well-timed suspense.
  8. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    Dec 23, 2012
    88
    Despite the occasional brutality of the material, Django Unchained includes some of the best laugh aloud scenes of any 2012 motion picture, regardless of the genre.
  9. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Dec 13, 2012
    88
    Wake up, people. Tarantino lives to cross the line. Is Django Unchained too much? Damn straight. It wouldn't be Tarantino otherwise.
  10. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Dec 26, 2012
    100
    The most consistently entertaining movie of 2012. It's 165 minutes long and shouldn't be a minute shorter, a film of surprises, both in story and in casting, and of moments of agonizing, teased-out tension. The dialogue is dazzling.
  11. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Dec 26, 2012
    100
    With a fearless director and his mighty pen freeing a talented cast to attack a vital theme, Django Unchained is damnation unleashed.
  12. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    Dec 26, 2012
    91
    Tarantino simply isn't a good enough performer for his presence to be anything but a distraction in a rip-roaring crowd-pleaser this consistently great.
  13. The Guardian
    Reviewed by: Peter Bradshaw
    Dec 12, 2012
    100
    Django Unchained also has the pure, almost meaningless excitement which I found sorely lacking in Tarantino's previous film, Inglourious Basterds, with its misfiring spaghetti-Nazi trope and boring plot. I can only say Django delivers, wholesale, that particular narcotic and delirious pleasure that Tarantino still knows how to confect in the cinema, something to do with the manipulation of surfaces. It's as unwholesome, deplorable and delicious as a forbidden cigarette.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    Dec 26, 2012
    100
    Like "Inglourious Basterds," Django Unchained is crazily entertaining, brazenly irresponsible and also ethically serious in a way that is entirely consistent with its playfulness.
  15. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    Dec 23, 2012
    88
    There's an epic spaghetti Western feel to Quentin Tarantino's latest action/comedy/romance hybrid that is by turns dazzling, daring, gruesome and astonishingly funny.
  16. Variety
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    Dec 12, 2012
    100
    An immensely satisfying taste of antebellum empowerment packaged as spaghetti-Western homage... A bloody hilarious (and hilariously bloody) Christmas counter-programmer.
  17. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    Dec 18, 2012
    90
    Like all of the best pop art, Tarantino's film is both seriously entertaining and seriously thoughtful, rattling the cage of race in America on-screen and off.
  18. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    Jan 3, 2013
    100
    The film doesn't play it safe, so neither will I. Instead, I'll say that it finds Mr. Tarantino perched improbably but securely on the top of a production that's wildly extravagant, ferociously violent, ludicrously lurid and outrageously entertaining, yet also, remarkably, very much about the pernicious lunacy of racism and, yes, slavery's singular horrors.

User Reviews

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User Score
8.4 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 1036 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 213 out of 261
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 261
  3. Negative: 27 out of 261
  1. DudefromTulsa
    1
    The thrill is gone. Tarantino leapt to center stage of American film making with Reservoir Dogs and cemented his reputation with Pulp Fiction, but it's time to face facts; sometimes there's two flashes in the pan before it's over. Tarantino, like Coppola, Cameron and Lucas, has lost his creative edge. Viewing a Tarantino film, one must expect violence by the ton and language that would make David Mamet wince. But, unlike the grievously over-rated Mamet, one also expects Tarantino's wit. The only humor here is a rip on Blazing Saddles with the overused racial epithet. I'm not a fool. I'm not expecting this review will stop anyone from wasting their money on this thing. I'm not expecting anyone to wake up to Tarantino's failings because I point them out. The NYC film critics love him as do the majority of those posting on this site. But, personally, I think you should wait to rent this thing or, better yet, pass it up entirely.… Full Review »
  2. JakeLunn
    10
    Excellent film. I love all of Quentin's movies but they keep getting smarter and more entertaining. While I'm scared to use the word "realistic" when talking about this movie, it definitely feels more real than some of his past titles (Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds). The characters are, as always, extremely entertaining. Quentin always brings the best out of his actors, and maybe that's because he just writes such great characters for them. The theme for the film is vengeance, which is the usual for Tarantino. He follows the Tarantino style as you can expect, but he doesn't fail to throw in a few surprises. He also isn't afraid to stay true to the times with the word **** being thrown into every other line of dialogue. I'm glad he didn't shy away from this because, as someone familiar with history, it wouldn't have felt right. The dialogue is fantastic, the pacing is terrific, the action is spectacular, and overall it's a very entertaining movie. I can tell already that a few racist or ignorant people are leaving bad reviews because the film pokes fun at them, so be weary about bringing anyone like that to see the movie with you.… Full Review »
  3. Oroiael
    1
    If you like Kill Bill you will like this movie. That being said, I liken Taratino's filmmaking to a teacher preparing lesson plans for the slow reader group. This movie has the most base elements and is stock full of his trademark violence. Maybe, I'm the dim bulb but I just don't get this film. Angry black man taking his revenge on the tyrannical white establishment. Beyond that there isn't anything else in the film. It seems to be one long excuse to spew racial epithets, over and over and over and over. The film lacks any real depth and most of its appeal will be to the type of people that watch police chase videos or scan YouTube for someone getting kicked in the groin. If you have a couple of IQ points you can spare, then by all means burn some brain cells watching this entirely uninteresting flop. Enjoy!… Full Review »
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