It stars Franco Nero (in his breakthrough role) as the title character, alongside Loredana Nusciak, José Bódalo, Ángel Álvarez, and Eduardo Fajardo.

[7] The film follows a Union soldier-turned-drifter and his companion, a mixed-race prostitute, who become embroiled in a bitter, destructive feud between a gang of Confederate Red Shirts and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.

A commercial success upon release, Django has garnered a large cult following outside of Italy and is widely regarded as one of the best films of the Spaghetti Western genre, with the direction, Nero's performance, and Luis Bacalov's soundtrack most frequently being praised.

Retrospective critics and scholars of Corbucci's Westerns have also deemed Django to be the first in the director's "Mud and Blood" trilogy, which also includes The Great Silence and The Specialists.

[10] On the Mexico–United States border, Django, wearing a Union uniform and dragging a coffin, witnesses Mexican bandits tying a prostitute, María, to a bridge and whipping her.

The bandits are dispatched by henchmen of Major Jackson – a racist ex-Confederate officer – who prepare to kill María by crucifying her atop a burning cross.

The director wanted to create a film inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which he had seen two years prior on recommendation from his regular cinematographer, Enzo Barboni.

Corbucci also wanted to make a film that would rival the success of A Fistful of Dollars, a Yojimbo adaptation directed by his friend Sergio Leone.

The destruction of the lead character's hands prior to the final showdown was influenced by Corbucci's previous film, Minnesota Clay, which depicted a blind protagonist who attempts to overcome his disability.

[9][12] Additionally, because Corbucci was a left-wing "political director", Cox suggests that the plot device of Django's machine gun being contained in a coffin, along with the cemetery-buried gold hunted by the lead characters of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, may have been inspired by rumours surrounding the anti-Communist Gladio terrorists, who hid many of their 138 weapons caches in cemeteries.

[9] Corbucci is also alleged to have studied newsreel footage of the Ku Klux Klan while writing scenes featuring Major Jackson and his men, who wear red hoods and scarves in the film.

[13] Further screenplay contributions and revisions were made throughout production, namely by José Gutiérrez Maesso and Fernando Di Leo (who was not credited for his work on the script) and especially by Bruno Corbucci.

[8][13][15] Nero was 23 when he was cast; to give the impression of an older, Clint Eastwood-type persona, he grew out his stubble, wore fake wrinkles around his eyes, and had his voice dubbed in post-production by actor Nando Gazzolo.

This release, by Anchor Bay Entertainment, is mostly uncut and presented with a remix of the English dub in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and was limited to 15,000 copies.

[28] Blue Underground's DVD releases utilize a high quality (albeit mildly damaged) transfer based on the film's original camera negative, which was subject to a complex two-year digital restoration process that resulted in many instances of dirt, scratches, warps and deteriorations being removed and corrected.

[31] On September 1, 2018, Arrow Video announced that they would release Django on November 19 (later pushed back to December 11) in the US and Canada as part of a two-disc Blu-ray set with Texas, Adios, with the films having received new 4K and 2K restorations respectively.

The special features for the film include an audio commentary by Stephen Prince, new interviews with Nero, Deodato, Rossetti, and Nori Corbucci, archival interviews with Vivarelli and stunt performer Gilberto Galimberti, an appreciation of Django by Spaghetti Western scholar Austin Fisher, an archival introduction to the film by Cox, and the theatrical trailer.

[36] Although initial critical reactions were negative due to the high level of violence,[8] reception of Django in the years following its original release has been far more positive, with the film gaining a 92% "fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes based on twelve reviews, and an average rating of 8.1/10.

[1][9] In a contemporary review for Italian newspaper Unita, Django's depiction of violence was described as "the heart of the story", "truly bloodcurdling", and "dismayingly justified in the emotions of the audience".

The reviewer also noted that, "this repetition of excessive cruelty, in its sheer extent and verisimilitude, transfers the film from a realistic plane to the grotesque, with the result that here and there it is possible to find, among the emotions, a certain healthy amount of humour".

Audience members, which included actors and filmmakers such as Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Terence Young, were appreciative of the film's sense of humour and originality.

He concluded his review by stating that, "in a genre known for endless knock-offs, a trend that includes Django's 30-plus sequels, Corbucci's film is notable not only for the artistry of its construction, but also for the underlying anger that fuels its political agenda".

[45] In his analysis of the Spaghetti Western genre, Alex Cox described Django as a "huge step forward" in Corbucci's writing and directing abilities, exemplified by the film's pacing and action scenes (comparable to those of a James Bond film) and its dropping of the "unsteady, often boring narratives, bad transitions, 'cute/funny' characters, and tedious horse-riding-through-landscape scenes" that permeated his previous Westerns.

Cox voiced praise for Enzo Barboni's "claustrophobic" and "brutal, uncompromising style" of cinematography, including "some striking wide-angle establishing shots" and "a good hand-held fight scene", and described Carlo Simi's work on the Elios Film set as "a masterpiece of low-budget art direction […] a town with no name, a battleground where there is literally nothing worth fighting for".

The company appealed to the Board's Secretary, John Trevelyan, who concurred with the assessment of examiners that the film's "excessive and nauseating violence" was justification for its denial of a certificate.

[48][49] Django did not receive a classification in the UK until it was submitted for an official video release by Arthouse Productions in 1993, when the BBFC concluded it could be passed, without cuts, with an 18 certificate.

[54] In April 2015, an English-language television series based on the film, titled Django was announced as being developed as an Italian-French co-production by Cattleya and Atlantique Productions.

[55][56] In February 2021, it was announced that Cattleya and Atlantique had partnered with Sky Group and Canal+ to produce the 10-episode series, which began filming in Romania in May,[57] and actor Matthias Schoenaerts had been cast in the title role.

[58] According to Nero, former James Bond director Terence Young was inspired by Django to direct the Western Red Sun, an international co-production starring Charles Bronson, Toshirō Mifune (of Yojimbo fame), Ursula Andress and Alain Delon.

[66] The main character of the Boktai series of video games is a vampire hunter named Django, who drags a coffin around for sealing and purifying immortals.