The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American Western mystery thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern as eight dubious strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover a decade after the American Civil War.

Tarantino announced the film in November 2013. He conceived it as a novel and sequel to his 2012 film Django Unchained before deciding to make it a standalone film. After the script leaked in January 2014, he decided to abandon the production and publish it as a novel instead. In April 2014, Tarantino directed a live reading of the script at the United Artists Theater in Los Angeles, before reconsidering a new draft and resuming the project. Filming began in January 2015 near Telluride, Colorado. Italian composer Ennio Morricone composed the original score, his first complete Western score in 34 years (and the last before his death in 2020), his first for a high-profile Hollywood production since 2000, and the only original score for a Tarantino film.

Distributed by the Weinstein Company in the United States, The Hateful Eight was released on December 25, 2015, in a limited roadshow release on 70 mm film, before expanding wide theatrically five days later. The film was praised for its direction, screenplay, score, cinematography, and performances, though its editing, length, the depiction of race relations and the violent treatment of Leigh's character divided opinions. It grossed over $161 million worldwide. For his work on the score, Morricone won his only Academy Award for Best Original Score after five previous nominations. The film also earned Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Leigh) and Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson).

In 2019, a re-edited version of the film was released as a four-episode miniseries on Netflix with the subtitle Extended Version. The Hateful Eight was Tarantino's final collaboration with the Weinstein Company before allegations of sexual abuse against Harvey Weinstein in 2017, which led to the former severing all ties with the latter.

Plot

In 1877, bounty hunter and Union Army veteran cavalry Major Marquis Warren heads to Red Rock, Wyoming Territory, with three bounty corpses. His horse gives out, and, faced with a blizzard, Warren hitches a ride on a stagecoach driven by O.B. Jackson. Aboard is bounty hunter John Ruth "The Hangman", handcuffed to fugitive "Crazy" Daisy Domergue, whom he is taking to Red Rock to be hanged. Warren and Ruth had previously bonded over Warren's personal letter from Abraham Lincoln. Chris Mannix, whose father, Erskine, led a Lost-Causer militia called Mannix's Marauders, claims to be Red Rock's new sheriff and joins them. During the trip, Ruth learns about the Confederate bounty on Warren's head for breaking out of and setting fire to a prisoner-of-war camp.

They seek refuge from the blizzard at Minnie's Haberdashery, tended by Bob, a Mexican who claims to be watching the haberdashery in Minnie's and her husband Sweet Dave's absence. The lodge shelters local hangman Oswaldo Mobray, cowboy Joe Gage, and Confederate general Sanford Smithers, who is planning to erect a cenotaph for his missing son, Chester Charles. Suspicious, Ruth disarms all but Warren. While Mannix recognizes Smithers as a war hero, Warren wants him dead as revenge for ordering the execution of black prisoners of war at Baton Rouge. At dinner, Mannix surmises that the Lincoln letter is fake. Warren responds to Ruth's disappointment by saying his forged letter buys him leeway with whites.

After a small talk, Warren puts one of his guns next to Smithers and tells him he knew his son, claiming that when Smithers' son tried to claim the bounty on his head, he orally raped and murdered him. When Smithers reaches for the gun, Warren kills him.

During the confrontation, the coffee is poisoned, which Daisy silently witnessed. Ruth and O.B. drink the coffee; O.B. dies, and Daisy kills the dying Ruth with his own gun. Warren disarms Daisy, leaving her shackled to Ruth's corpse, and holds the others at gunpoint except Mannix, who nearly drank the poisoned coffee himself. Mannix suspects Gage poisoned the coffee, while Warren deduces, with evidence, that Bob is lying about looking after the haberdashery and kills him. When Warren threatens to kill Daisy, Gage admits that he poisoned the coffee. An unknown man hiding under the floorboards shoots Warren in the groin, and Mobray and Mannix shoot and wound one another.

A flashback shows Bob, Mobray, Gage, and Daisy's brother Jody arriving at the lodge hours earlier. They killed Minnie, Sweet Dave, and all their employees, but spared Smithers who was already there to create a believable setting in exchange for his silence. Once they finished hiding the bodies, cleaning the store, and hiding weapons for future use, Jody hid in the cellar as Ruth, Daisy, O.B., Warren and Mannix arrived.

In the present, Warren and Mannix, both seriously wounded, hold Daisy, Gage, and Mobray at gunpoint. When they threaten to kill Daisy, Jody surrenders and is executed by Warren. The surviving gang members claim fifteen hired guns are waiting in Red Rock and offer a deal: if Mannix kills Warren, they will spare him and allow him to collect the bounty on the dying Mobray and the deceased Bob (whose real names are revealed as "English" Pete Hicox and Marco "the Mexican", respectively). Warren kills Hicox when he tries to persuade Mannix. Warren and Mannix then kill Gage (whose real name is "Grouch" Douglass) when he grabs a pistol hidden under a table.

Mannix hears Daisy's proposal but deduces she is lying. When Mannix faints from blood loss, Daisy chops off Ruth's arm and goes for a gun, but Mannix reawakens and wounds her. Mannix and Warren hang Daisy from the rafters in honor of Ruth, who always brought his bounty to the gallows (which earned him the nickname "the Hangman"). As they lie dying, Mannix reads aloud Warren's fake Lincoln letter, complimenting its detail.

Cast

Additionally, Quentin Tarantino voices the film's narrator in an uncredited role.

Production

In November 2013, writer-director Quentin Tarantino said he was working on another Western. He initially attempted the story as a novel, a sequel to his film Django Unchained (2012), titled Django in White Hell but realized that the Django character did not fit the story. On January 11, 2014, the title was announced as The Hateful Eight.

The film was inspired by the 1960s Western TV series Bonanza, The Virginian, and The High Chaparral. Tarantino said:

Twice per season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take the lead characters hostage. They would come to the Ponderosa and hold everybody hostage, or go to Judge Garth's place – Lee J. Cobb played him – in The Virginian and take hostages. There would be a guest star like David Carradine, Darren McGavin, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Charles Bronson, or James Coburn. I don't like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a Western, where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. I thought, 'What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landon. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.

Production was planned for late 2014 in the winter, but after the script leaked online in January 2014, Tarantino considered publishing it as a novel instead. He said he had given the script to a few trusted colleagues, including Reginald Hudlin, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Tim Roth. This version of the script featured a different ending in which Warren and Mannix attempt to kill Gage in revenge by forcing him to drink the poisoned coffee, sparking a firefight in which every character is killed. Tarantino described his vision for the character of Daisy Domergue as a "Susan Atkins of the Wild West". Madsen based Joe Gage on Peter Breck's performance in The Big Valley.

On April 19, 2014, Tarantino directed a live reading of the leaked script at the United Artists Theater in the Ace Hotel Los Angeles. The event was organized by the Film Independent at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as part of the Live Read series and was introduced by Elvis Mitchell. Tarantino explained that they would read the first draft of the script, and he added that he was writing two new drafts with a different ending. The actors who joined Tarantino included Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Dern, Roth, Madsen, Walton Goggins, Zoë Bell, Amber Tamblyn, James Parks, James Remar, and Dana Gourrier.