Oscars 2013: Best Picture nominees

In Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," a western set just before the Civil War, a bounty hunter purchases a slave who can lead him to a trio of wanted men. Together they become partners in killing outlaws wanted dead or alive, before embarking on a dangerous mission to rescue the slave's wife from a sinister plantation owner.

The film pays homage to spaghetti Westerns and genre films, and is thus rampant with bloody violence and humor, embroidered with dialogue that is colorful, cutting and full of surprises -- not to mention more expressions of the "N-word" than any movie in recent memory.

The Weinstein Company release was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Credit: Weinstein Company