FILM · 2015 · USA
The Hateful Eight
- Directed by
- Quentin Tarantino
- Runtime
- 188 min
- Studio
- The Weinstein Company, Double Feature Films, FilmColony
133 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Bounty hunters seek shelter from a raging blizzard and get caught up in a plot of betrayal and deception.
Summary: TMDB
100 Interesting Facts About The Hateful Eight
- #001
Contains a major spoiler — show
The guitar Daisy Domergue plays while singing "Jim Jones at Botany Bay" was a highly valuable antique from the 1870s, borrowed from the Martin Guitar Museum and worth around $40,000. At the end of the song, the script called for John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell) to take the guitar and smash it to pieces. Six copies were made for filming and were supposed to be used in place of the real instrument for the big shot, but due to a miscommunication Kurt Russell was not told and destroyed the original guitar before anyone could stop him. Jennifer Jason Leigh's shocked reaction is genuine and can be seen in the released film. The Martin Guitar Museum later announced that it would never lend a guitar for a film shoot again.
- #002
After the screenplay leaked online, writer-director Quentin Tarantino did not want to make the film. But after a brief read-through of the script in Los Angeles, the actors were stunned and became excited about the film, and Samuel L. Jackson persuaded him to make it, so Tarantino agreed.
- #003
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino said that some of the pieces Ennio Morricone composed for the film were unused music from The Thing (1982). Kurt Russell was the star of that film.
- #004
The song Daisy sings ("Jim Jones at Botany Bay") was performed live on set by Jennifer Jason Leigh. The film's soundtrack includes the song as well as the sounds of the board being nailed to the door and the dialogue between Kurt Russell and Leigh.
- #005
At one point Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) says that the tagline on the poster for Inglourious Basterds (2009) was "A bastard's work is never done."
- #007
Composer Ennio Morricone was reported to have said that he would never work with Quentin Tarantino again after the way his music was handled in Django Unchained (2012). He eventually changed his mind and agreed to score this film.
- #008
As of 2015, most cinemas worldwide had replaced their film projectors with digital projectors, since traditional film stock was no longer preferred. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino, a lover and supporter of celluloid, fought aggressively with distributors to have the film shown in its original Ultra Panavision 70 presentation. As a result, fifty cinemas internationally were equipped with 70 mm analog film projectors with anamorphic lenses to exhibit the film the way he wanted it seen. Its premiere was held on December 25, 2015 as a roadshow presentation only in cinemas with 70 mm analog film format, and it opened in digital cinemas on December 30, 2015.
- #010
Unfortunately for the production, the weather stayed fine for long stretches during the planned shooting dates in Telluride, Colorado. For most of the outdoor blizzard scenes, large fans, soda and large overhead sun shades were used to try to recreate the blizzard. Much of the badly needed snow melted and production was halted. As a fun attempt to get more snow, Quentin Tarantino and many cast and crew members, including Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell, took part in a local "ski burn" and made an offering to the "snow gods" to ask for snow. By coincidence, or perhaps not so coincidentally, a big storm arrived a few days later and dropped enough snow for filming to continue.
- #011
According to writer-director Quentin Tarantino, the two main cinematic influences on the film were The Thing (1982) and Reservoir Dogs (1992). Although he wrote and directed the latter film himself, it continued to influence his later work.
- #012
At times the cast and crew worked on a refrigerated set where the temperature was thirty degrees Fahrenheit (-1 degree Celsius).
- #014
This is the fourth (and third consecutive) Tarantino film in which a character is shot in the testicles.
- #015
In April 2019, Netflix released an extended version of this film running over 3 hours. However, instead of one long film, it was divided into 4 chapters of roughly 50 minutes each.
- #016
It is only the eleventh film to be shot in the Ultra Panavision 70 process (65 mm film with 1.25x compression anamorphic lenses for a 2.76:1 aspect ratio). No film had used this extremely rare process since Khartoum (1966), nearly fifty years earlier. It also makes this Quentin Tarantino's second film not shot in the 2.39:1 format, after Jackie Brown (1997).
- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
Quentin Tarantino states that the main cinematic influence on this film was The Thing (1982). That film also starred Kurt Russell, who appears in this film, and its music was composed by Ennio Morricone, the composer of this film. Moreover, The Thing (1982) was about a group of men trapped inside a building during a violent blizzard who can no longer trust one another. Both films feature scenes in which Kurt Russell disarms the other men because of distrust and paranoia.
- #019
Early test screenings ran over three hours and included an intermission.
- #020
In an interview, Ennio Morricone said he accepted Quentin Tarantino's request to score the film because he liked the screenplay and Tarantino gave him complete freedom in composing. Morricone said he saw the film as an adventure film rather than a Western, and as a result tried to make the music's sound completely different from famous Western scores. Instead of composing music for specific scenes, he based the music on the emotions the screenplay itself stirred in him. Because Morricone had only one month to prepare his music, he included several pieces he had originally written for The Thing (1982), some of which had never been used. Morricone ultimately gave Tarantino five pieces he could use in the film as he wished.
- #021
The roles of Major Warren, John Ruth, Oswaldo and Joe Gage were mostly written with Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen in mind. The role of Daisy Domergue was less specific, and many actresses were considered before Jennifer Jason Leigh was cast. Quentin Tarantino said, "Daisy became one of the most interesting characters because she's on the page but not on the page; an actress literally has to invest in playing this character from beginning to end. They have to take you to that final chapter. It had to be an actress I could trust and also one whose character work you'd enjoy watching. When Jennifer came in she was very impressive in the reading, but what really struck me was that I had just started watching several of her films. I was having a full Jennifer Jason Leigh film festival. I watched one and couldn't wait to add the next, she was such a fun actress, especially in the '90s, for example eXistenZ (1999), Georgia (1995) and especially Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). Her performance was the center of the film and everything was built around it, and that's what Daisy needed."
- #022
Contains a major spoiler — show
In an interview with fellow director Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino explained that, in order to reach the troublesome ending we see in the film, he wrote a special draft of the screenplay from Daisy's point of view so that the character would be known well enough to justify Daisy's lingering death.
- #023
Contains a major spoiler — show
At no point in the film is Chris Mannix's claim that he is truly the "new Sheriff of Red Rock" ever proven. While most fans agree he is telling the truth, some think he may have been lying. In an interview, Quentin Tarantino stated that he lets the audience form their own personal views about Mannix's truthfulness.
- #024
The 70 mm roadshow version of the film is a "heavyweight" in many respects. The analog film is wound onto twenty reels with a total running time of three hours and seven minutes, and it weighs over two hundred and fifty pounds.
- #025
After the screenplay leaked online, pre-production was halted in early 2014. Quentin Tarantino stated that he would no longer make the film as a movie and would rewrite it and publish it as a novel. However, production resumed in early 2015.
- #027
The Weinstein Company spent 8-10 million dollars to find, procure, rebuild and install 70 mm analog film projectors and to train the two hundred projectionists needed to operate them in the ninety-six US theaters showing the roadshow version of the film (80,000 dollars per location plus).
- #030
Contains a major spoiler — show
In the revised screenplay, Jody's (Channing Tatum's) death was less violent and more sadistic than what happens in the film. In the screenplay, after coming up from the basement to see Daisy, he is shot once in the arm by Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) and once in the back by Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) during the gunfight. He then falls back into the basement and is left to die, eaten by rats sheltering from the blizzard.
- #031
In the original screenplay, the character Bob was meant to be French rather than Mexican.
- #032
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In the extended version, Bob gets angry when Major Warren asks him, "Who's the idiot that broke the door?" The reason for his anger is later shown in a flashback: Bob was in fact the one who nailed the door shut.
- #033
This film was the sixth collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson.
- #034
According to the written screenplay, the characters Minnie and Sweet Dave had known each other before the Civil War as slave and owner. Sweet Dave had once been Minnie's slave, but after the abolition of slavery they somehow stayed together for unknown reasons. It can be surmised that Sweet Dave was secretly in love with Minnie, or that he helped buy land so she could start her own business as a way of paying compensation for having held her as a slave in the past. Quentin Tarantino is thought to leave the audience to produce their own theories about the connection between Minnie and Sweet Dave.
- #035
The song Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) sings while playing the guitar is an Australian folk song titled "Jim Jones at Botany Bay."
- #037
Contrary to the belief held by Six-Horse Judy (Zoë Bell) and the statement made by Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), driving six horses on a stagecoach is easier than driving two or four horses.
- #038
The Thing (1982) was the only film Quentin Tarantino screened for the cast.
- #039
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Daisy and John Ruth first enter the haberdashery, Oswaldo looks at Joe Gage several times before following Ruth. Oswaldo steers Ruth toward the coffee beans, and while Ruth's back is turned Oswaldo prepares to shoot him. Daisy notices and steps between the two to stop Oswaldo from firing. She later mentions that there are more people outside. All of this is done to wait for a better moment for the gang to kill Ruth and the others.
- #040
The bloody special effects were provided with the help of Greg Nicotero, the special effects guru of The Walking Dead (2010), who also contributed to other Quentin Tarantino films: Inglourious Basterds (2009), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and Django Unchained (2012).
- #041
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Somewhat unusually for a Quentin Tarantino film, there is no murder on screen until one hour and thirty-five minutes into the film. In the film's roadshow (70mm) screenings, the intermission came immediately after this moment.
- #042
The pipe John Ruth smokes is a unique Italian pipe handmade in Pesaro by the company Mastro de Paja. The actor bought it from a tobacco shop in Santa Monica, so it is his personal pipe. After the pipe appeared in this film, Mastro de Paja named this model "Il Boia" (Italian for executioner).
- #043
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According to Quentin Tarantino, this film was inspired by the Western television shows Bonanza (1959), The Virginian (1962) and The High Chaparral (1967): "Twice a season on those shows there would be an episode where a bunch of outlaws took the main characters hostage. I love a Western where you get halfway through the episode and you figure out whether they're good guys or bad guys, and they all have a backstory that comes out. Bad guys in a room telling stories that may or may not be true. Trap these men in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns and see what happens!"
- #046
Kurt Russell's John Wayne impression was quite deliberate; at one point his character says "That'll be the day!" the famous catchphrase of Wayne's character in The Searchers (1956).
- #047
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In the original script, Major Marquis Warren's fate was written almost entirely differently. Jody, hiding under the floorboards, was to shoot him repeatedly until the Major fell to the ground motionless. Daisy, as later shown, was to crawl along the floor, grab a nearby gun and finally finish him off by shooting him three times between the eyes.
- #048
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Early in the film, Daisy is thrown from the carriage by the Major and drags John Ruth with her. She yells, "liked to rip my God damn arm off." Near the end of the film, Daisy does indeed have her arm ripped off.
- #049
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Each of the "hateful eight" (Warren, Ruth, Domergue, Mannix, Bob, Mobray, Gage and General Smithers) is shot.
- #050
In the leaked first draft of the script, Abraham Lincoln's letter appears only once in the stagecoach and is never mentioned again. In interviews, Quentin Tarantino always explained that he planned to do more with it but was not ready yet. He wanted to spend more time with the material and let the story develop gradually over the next two drafts.
- #051
All of the main events in this film take place in less than a single day.
- #052
Although some wonder how a black man could rise to the rank of major in the Union army, the fact is that the highest-ranking black soldier in the US army during the Civil War was the surgeon Alexander Thomas Augusta. In 1866 he retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel, one step above major.
- #053
Although Wyoming's reddish canyons are called "the Red Rocks," there is no real town named "Red Rock" anywhere in the state. It is a town entirely invented by Quentin Tarantino. However, there is a "Red Rocks" in Colorado, where the film was shot.
- #054
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At one point in the film, Tim Roth's character is shot in the stomach and bleeds out in an enclosed space while the people around him question his loyalty, which closely resembles his character's story in Reservoir Dogs (1992).
- #056
Misty Upham had first been cast in Django Unchained (2012) as "Minny," the owner of the bar where Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx have a drink. The role was cut, and the character eventually appeared in this film, where she also owns a kind of tavern. After Upham's death, the role was kept in the film as a tribute to her, but it was recast.
- #057
Of the prominent cast members, only Jennifer Jason Leigh, Demián Bichir, Gene Jones and Channing Tatum had not previously worked with Quentin Tarantino.
- #058
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In one of the earlier drafts of the screenplay, the character Oswaldo Mobray was written to appear entirely innocent toward the climax. During the first major gunfight between Jody and Mannix, an unarmed Oswaldo is shot in the chest by a panicked Mannix, who is ready to pull the trigger, leading the audience to speculate at first that he is an innocent bystander with no connection to Daisy.
- #059
To accommodate Quentin Tarantino's passion for long takes, Panavision built a two-thousand-foot film magazine (twice the standard size) for the film's Ultra Panavision 70mm cameras.
- #060
Tarantino told The Telegraph that he wrote The Hateful Eight to reflect America's troubling racial history, through the cabin's division into north and south and a conversation about the dangers of "frontier justice."
- #061
According to Variety Magazine's interview with Quentin Tarantino on October 12, 2015, the film's 70mm roadshow cut runs three hours and seven minutes, making it his longest individual film (although the two parts of "Kill Bill" total four hours and eight minutes). The version released in other formats, meanwhile, removed the twelve-minute overture and intermission included with Django Unchained (2012) and reduced the six minutes designed for the 70mm projection presentation to one minute.
- #062
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SIGNATURE DIRECTOR (Quentin Tarantino): (a long monologue before a sudden burst of violence): Major Marquis Warren's extensive account of killing Chester Charles Smithers before killing Smithers's father.
- #063
Similar to Reservoir Dogs (1992), all of the main events take place in a single large room.
- #064
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Body count: sixteen. However, if Chester Charles Smithers and the three corpses that were beside Major Marquis Warren when he hitched a ride on John "The Hangman" Ruth's stagecoach are included, the number rises to twenty.
- #065
"Mexican Bob" was also the name of a character in True Grit (1969). He is a member of Ned Pepper's gang.
- #066
While riding the stagecoach on the way to Minnie's Haberdashery, John Ruth elbows Daisy in the nose. The camera then shifts to the classic "trunk shot" view in which the characters are observed as if the camera were placed in a trunk, looking up while the characters look down.
- #068
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When Jody fires his gun at Warren, he shouts "Say adiós to your huevos!" (which means "Say goodbye to your eggs!" in Spanish, or "Say goodbye to your balls!" in slang). This is also a reference to the scene in Inglourious Basterds (2009) in which Sergeant Stiglitz says "Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls" before shooting a Nazi officer in the groin.
- #069
The choral music that plays after Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) steps on stage for Red Rock is "Regan's Theme" by Ennio Morricone from the film Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977).
- #071
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There are many theories about the truth of Major Marquis Warren's claims to General Sandy Smithers regarding his son's torture, assault and death. Some fans believe Warren did in fact kill his son, but that he actually did so in self-defense (after all, a bounty was placed on his head throughout the South) and did not torture him as he told the General. Warren may have embellished the story well enough to enrage Smithers so that he would grab his gun and try to shoot him. Other fans note that Warren may never have been responsible for Smithers's son's death and that he made up the whole story to provoke the General. Quentin Tarantino has clearly left it to the audience to form its own interpretation.
- #073
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In earlier drafts of the screenplay, the character of Charly was written as a young orphan whose parents were supposedly enslaved and likely killed, which would have made his death at the hands of the ruthless Domergue gang far more bleak and tragic. The death scene was also originally intended to be more brutal and violent. It has been claimed that Quentin Tarantino abandoned this idea and instead made Charly an adult character.
- #076
On September 26, 2014, the state of Colorado signed an agreement to finance the film's production with 5 million dollars. The entire film was to be shot in southwestern Colorado. A 900-acre high-country ranch was loaned to the production for filming. On October 16 there was a meeting at which the county planning commission granted permission to build a temporary set. Principal photography began on December 8, 2014, at Schmid Ranch near Telluride, Colorado.
- #078
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At the end of the film, as Major Marquis Warren ties the noose to the bedpost, he ties what is known as a "clove hitch." It is a perfect execution of this knot. It is usually used to tie tent pegs or to moor a boat to a dock.
- #079
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In the final scene, Warren and Daisy believe everyone is dead. When Chris says, "I ain't dead yet, you black bastard," it is revealed that he is still alive. This is clearly a homage to, and a modified version of, the famous line "I ain't dead yet, you bushwhacker" spoken by Le Boeuf in True Grit (1969). Both lines reveal that a character previously thought dead is alive and "saves the day."
- #080
The character Oswaldo Mowberry (Tim Roth) is a homage to the executioner Wallace Hyberry (played by Arthur Dignam) in the Australian film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978). That film was presented by Tarantino at a special screening in 2015. The two characters share a common profession, have similar names (Hyberry's name is not stated in the film, but appears in the Thomas Keneally novel on which the film is based), and both speak with extremely polite English manners.
- #081
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although there is a cat in the cabin during the flashback massacre, what happened to the cat is never revealed, but it clearly disappeared.
- #083
The film has a chapter format and includes an extensive flashback.
- #084
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DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Quentin Tarantino): [characters with high off-screen body counts]: General Sandy Smithers and John Ruth are famous for executing and killing many people, yet neither kills anyone on screen.
- #085
The film itself was shot on 65 mm film using the same lenses used to shoot the chariot race in Ben-Hur (1959).
- #086
The New Zealander, English and Mexican characters are in fact played by New Zealander, English and Mexican actors.
- #088
It marks the widest release in the United States for a 70 mm film (ninety-six theaters) since Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992). By contrast, The Master (2012) had a limited U.S. release on only sixteen screens.
- #091
The boards in the door are spaced so widely that you can see inside. Tarantino was strongly influenced by the western sets of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns," a particular example being the train station in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). This is because timber in hot and arid climates dries and shrinks, but not so in Wyoming, and such leaks would not be tolerated in a place where winters are so cold. This is a distinctive trait of Tarantino's.
- #092
Contains a major spoiler — show
Warren's story about sexually assaulting Smithers's son resembles the monologue Clifford Worley writes to Vincenzo Coccotti in True Romance (1993), also written by Quentin Tarantino, describing how Sicilians are descendants of black Africans who mated with their female ancestors. Both speeches use their listeners' racism to provoke a violent reaction from them.
- #095
According to details written in the screenplay, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and John "Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell) were in their late fifties or early sixties. Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is thirty-five to forty years old, and Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) is written as being in his early thirties.
- #096
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Right after John Ruth punches Daisy in the face, as John Ruth, Major Warren and Daisy Domergue ride in the stagecoach toward Red Rock, the White Stripes song Apple Blossom plays, and at that point Daisy deliberately begins to smile. The song's lyric "I will come and rescue you" points to the film's plot: the story of a trap set by Jody and his gang at Minnie's Haberdashery to rescue Daisy.
- #098
The film's world premiere was held on 23 November 2015 in São Paulo, Brazil, as a special screening attended only by select journalists. Quentin Tarantino and Tim Roth were in the country to promote the film.
- #099
Contains a major spoiler — show
Judy's body takes 3 seconds to fall into the well, which reveals that the well is about 145 feet deep (a normal depth for a house well).
- #100
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The plot closely resembles Rawhide (1951), in which outlaws take over a stagecoach way station. In that film, however, they wait for a gold shipment rather than trying to free a prisoner.
- #101
Dan Sasaki of Panavision worked with Schneider Optics to design and produce the one hundred Ultra Panavision projection lenses that would ultimately be needed for the theaters on the renewed promotional tour in the United States and Canada.
- #102
Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh appeared in Backdraft (1991). Coincidentally, their fathers, Bing Russell and Vic Morrow, appeared in Combat! (1962).
- #104
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DIRECTOR'S TRADEMARK (Quentin Tarantino): [shot from the trunk]: when Joe Gage follows the wounded Charly to a small shed, Charly's point of view from inside the shed is shown as soon as Gage opens the door.
- #107
The song "Now You're All Alone" used in the film is part of the soundtrack of The Last House on the Left (1972).
- #110
It is the first film shot in Ultra Panavision 70 since Khartoum (1966).
- #111
Ennio Morricone used leftover pieces from the 1982 film The Thing for this film, and the repeated screams of "close the door" are taken from the 1951 version of The Thing from Another World, making the film a tribute to both horror films.
- #112
Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) says he is going to Red Rock to see his mother at Christmas, suggesting the film takes place between early and mid-December. This may be correct, since Mexican Bob plays Silent Night on the piano.
- #114
O. B.'s (James Parks) full name is never spoken in the film.
- #115
In Spain, the premiere of the "Roadshow Experience" version was held in only one cinema (in Barcelona), in Ultra Panavision 70 mm and with Castilian subtitles.
- #116
At around 37:41, Kurt Russell breaks down the front door of the haberdashery in the snowstorm. The scene recalls Russell being trapped in almost the same situation in The Thing (1982).
- #117
Quentin Tarantino's trademark of showing a character barefoot does not appear in this film the way it does in Reservoir Dogs (1992). Both films are confined to a single location.
- #118
Contains a major spoiler — show
Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Roth once again played accomplices in Twin Peaks (2017). Bruce Dern appears in this film, while his daughter Laura also appeared in Twin Peaks (2017).
- #120
In a "Deadline" interview, Quentin Tarantino said that after the script leaked online he would not make the film and that he had "ten more" projects he could choose instead.
- #121
In the United Kingdom, Cineworld cinemas refused to show the film in any of their cinemas due to a dispute with the film's distributors, causing a major uproar because it had been advertised with posters in Cineworld cinemas.
- #122
John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell) was mistakenly called "Bob" by another character in both this film and Death Proof (2007).
- #124
Filming on The Hateful 8, Tarantino's 8th film, began on December 8, 2014; a character also mentions 8 months.
- #125
Lee Horsley's last screen appearance, as of January 14, 2022.
- #126
Channing Tatum and Samuel L. Jackson worked together on Coach Carter (2005).
- #127
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Joe Ruth introduces Daisy, her surname is Domergue. Later, when he introduces her brother Jody, the surname is Domengre.
- #129
Kurt Russell and Bruce Dern had never worked together before, but both appeared in episodes of The Fugitive (1963).
- #130
Samuel L. Jackson appeared in Jurassic Park (1993) alongside Bruce Dern's daughter, Laura.
- #131
The full trailer was released on October 22, 2015.
- #132
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film ends on an exciting standoff.
- #133
Contains a major spoiler — show
This is the only Tarantino film in which every character named, both on screen and in dialogue, is explicitly dead.
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