The film, directed and written by Tarantino and starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz, is a "spaghetti western" about Django, a freed black slave by Waltz who goes in search of his wife.
"Django Unchained" won the prize for which also competed "Amour", "The Master", "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Zero Dark Thirty".
Accepting the award from actress Sally Field, who plays the wife of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film.