In 1877, bounty hunter and Civil War veteran Major Marquis Warren is transporting three dead bounties to Red Rock, Wyoming. He hitches a ride on a stagecoach driven by O.B.; aboard is bounty hunter John Ruth, handcuffed to fugitive Daisy Domergue, whom Ruth is escorting to Red Rock to be hanged. Ruth and Warren are acquaintances, having bonded over Warren’s personal letter from Abraham Lincoln. Former Lost-Causer militiaman Chris Mannix, traveling to Red Rock as the town’s new sheriff, persuades Ruth and Warren to let him on the stagecoach. Warren and Ruth form an alliance to protect each other’s bounties. The Hateful Eight 2015
The group seeks refuge from a blizzard at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach lodge with a broken lock on the front door. They are greeted by Bob, a Mexican, who says the owner, Minnie, is away visiting her mother, raising Warren’s suspicions. The other lodgers are an Englishman who claims to be named “Oswaldo Mobray” who is employed as Red Rock’s new hangman; Joe Gage, a cowboy returning home to visit his mother; and Sanford Smithers, a former Confederate general traveling to lay his son to rest. Suspicious, Ruth disarms all but Warren, who inadvertently kicks a jellybean on the floor and notices one of Minnie’s jellybean jars is missing.
Mannix surmises that Warren’s Lincoln letter is a forgery, and Warren, who is black, acknowledges that the false letter buys him leeway with whites, outraging Ruth. Warren leaves a gun next to Smithers and provokes him by explaining that he tortured, raped, and murdered Smithers’ son (whether or not he is telling the truth is never revealed). When Smithers reaches for the gun, Warren shoots him in revenge for Smithers’ executions of black prisoners of war at the Battle of Baton Rouge.
During the confrontation, someone poisons the brewing coffee. Ruth and O.B. drink it, which kills them both. However, the dying and panicking Ruth attacks Domergue, who kills him with his own gun.