Django and Schultz kill the Brittle brothers at Spencer "Big Daddy" Bennett's Tennessee plantation. Bennett lets Django and Schultz leave due to the warrant, but later tries to attack them with a posse. Schultz ambushes the posse with explosives and Django kills Bennett. Feeling responsible for Django, Schultz agrees to help him find and rescue Broomhilda. They return to Texas where Django collects his first bounty, keeping the handbill as a memento. He and Schultz rack up several bounties before spring, when they travel to Mississippi and learn that Broomhilda's new owner is Calvin J. Candie, the charming but cruel owner of the Candyland plantation, where slaves are forced to wrestle to the death in brutal "Mandingo" fights. Schultz and Django hatch a plan: deciding that Candie will price Broomhilda beyond their reach if they try to buy her upfront, they will instead offer $12,000 (equivalent to $376,000 in 2021) for one of his best fighters as a pretext to acquiring Broomhilda for a nominal sum. They meet Candie at his gentlemen's club and make the offer. Intrigued, Candie invites them to Candyland. En route, the group encounters Candie's slave trackers who have cornered D'Artagnan, an escapee Mandingo fighter. Schultz attempts to save him, but Django intervenes to prevent him from blowing their cover. Candie has the trackers' dogs maul D'Artagnan to death, visibly upsetting Schultz.

Having told Broomhilda of their plan, Schultz offers to buy her as his escort while negotiating the initial deal during dinner. Candie's staunchly loyal and suspicious head house slave Stephen realizes that Broomhilda knows Django, deduces their plan and alerts Candie. Candie alters the deal at gunpoint to sell Broomhilda for $12,000 instead of the fighter; Schultz reluctantly agrees. During the sale's finalization, Candie threatens to kill Broomhilda if Schultz does not shake his hand to seal the deal. Having had enough of Candie's arrogance, Schultz shoots and kills Candie. Butch Pooch, Candie's bodyguard, kills Schultz, and Django goes on a rampage, killing Pooch, Candie's lawyer Leonide Moguy, and several of Candie's henchmen, but is forced to surrender when Broomhilda is taken hostage.

The next morning, the chained Django is tortured and about to be castrated by Candie's henchman Billy Crash when Stephen arrives, informing him that Candie's sister Lara, who has taken charge of the plantation, has ordered him to be sold to a mining company and worked to death. En route there, Django devises an escape plan and uses his first handbill to prove to his escorts that he is a bounty hunter. He falsely claims the men on the handbill are at Candyland and promises the escorts a share of the reward money. Once released, Django kills his escorts and returns to Candyland with dynamite. Recovering Broomhilda's freedom papers from Schultz's corpse, Django bids him goodbye and avenges him and D'Artagnan by killing the trackers, and frees Broomhilda just as Candie's mourners return from his burial. At the mansion, Django kills Lara, Crash and the remaining henchmen, releases the two remaining house slaves, and kneecaps Stephen, who had revealed to be faking his limp, before igniting the dynamite he had planted throughout the mansion. Django and Broomhilda watch from a distance as the mansion explodes before riding off together.