Ryan Coogler's Sinners (2025) is a stylish, nifty and surprisingly thoughtful experience. A skillful blend of genres (period crime drama, horror movie, musical and racial allegory), it's one of the best films to hit theaters in recent years.
Twin brothers Smoke and Stacks (Michael B. Jordan) return to their Mississippi hometown, having grown rich as gangsters in Prohibition-era Chicago. The two use their money to buy a juke joint, enlisting their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a musical prodigy, along with veteran blues singer Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and other local talent. Despite unpleasant reminders of their past - Stacks' white-passing ex Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Smoke's estranged, voodoo-practicing wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) - the opening appears to be a hit. Until the mysterious Remmick (Jack O'Connell) shows up uninvited to this Blacks-only gathering, with a fiddle and a plea for entry. Turns out that Remmick is actually a vampire who seeks to redeem humanity's sins by assimilating them as revenants...although he seems as motivated by appreciation for Sammie's talents.
Sinners is far more subtle than Get Out, another racially-charged horror film that practically spells out its themes to the audience. Coogler, who mastered high-toned blockbusters with Creed and Black Panther, instead weaves his messages into allegory, elevating a pulp premise (with shades of Salem's Lot and From Dusk til Dawn) into something nearly profound. The movie has a lot to say about race, oppression and culture, but with its exquisite period recreations, clever twists on horror tropes, gifted cast and striking soundtrack, it's also just a good time.
Long stretches of Sinners are delightful to watch simply as a showcase for musical performances. We love Jaymie Lawson's smoky ballad, Caton's heavenly tunes as Sammie and the cameo by Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy. Coogler celebrates the importance and continuity of Black music in a bravura set piece, where viewers are transported to a spiritual realm by Sammie's performance. Spirits of the "past" (Yoruba dancers, Chinese opera dancers) and future (a Jimmi Hendrix look-alike, hip-hop performers) swirl around Sammie's audience, an absorbingly bold and transcendent scene that shows the timelessness of music, its importance to Black identity and resilience in the face.
Sinners skillfully weaves these thematic threads. Coogler straightforwardly shows the limited paths available to Blacks in the Jim Crow South (preaching, sharecropping) and how difficult it can be to transcend them. Smoke and Stacks, fleeing legal oppression and an abusive home life, seek fulfillment in Chicago but can only find wealth as criminals, which makes them doubly suspect to white society. Wanting to make good in their hometown, they offer talented musicians a chance at pay and social elevation, which immediately puts them in the crosshairs of the local Klan leader (David Moldano). Knowing that the film takes place not long after the Tulsa massacre and other atrocities, the message that Black success spurs white fear and resentment rings loud and clear.
Other characters represent other approaches, equally fraught. Annie's embrace of African heritage renders her an outcast, while Mary's light-skinned appearance causes Smokes to push her away, even arranging a marriage with a white businessman. Neither welcomes the vampire assimilation but both seem vulnerable to it. Delta Slim sacrifices his dignity for $20 and corn liquor at a white bar, when the Twins offer him a platform for real achievement. Similarly with Sammie, whose father (Saul Williams) presses him to follow him into the priesthood. Not to mention the Chinese couple (Yao and Li Jun Li) who feel out of place in both cultures. The message is clear that a white-dominated society will struggle to accept Black Americans, no matter what role they play; despite this, they persist in creating their own culture.
Interestingly, Coogler explores the parallels between African-American and Irish culture, as spotlighted by Remmick. A pre-Christian Celt with misty memories of the Emerald Isle, he genuinely abhors racism (no coincidence that his first victims are a bigoted couple (Peter Dreimanis and Lola Kirke)) which he connects to the oppression of his own people. He pitches his vampire cult as a way both to transcend bigotry and recreate his idyllic homeland, as emphasized by his own bravura set piece. Remmick leads dozens of enthralled servants in a rendition of "The Rocky Road to Dublin," a dizzying set piece of its own that serves both as a battle cry and a bizarre plea for cultural harmony.
Yet Remmick's version of Brotherhood leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. For, in its own way, the Irish vampire seeks his own form of assimilation. He appreciates Sammie's music, but he wants to appropriate it for himself (just like the Blues-loving whites Delta Slim mocks in an earlier scene); his egalitarian society still imagines himself at the top, controlling the thoughts of his victims and using their memories to his own ends. (On the other hand, he seems unable to completely control his fellow vampires, who retain autonomy that sometimes conflicts with him.) Historical oppression of the Irish creates parallels and a fellow feeling, but it does not prevent Remmick from becoming an exploiter himself. Like Killmonger in Black Panther, he has a sympathetic motivation, but his actions are too self-serving to find him sympathetic.
Thematic stylings aside, Sinners is a beautifully crafted film. Coogler's period recreations are stylish without seeming obtrusive, helped by Autumn Durald Arkapaw's classy cinematography. He makes clever plays on genre tropes, with Annie as a voodoo Van Helsing whose nostrums provide a defense, but can't singlehandedly save the day. A large track of the movie settles into Night of the Living Dead, with Remmick's revenants knocking at the door (needing an invitation, as vampires must) until an explosive climax with stakes, silver bullets and ravening fangs. The movie drags on an extra reel, into a violent showdown with the Klan and decades-later flash forward, that offer catharsis but don't feel strictly necessary. But we don't begrudge spending more
Michael B. Jordan does fine work making the twins distinct characters: Smoke the steady but she'll shocked veteran, always making the cool play; Stacks, more impulsive but in a way more honest. Jordan's smart acting and natural charisma make both characters equally compelling. He's backed by an extraordinary cast of veterans and newcomers, starting with Miles Caton's work as Sammie. The present writer was most impressed by Wunmi Mosauku, who blends world-weariness and motherly compassion flawlessly, and Jack O'Connell, primarily a television actor, who infuses Remmick with a savage charisma. Hailee Steinfeld is dependably good, although her character feels a bit shortchanged for screen time. Delroy Lindo earned a well-deserved Oscar as Slim, who announces that he's seen the Devil so many times the vampires can't phase him.
I haven't seen One Battle After Another, and honestly don't feel compelled to (Paul Thomas Anderson is not one of my favorite directors, to put it mildly). Therefore, I can't answer whether Sinners would have deserved Best Picture over it; I can answer that Ryan Coogler's film, despite some minor faults, is wildly entertaining. It's a perfect demonstration of how allegory can be used to navigate thorny social topics, without forfeiting the audience's interest. That, and there's plenty of damn good music.