Movie Review: Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a blockbuster that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. It’s a steamy, bloody, gory vampire tale that features lavish sets, stunning costumes and cinematography, strong themes, and is led by one of the best movie stars working today.
Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1932, Sinners follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both portrayed marvelously by Michael B. Jordan) as they return to their hometown following a stint in WWI and being bootleggers in Chicago. They plan to open a juke joint, a club where other Black people from their community can come together to enjoy music, food, and dancing. They have the money, the alcohol, and the talent to get it going.
The film starts with Smoke and Stack in a get-the-band-back-together scenario. Nobody knows they are back in town, and they need things done quickly to get the juke joint open by the evening. They enlist in the help of old friends, like Grace and Bo Chow (Li Ju Li and Yao), two Chinese store owners who Stack hires to make the club sign, Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) for entertainment, and their cousin Sammie Moore (Miles Canton), who has a gift on the guitar, and anyone else that will help get the juke joint open and running.
In another part of town, we are introduced to Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a vampire who attacks two Ku Klux Klan members after they invite him into their home (a big no-no in vampire lore). The vampires are lured to the juke joint thanks to the soulful singing and guitar playing of Sammie, and they try and take over the juke joint and everyone in it with the promise of eternal life and glory in exchange for their souls.
Sinners is the best screenplay of Ryan Coogler’s career. It is a wholly original idea, something desperately needed in modern cinema, and is filled with interesting themes and complex characters, all while being the best vampire movie in decades. Coogler takes his time with his characters and the film’s plot points. He establishes all the important characters and lets us live in this Clarksdale town. We learn the dynamics between the characters, like how Smoke lost a child that he had with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), the troubled past between Stack and Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), and why Smoke and Stack left Clarksdale in the first place. We get background and history of all the supporting characters, and we learn the lay of the land as Smoke and Stack travel all over to get the necessary people to help open the joint. Sinners is an enriching experience as Coogler lays the groundwork for the themes and character arcs and pays them all off beautifully. The cinematography, era-accurate costuming and production design, and outstanding score by Ludwig Göransson assist in immersing us in everything that is happening. You eventually feel like you’re a character in the movie. You’ve lived in Clarksdale, you’ve danced at the juke joint, and you’ve stood on the frontlines of the defense of the vampires.
Sinners touches on a lot of themes, many of which Coogler has worked with before in his previous films. Themes of Black lineage, Black trauma, and the history of racism in America add complex layers to this vampire film. It is also a film deeply rooted in music, specifically the Delta blues genre, but also music as a whole, and the gift and curse that comes with being an artist. The centerpiece scene of the movie, where Sammie starts playing his guitar and performing at the juke joint, features various types of musicians from Chinese musicians from hundreds of years ago to rock guitarists and hip-hop DJs of the ’80s and ’90s. It’s a dizzying, jaw-dropping sequence showing how music is intertwined and how it can transcend time, space, and race. It’s a masterful sequence that will surely be one of the best scenes I will see in a movie in 2025.
Sinners is a movie about duality and is itself a movie of duality. It looks at the duality of man, as we see the different personalities of Smoke, who is more serious and intense, and Stack, who is sly and quick, or how a character like Steinfeld’s Mary passes as white but has black ancestry. It’s about how humans have two paths in life, good and evil, and it’s what they do with those paths that dictates who we are in life. What is the price of evil? What is the price of making a deal with the devil? As a film, it’s a stellar, bloody-soaked vampire film and a passionate music film about the blues and the power of music. It’s a blockbuster that can be watched at face value or one where you can dive deeper. You can have a great time enjoying the music and all the blood, violence, and gore that comes with a vampire movie. Or you dive deep into the themes Coogler brings up and be amazed by his masterful filmmaking and the sublime performances by the cast, particularly Jordan, Lindo, and O’Connell. But regardless of how you view the film, you will be rewarded by watching one of the best young filmmakers in Hollywood today working at the highest level possible. Sinners is an astonishing film and one of the very best of 2025.
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