Sinners ★★★★

Released: 18 April 2025

Director: Ryan Coogler

Starring: Michael B Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell, Hailee Steinfeld

“I want your songs. I want your stories,” purrs Jack O’Connell’s Remmick—a vampire with an appetite for more than just blood—in Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s gory, genre-bending dive into the supernatural South. His target is Sammie (Miles Caton), a gifted blues musician and son of a stern pastor who once warned him that music invites the devil. Under Coogler’s writing and direction, that warning becomes a horrifying truth.

Set in the 1930s, infamous gangsters, the Smokestack Twins (Smoke and Stack both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi following a stint in Chicago. The pair are set on opening a juke joint in the space of one night and are keen to call in favours to make it happen. They’re building something defiant: a sanctuary of sound and celebration where Black culture can thrive amidst the crushing existence of Jim Crow laws. The brothers spend the day collecting the necessary components for an impressive grand opening. This includes Sammie – their impressionable cousin, charismatic harmonica player Delta Slim (a superb Delroy Lindo), and Smoke’s ex-girlfriend Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a cook and hoodoo healer with whom he shares a tender, yet painful past.  

The film’s opening hour unfurls at a leisurely pace, with cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw expertly bringing into focus the world of these characters – sprawling cotton fields worked by sharecroppers, chain gangs labouring at the roadside, and a bustling town where Chinese immigrants are part of the community. With such captivating world building, you could be forgiven for forgetting the abrupt turn the narrative is destined for. 

Night falls, and the juke joint transforms into a raucous hive of sweaty, sultry rhythm. Paired with Ludwig Göransson’s simmering, blues-tinged score, Coogler conjures an atmosphere that feels euphoric and electric. Showcasing the ingenuity that has solidified him as one of our most vital filmmakers, he frames Sammiel’s singular talent as something transcendent—a portal that reverberates across the shifting tides of time, the past conversing with the present, echoing into a future shaped by all that has gone before.

All building towards a rip-roaring second act, where the juke joint transforms into a kind of holy battleground. As any student of vampire lore knows, the undead must be invited in. Remmick and his newly turned victims arrive cloaked in charm and goodwill, but they seek to cross the threshold, not just to feed, but to infiltrate. They offer immortality, but what they take is far more insidious: the lifeblood of culture itself. It’s a bold metaphor for cultural appropriation and the long history of who gets to profit from Black creativity. Coogler deftly balances the sincerity of this critique with an escalating series of events that goes full throttle into Day of the Dead-like horror, while playfully flirting with musical elements (vampiric Irish jig, anyone?). It shouldn’t work. Sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s delightful to behold. 

Given the vast thematic tapestry Coogler is stitching, Sinners occasionally struggles under the weight of its own ambition. By crafting two sharply distinct halves, the fusion is impressive, but it leaves the arcs of Samuel, Annie, Smoke, and Stack feeling slightly compressed. It’s not that they lack development; rather, the first half builds them so richly that there is a sense they could’ve soared further. 

Throughout his career, Ryan Coogler’s films have always made an impact. Fruitvale Station brought a piercing social realism, Creed marked the rejuvenation of an iconic franchise, while Black Panther stood as a jewel in the crown of Marvel’s success, redefining what a blockbuster could be. With Sinners, Coogler delivers a crowd-pleasing spectacle that reminds us what’s at stake when a culture fights to protect its voice. In swinging for the rafters, we’re treated to a brilliantly original story that isn’t perfect—but that’s beside the point. Coogler has proven himself a visionary, and he’s earned the freedom and resources to tell his stories exactly how he wants to—for as long as he wants to.