Sinners is directed by Ryan Coogler, and the cast includes Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo.
I went into watching Sinners knowing the hype, and knowing how good most people thought it was. This normally ends up in disappointment, as the hype never really lives up to my expectations, but in Sinners, it did, and exceeded them.
*Spoilers Ahead*
There’s a moment about halfway through Sinners when everything I thought I understood about the movie suddenly changed. It wasn’t a plot twist in the usual sense, as it was deeper than that. It was like the movie quietly took off a mask it had been wearing and revealed something far stranger, and far more powerful underneath.
That kind of moment is rare. It’s also risky. A lot of films that try to change gears halfway through stumble, but Sinners doesn’t, and it transforms with such confidence, such purpose, that I just sat there in silence, staring at the screen, thinking: Oh. This is what we’re doing. And I’m all in.
Directed and written by Ryan Coogler, Sinners begins as a gritty Southern period drama. The setting is Mississippi in the 1930s, dusty, hot, and humming with tension. Twin brothers Smoke and Stack return home after years in Chicago, carrying money, big dreams, and a complicated past, and they want to open a juke joint, not just a club, but a place where people can gather, dance and feel free.
Both brothers are played by Michael B. Jordan in what might be the best performance of his career. It’s easy to say that when someone plays two roles, but Jordan goes beyond that. He builds two fully realized people with distinct voices, body language, and inner lives.
Stack is the dreamer, the businessman, the one who thinks they can outrun their reputation, while moke is quieter, more haunted, but just as determined. They’ve hurt people. They’ve lost people. And now they want something to call their own.
For about an hour, Sinners stays grounded, with some brilliant world building, where we meet the people who shaped the twins past. It’s a slow burn, full of long conversations, loaded glances, and a deep sense of place. The juke joint isn’t just a building; it’s a promise. A middle finger to a system that wants them invisible, and a rebellion built on rhythm and soul.
And then Remmick shows up.
At first, he’s just a strange white man in suspenders, polite to the point of discomfort. He asks questions that go too far, and he stays too long. Then people start to go missing, before they come back, but they’re not the same. And suddenly, you realize what kind of movie you’re actually watching.
Remmick is a vampire.
And here’s what makes this shift work so well: it doesn’t feel like a twist, or a break from reality. It feels like a revelation, like the film was always a horror story, it just waited until we were comfortable to show its teeth. The supernatural horror blends into the historical setting so smoothly that it starts to feel symbolic, because, in a way, it is.
That’s what Sinners does so well. It uses horror to explore power, control, and survival. Remmick offers the twins something that’s hard to refuse: eternal life, and a way to fight back against a world that will never stop coming for them.
He tells them, “They’re coming for you tomorrow. You know they are. But I can make you stronger than them.” And in that moment, the film stops being about monsters and starts being about choices. What do you give up to stay alive? What do you become when you’re tired of running?
Coogler doesn’t shy away from the racial and historical weight behind those questions, either. He weaves them in through details, like the man who sold the twins their building turning out to be a Klansman. Like the raid that’s being planned. Like the way the townspeople look at the juke joint as both a miracle and a threat. The horror works because the real world is already dangerous.
Visually, the film is stunning. The production design is textured and alive. You can feel the heat of the day, the weight of the night, the pulse of music spilling out into the street. The club is shot like it’s sacred ground, and maybe it is, as it’s a place where people come to feel like more than just what the world has labeled them.
One of the the best scenes in Sinners is a “garlic test” scene It’s tense, quiet, and full of dread. The music stops. The lights dim. And suddenly, people who used to be friends are looking at each other like strangers. It’s a brilliant piece of suspense and a reminder that horror doesn’t need to be loud to do its thing.
Music plays a major part of the film, too, with the score handled by Ludwig Göransson, who has worked with Coogler before on multiple projects. The music is not just part of the atmosphere of the film, it’s the heart of the story. The songs, the rhythms, the dancing, they’re all woven into the characters lives in a way that feels honest and deeply rooted. Watching it, I never felt like the music was there just to set a mood, it was the mood, and it told its own story, often saying more than the dialogue did.
Through Sammie, the young guitarist who finds himself torn between the church and the club, we see how music becomes a bridge between generations. His guitar connects the old and the new, and there’s this beautiful moment when he starts playing with Delta Slim, and it feels like something bigger than either of them.
As the crowd begins to dance, there’s a shift, it’s not just entertainment anymore, it’s healing, and it’s freedom. For a few minutes, The Joint becomes something sacred. It’s alive. It’s powerful. It feels like everyone in the room is connected by sound, by history, by hope.
But what makes that scene even more powerful is the tension that surrounds it. The Blues, as a genre, carries weight. It’s full of joy and pain, love and loss, and it lives in a space shaped by both Black expression and white exploitation.
There’s a line Delta Slim says that really hit me: “White folks like the blues just fine, they just don’t like the people who make it.” That line stayed with me. because it’s not just about music, it’s about how Black culture, time and time again, has been borrowed from, watered down, sold, and profited off by people who never had to live the stories behind the songs.
Coogler doesn’t tiptoe around that. He walks right into it. He embraces the complexity of it, and he makes sure we feel it too. And what I appreciated most was that he doesn't just point out the problem, he reclaims the space. He centers the story around Black voices, Black lives, and Black history. It’s not about erasing pain or pretending the past didn’t happen, it’s about saying: This is ours. This always was ours, and he lets the music speak that truth.
To me, that’s what made the film so powerful. It reminded me that even tropes, those familiar images and ideas we sometimes roll our eyes at, can still hold truth, if they come from a real place. And like music, what matters is how you use them. It’s not about whether something has been done before. It’s about how you do it, and in Sinners, Coogler plays every note like it matters. Because it does.
If there’s a weak spot in the film, it’s that the second half moves a bit too fast. Once the vampire attacks begin in earnest, some of the character depth gets pushed aside for action. The scenes are well done for sure, but I missed the longer, quieter moments that gave the first half so much heart.
I also found myself wanting more from Remmick. He’s chilling, yes, but he never quite reaches the level of psychological horror I was hoping for. I kept waiting for him to lose control, to show us what’s really under that calm smile. but the film holds him back a bit.
But, that's just me being a bit picky, because overall Sinners is a remarkable achievement. It’s one of those rare films that dares to be multiple things at once: a character study, a historical drama, a supernatural thriller, and a social commentary, all without feeling like it’s juggling too much. It’s bold, emotional, strange, and beautiful. It takes big swings and, for the most part, hits them clean.
Ryan Coogler has made something that feels urgent and timeless. It isn’t just about vampires, it’s about what it means to survive in a world that wants to bleed you dry. About the cost of hope. About how music, memory, and family can be both your shield and your weakness. And maybe, just maybe, your salvation.
Sinners is a great film, and I don't say that often, and a film I will watch many times more, so do yourself a favor and go and watch it if you haven't seen it yet, you will not be disappointed.
It's a film that will be discussed in great detail and great depth for many years to come, because it's a movie that has so much going for it, and I suspect someone will write a 10,000 word essay on it at some point and still not mention everything the film represents.
It's that good.