Sinners Review
review
✦
review ✦
There’s nothing simple about Sinners. What starts as a period drama set in 1930s Mississippi slowly unravels into something darker, stranger, and far more mythic. Because of that, it’s also one of the most original American films in recent years—and one that refuses to be easily categorized.
Sinners (2025) Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
A Genre-Bending Southern Gothic That Dares to Be Original
In Sinners, director Ryan Coogler delivers a haunting, genre-defying Southern gothic that boldly blends period drama, supernatural horror, spiritual metaphor, and musical storytelling. Set in 1932 Mississippi, the film follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), war veterans who return home to open a juke joint—a space for community, joy, and survival amid the suffocating realities of Jim Crow.
But in this film, the danger they face isn’t only systemic racism or economic instability. Soon, strange figures appear at night. People disappear. Blood flows. And what begins as a poignant return home turns into a vampire invasion, anchored in themes of power, survival, and exploitation.
Coogler doesn’t just juggle genres—he reorients them around a Black cultural lens that rarely gets this kind of sprawling cinematic treatment. Sinners dares to start slow, asking the audience to soak in its atmosphere and character relationships before tilting toward the fantastical. When the horror finally arrives, it feels earned—and all the more terrifying because of the emotional foundation Coogler builds first.
World-Building Through Sound, Setting, and Soul
The juke joint at the center of Sinners isn’t just a backdrop—it’s a living, breathing organism, pulsing with music, sweat, memory, and longing. This place, lovingly rendered through warm cinematography by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, becomes both a sanctuary and a battleground.
Ludwig Göransson’s score is another revelation. Blues, gospel, and rock opera swell and twist into something spiritual and otherworldly. Music in Sinners feels more like contributions to its reality-adjacent lore. It calls forth ancestral power. It warns of danger. It binds characters in ways dialogue never could. In particular, the character of Sammie (played by newcomer Miles Caton) uses music as a literal conduit between the seen and unseen, his performances blurring the line between sacred ritual and supernatural awakening.
The film’s fictional world feels historically rooted and yet spiritually expansive—pulling from the very real horrors of the Jim Crow South while weaving in Southern Black folklore, ancestral memory, and elements of supernatural myth. This blending gives Sinners a timeless quality that makes every second matter.
Duality, Power, and What It Means to Survive
At the heart of Sinners is a story about duality: two brothers split not just by temperament, but by how they respond to a broken world. Smoke is measured, loyal, and wary of power. Stack is charming, impulsive, and increasingly drawn to danger. Their dynamic becomes the emotional spine of the film, and Michael B. Jordan handles the dual roles with nuance. In scenes where the brothers clash—over the running of the juke joint, over family loyalty, over how to fight back—the tension is both intimate and epic. Outside of those brief clashes, they’re essentially wrestling with generational trauma, survival tactics, and the seductive nature of power itself.
The arrival of vampirism (led by an Irish vampire named Remmick) brings the film’s metaphor into full view. And outside of being deemed as monsters—they’re also symbols of exploitation: invaders drawn to Black joy, creativity, and resilience, hungry to consume and control it.
But Sinners resists simple binaries. Vampires can be charming. Mortals can be complicit. And the line between resistance and revenge becomes increasingly blurry as the film unfolds.
Performances Ground the Myth
Despite its mythic scale, Sinners is a deeply character-driven film, anchored by an exceptional ensemble. Jordan is magnetic in both roles, creating two fully distinct personalities while letting their shared history bleed through.
Miles Caton is another standout as Sammie, the brothers’ young nephew. With quiet intensity, musical sensitivity, and eyes that seem to carry generations of hurt, he becomes the film’s emotional center. His presence gives the film a softness, a spiritual pulse that elevates every scene he’s in.
Wunmi Mosaku (a complete scene-stealer) brings dignity and quiet power as a community matriarch, while Hailee Steinfeld and Delroy Lindo round out the supporting cast with gravitas and layered performances. No one here is a side character—everyone feels vital to the emotional ecosystem of the story.
A Blood-Soaked Hymn to Resilience
Ultimately, Sinners is about survival—not just in the physical sense, but cultural, spiritual, and generational. The characters are haunted by what’s been taken from them: land, autonomy, safety, and in some cases, even their bodies. But what Coogler emphasizes isn’t the tragedy—it’s the refusal to surrender.
That’s where Sinners hits hardest—not in its bloodshed, but in its beauty.
Score: 9/10
Sinners is bold in form, rich in meaning, and exactly the kind of risk cinema needs.
