Sinners (2025)

Originally published in Wildcat Weekly on April 25, 2025

I can’t tell you what genre Sinners belongs to.

Often, that’s a problem for a movie; it’s a sign the film lacks cohesive vision, that it doesn’t know what it wants to be, do, or say. But Sinners, while ambitious and chock-full of ideas, has no such struggles. Ryan Coogler’s latest work is a supernatural musical historical horror-drama, which sounds like too much but is instead much too startling, moving, and entertaining to falter. There’s something in Sinners for everybody, but without ever feeling rounded off or broad. It’s tight, it’s intense, it’s an original sensory feast.

It’s the best movie so far in 2025. I’m not sure anything else is close.

After absconding from Mississippi to work for gangsters in Chicago, twins Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan) return with money, liquor, and a vision: to open a juke club at the old saw mill. After purchasing the property, recruiting the transcendent musicians Preacher Boy (Miles Caton) and Slim (Delroy Lindo), and rallying support and interest around town, the community joins forces and has the place hopping on opening night. But when Preacher Boy’s performance draws in malevolent forces, a war breaks out between the townsfolk and folk-singing vampires hell-bent on destroying what Smoke and Stack aim to build.

I’m serious when I say there’s something in this for everybody. Sinners is a period piece, and the costumes and hairstyling both are marvels. The Ludwig Göransson score, like his from the Black Panther movies and Oppenheimer, evokes time and place despite modern sensibilities, and the musical performance by Caton really does play like it might disentangle the fabric of reality. Jordan’s performances are sharp and separate, while Coogler and his team vividly render the world of Clarksdale, presenting its thriving and collaborative community while always keeping the Jim Crow tension and bigotry visible in the frame.

With that incredible foundation established, Sinners is free to be so many seemingly disparate things. In one scene, Jordan somberly visits a grave and attempts a reconciliation; in the next, he drives burning stakes into a snarling vampire. Both work. Coogler engineers incredible horror sequences, timing cuts for maximal dread, but he renders loving glances and heart-wrenching anguish with the same precision. When Sinners momentarily melts into a time-bending music video, there’s spellbinding technical achievement afoot; when it becomes a shoot ‘em up war film, the combat is clear, the rage palpable, and the action gripping. I’ve mentioned the impressive cast already, but Sinners features superb performances up and down the card. Saul Williams, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jayme Lawson all play secondary roles wonderfully and memorably, and I especially loved Jack O’Connell as Merrick, the folksy vampire who preys on the community with promises of a better “life” and a small guitar.

At just over two hours, Sinners does incredible things within its reasonable runtime. That Coogler’s film drew a diverse spectrum of emotion out of me, everything from over-the-shoulder fear and fist-pumping thrills to three occasions of earned tears, says it all. Whatever you could want from a film, Sinners has it—and probably has it in spades.

At the end of the day, what Sinners is might be elusive, but who cares? What matters is this: it’s awesome.