APRIL 24, 2025 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Cate Rosenbaum
Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” came out Thursday, April 18, and by that Saturday, I already felt like I was missing out.
There’s obviously going to be hype around this movie — Ryan Coogler is known for making hits, such as “Fruitvale Station” (2013), “Creed” (2015) and “Black Panther” (2018) — but scrolling on my X (formerly Twitter) timeline made me feel like it was the weekend “Dune: Part II” dropped. Everyone was talking about it, and I wasn’t going to be left out of the conversation; my first stop back from Block Break was the movie theater, knowing nothing about what “Sinners” was about.
“Sinners” is currently making rounds on social media not only for the movie itself, but also the media coverage. It’s broken box office estimates and now holds the record for the highest-grossing opening for an original film this decade, making $48 million domestically opening weekend alone. The word “original” here is significant; there have been other films to have higher grossing weekends, but those movies were all based on existing intellectual property, such as “Dune II” and “Barbie.”
However, Ben Stiller called Variety out on X over their coverage of “Sinners.” The publication noted that while “Sinners” has had a successful opening weekend, profitability remains “far away,” given the film’s $90 million budget. Ben Stiller asked: “In what universe does a 60 million dollar [global] opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline?” Many on social media have pointed out that The New York Times used only positive language when covering Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” (2019) during its opening, compared to its more negative language for “Sinners,” with the headline “‘Sinners’ Is a Box Office Success (With a Big Asterisk).” Both movies had a $90 million budget and made over $40 million on their opening weekend.
However, these controversies might ironically work in the film’s favor, as they reflect the themes explored — particularly around Black artists’ relationship to making art for commercial audiences.
This film is a masterpiece of horror, both subverting genres and working well within its established tropes. The film takes place in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, following twin gangsters, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who return from Chicago to start a Juke Joint for their community.
Jordan excels in both roles. While many actors have played twins on screen before, Jordan distinguishes both characters as distinctly different and unique people; my favorite joke was that they finally cast Michael “A” Jordan in something.
Jordan has also been Coogler’s muse in the past, so it was exciting to see them work together again, especially since “Sinners” is Coogler’s first original work. Miles Caton plays Sammie Moore, also referred to as “Preacher Boy,” a young Blues prodigy who hopes to one day pursue music. This is Caton’s first acting job, and he learned to play the blues guitar in preparation for the role. It’s astonishing that Caton hasn’t acted professionally before, as he does a phenomenal job, and his voice is genuinely mesmerizing. Occasionally, movies that hinge around a character’s prodigy can fall flat if the actor doesn’t possess the same talent, but “Sinners” has none of those pitfalls when it comes to Caton.
One of the most brilliant subversions of the horror genre is the setup: Coogler spends nearly an hour with the characters before any horror or action really takes place. Horror movies often operate with more scare than care, where action and suspense is given more importance than the characters, leaving the audience with little connection to the people they see on screen. “Sinners” subverts this trope when it stays with the characters so long; the audience sees each character’s personality, relationships, hopes and wants before any of the action can proceed; the action that follows has much more weight. To be totally honest, I went in barely knowing what the movie was, and had no idea it was a horror movie, so the sudden turn to horror halfway through was a genuine delight.
However, the vampires – a shock for me – were one of the most tropey and most subversive points of the genre. They follow many traditional aspects of their mythology that many modern vampire stories tend to ignore. Robert Egger’s “Nosferatu” (2024) promised to be a subversion of the contemporary vampire, making it scary again, but I found myself disappointed in that movie, while delighted to encounter them in “Sinners.” Though the vampires act in the context of the 1930s American South, they act as a greater metaphor for the contemporary for artists within a commercialized industry, and Coogler handles them brilliantly. The vampires remain sexy and alluring, but never in an Edward Cullen way, and that makes them all the more terrifying.
“Sinners” also weaves between the light-hearted and the heavy beautifully, with genuinely deep and nuanced moments, and scenes dedicated purely to humor. I laughed out loud multiple times and almost cried at the movie’s end. It’s also quite raunchy and sexy; this isn’t a movie you want to see with your mom. It was also the last movie I expected to have Irish folk dancing. “Sinners” managed to be both an incredibly fun time and something that left me thinking deeply about American culture and its relationship to art and music.
And God, the music. It’s the heart of the “Sinners” story. In some ways, it feels like the movie acted as a philosophical debate in Coogler’s head. What does it mean to make art for your community if that art is also meant to make money? What is the relationship artists should have with money or greed? The twins, Stack and Smoke, operate as metaphors for these two viewpoints, and their stories are handled masterfully. The film portrays the Black experience, and surprisingly the overall experience of marginalization in America, in a way I’ve never seen handled in horror before. Coogler handles all experiences depicted with nuance and care, and it makes the movie ever more thoughtful and relevant.
But most of all, and the reason I jumped at writing this review: “Sinners” has one of the most unique, surreal and simply incredible scenes I have ever seen in a movie before. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s magnum opus worthy. I had chills throughout the entire sequence. This is one scene that should be seen in theaters, and I hope everyone that can, will experience it. You’ll know it when you see it. Given that Academy Members are finally required to watch every movie nominated in a category before voting (this seriously wasn’t a rule before?), this might be the scene that convinces the Oscars to finally give horror its flowers. “Sinners” certainly deserves it.