Sinners Review

After proving he’s one of the best there is at directing a boxing film and a superhero movie, Ryan Coogler tries his hand at horror with the vampire period piece Sinners. And guess what? It turns out he’s great at that genre too.

Coogler’s first film since 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever takes its time getting to its supernatural side. Outside of a quick intro, it’s a solid 40 minutes or so before the vampire idea begins to creep into the proceedings, but that doesn’t mean the setup for identical twins Smoke and Stack’s homecoming isn’t compelling in its own right. The brothers (both played by Coogler’s frequent star and collaborator, Michael B. Jordan) and those they encounter in the town of Clarksdale, Mississippi circa 1932 are all characters worth investing in, including their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) and two women who have history with Smoke and Stack: Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku). As we meet these characters and see all the busy work that needs to be done to open the juke joint that brought Smoke and Stack back to Clarksdale, Coogler is setting the scene and continually proving it’s a scene well worth taking in.

And when the vampires finally strike, they’re awesome, too – and well worth the wait. They’re sufficiently creepy and bloodthirsty, but Coogler also leans hard into the idea that vampires, in many cases, are depicted as seductive, sexual creatures – and there’s an allure to joining their undead ranks. The vampires of Sinners share something of a hive mind. Amid all the racism and other senseless reasons humans turn on each other for – which Smoke, Stack, and their loved ones are especially familiar with given where they live – here is a society that moved beyond such petty hatred. If you’re a vampire, you’re accepted, regardless of your skin color. You only need to watch out if you’re not one.

Jordan lends his immense charisma to both Smoke and Stack, expertly conveying their well-earned toughness with the vulnerability it camouflages, all while giving the twins distinct yet subtle mannerisms that don’t feel overdone or forced. (Costume designer Ruth E. Carter helps further distinguish the brothers from one another thanks to the pops of blue Smoke wears, as opposed to the red Stack prefers.) Steinfield is wonderful and compelling in the many facets of Mary she shows off. She was hurt by Stack in the past, but she’s still drawn to him; Annie’s past with Smoke is complicated, too, which creates an opening for Mosaku to project a lot of inner strength in the role.

Even though we know the monsters are coming eventually, Sinners plays out as the kind of rug-pulling genre shift that can be both disorienting and incredibly exciting. (Its plot loosely shares a lot with another “vampires show up halfway in” movie, From Dusk till Dawn). What makes Sinners such a success, though, is that the first half absolutely gives the second half’s scary and sad events even more weight and consequences. Once you care about these people, it’s all the more terrible to watch some of them get taken down by a vampire’s bite.

From Fruitvale Station’s Oakland to Creed’s Philadelphia and Black Panther’s Wakanda, Coogler has proven adept at crafting a unique look, feel, and population for the settings of his films. Sinners’ vision of Clarksdale circa 1932 is no different: We get a terrific sense of the history there, thanks to Coogler and the wonderful work of production designer Hannah Beachler and director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw. (Though there’s not quite enough movie to fit in every aspect of the town that Sinners introduces: The uncertain fate of a supporting character’s family member is discussed, but never given proper closure, and a group of Native American characters seem like they’ll play a pivotal role in the story, only to never return.) For all its violence and frights, Sinners is a visually beautiful film, start to finish, and I highly recommend seeing Arkapaw’s vivid images on the largest screen you can find. There’s a gorgeous use of color throughout, whether it’s blue skies or orange flames – or red blood splattered everywhere.

In addition to the hemoglobin vampires crave, Sinners has music flowing through its veins, starting with the blues that Sammie and respected local musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) are hired to perform at Smoke and Stack’s place. Coogler uses this as a focal point for a larger look at how music means so much to people of all walks of life, bonding them across generations, even when they themselves don’t ponder the lineage at work. Remmick (Jack O’Connell), the charming and charismatic leader of the vampires, provides a fascinating parallel to all the amazing blues on the soundtrack: The Irish folk tunes of his ancestors factor into Sinners, too, in continually bigger and bolder ways.

You can’t quite label this a musical – no one spontaneously breaks out into song and dance to express some unspoken desire or hidden emotion – but it is musical adjacent. Its tour de force centerpiece is a performance in the juke joint, in which Coogler and Arkapaw execute an incredibly impressive, prolonged tracking shot that lets us both see and hear how music reverberates through time and immortalizes the people who make it. It’s a hell of a sequence that proves that Coogler would have a great movie here even without the vampire twist.

Sinners offers a coda that at first feels questionable, and then threatens to make this the type of movie that overstays its welcome. But the scene proves to be incredibly stirring, ending the saga of Smoke and Stack on a highly emotional note. Like Sinners as a whole, it’s a thoughtful, melancholy use of vampire lore. This is a remarkably effective take on an old mythology, filled with heart and pathos in a way that can sometimes be tricky to accomplish when you’re dealing with garlic-averse creatures of the night. While Coogler has continually proven he can tackle all sorts of genres, a return to horror would be welcome after this one.