Director Ryan Coogler returns to the big screen with the new vampire horror film titled “Sinners,” Coogler’s fifth film. “Sinners” follows 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
This film features Michael B. Jordan playing two different roles – Smoke and Stack, twin brothers living in 1930s Mississippi, near the end of the Prohibition Era.
Jordan has appeared in every film Coogler has directed: “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed,” “Black Panther” and its sequel, and now “Sinners.”
Additionally the cast features Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Miles Caton as Sammie Moore, and Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim
Following their participation in World War I, the Smoke Stack twins travel to Chicago and obtain a significant amount of money and liquor from Irish mobsters before eventually returning to Mississippi. They use their newfound money and liquor to open a black-owned juke joint.
They purchase land and an old saw mill from a white man and inform him that if any of his Ku Klux Klan buddies tries to cause trouble, they will get shot right where they stand. The white man who sold them the building tells them that there is no Klan anymore, which is a lie.
A big aspect of the film is the Mississippi Delta blues. After recruiting their cousin who plays the blues with a guitar Sammie (portrayed by Miles Caton) and a man on the street named Delta Slim (portrayed by Delroy Lindo) who plays the harmonica, they establish their newfound juke joint..
The night starts off successfully with a sizable crowd attending the joint.
***many spoilers beyond this point***
At one point, a trio of white folk try to gain access to the joint but are turned away because the brothers do not trust them. Steinfeld’s character, who also happens to be white, decides to approach the trio and see what their deal is. When she returns to the joint she is acting different and eventually it is revealed that she was bitten by the white trio and subsequently becomes a vampire.
Steinfeld’s character lures Stack into a private room under the guise of a sexual encounter. She proceeds to bite his neck and drink his blood, causing him to temporarily die.
Smoke and his cousin realize what has happened and decide to cancel the party and send all the people home. Unfortunately this backfires as once the attendees leave the venue they are picked off one by one by the white vampires who lurk outside the venue.
The vampires in this film follow the classic folklore rules of vampires and specifically cannot enter a building unless they are explicitly invited. This rule is seen when the character Cornbread (played by Omar Benson Miller) repeatedly asks to be allowed reentry into the juke joint despite having previously gone in and out many times without needing permission.
As more and more characters get bitten, The vampires try to explain to the remaining human characters that becoming a vampire allows them to live forever outside of the laws and restrictions of humanity.
The vampire aspect of the film is intertwined with the way in which race is portrayed in the film. The human Black characters and the human white characters have unspoken conflict as a result of historical circumstances. However once bitten and turned into a vampire, these racial differences seem to dissipate as white, black, and Asian vampires exist harmoniously with each other.
Eventually, the sun rises and most of the vampires succumb to natural causes because vampires are not able to live in direct sunlight. The only human characters who remain at this point are Smoke and his cousin Sammie.
As the sun rises, the white man who sold the property returns alongside various members of the Ku Klux Klan. Smoke utilizes his military prowess to massacre every last Klansman before eventually succumbing to his injuries and reuniting in heaven with his love interest, Annie (portrayed by Wunmi Mosaku).
Fast forward to 1992 and Sammie has had a very successful music career playing the blues. As Sammie sits at a bar, modern day vampire versions of Jordan and Steinfeld enter the bar and inform him that they have been watching over his career. They ask if he wants to live forever and he informs them that he has lived long enough.
The film wraps with a post credit scene of Sammie playing the blues all alone in his father’s church.
This film is very well made and provided a stellar theatrical experience for myself and my friends. The cinematography is fantastic and the set pieces really bring out the 1930s atmosphere of the film.
The acting is also phenomenal with Jordan executing a great performance of two different characters. The talent is seen as each character he plays is very distinguished from each other.
The rest of the cast puts on a phenomenal performance as Hailee Steinfeld portrays a believable representation of a southern white woman from the 1930’s. I also want to point out the performance given by Miles Caton. “Sinners” was Miles Catons first film ever and his performance as both an actor and a musician blew my expectations out of the water.
Many publications have sung praise for “Sinners” with Time Magazine calling it “extraordinary horror entertainment” and the film currently holds a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ultimately Sinners is the best film I have seen in 2025 and is arguably Coogler’s best film so far. From the stellar acting to the realistic set pieces, Sinners has every ingredient in the recipe to create a fantastic cinematic experience.
