Sinners

“Sinners explores intraracial conflicts, showcasing the diversity of Black Americans.”

Title: Sinners (2025)
Director: Ryan Coogler 👨🏾🇺🇸
Writer: Ryan Coogler 👨🏾🇺🇸

Reviewed by Deborah Mouton 👩🏾🇺🇸

Technical: 5/5

In one of the year’s most impactful films, Sinners redefines what’s possible in the horror genre. Director Ryan Coogler crafts an original story that combines the traditional vampire-movie tropes with a new look at the Black American South. Twin brothers, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), return to Mississippi from Chicago to start a juke joint with their younger cousin and music prodigy, Sammie (Miles Caton). When a band of white musicians offers to play in their club, the film quickly shifts from the twins chasing ambition to an all-out fight for their lives.

Jordan brilliantly captures the different nuances between the brothers—a key hurdle, as he often plays opposite himself. And while the first half of the film’s pacing leaves audiences searching for the vampires teased in the movie’s trailer and marketing, the latter half kicks into another gear, full of bloody battles and the sharpened canines that audiences seem to crave.

The film is cinematically stunning. From long shots of cotton fields to the juke joint’s inner sanctum, every shot feels drenched in the cultural shifts of the 1930s, uniquely portraying sharecropping culture. The film uses the Mississippi Delta as a crash site for several cultural shifts during this period, combining elements of rural fieldwork, the Great Migration, mobster-style machine guns, and immigrant life—all in a way that feels cohesive and grounded by its rich sense of place.

Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Viewers are introduced to Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), both love interests to the leading twins. In a fairly one-note role, Mary is a white-passing woman who was abandoned by Stack when he left to chase money up North. But Smoke’s counterpart, Annie, has a bit more depth.

Deeply rooted in Mississippi, she’s a Hoodoo medicine woman who uses elixirs and herbal pouches for protection. She also has an emotional backstory: Annie and Smoke shared a child who passed away, seemingly shattering their relationship. During the vampire attacks, she’s the level-headed conscience of the group. Often sensing things before they happen, Annie attempts to warn others. When she’s disregarded, and chaos descends on the juke joint, Annie still offers logical suggestions while others merely panic. Both women hold their own versions of power, but narratively speaking, they exist only as motivations and foils for the leading men.

Race: 5/5
Sinners’ predominantly Black cast showcases the diversity among Black Americans. Characters have a wide range of perspectives through which Coogler explores intraracial conflicts: the Black church’s wariness of jazz music, as seen in musician Sammie’s defiance of his father and pastor (Saul Williams); and Hoodoo’s African and Indigenous roots—exemplified by Annie—contrast with Christian characters.

Annie lighting candles (left) and Sammie entering his father’s church (right)

The film also takes the time to consider how other people of color were intertwined with Black history. A Chinese couple, Bo (Yao) and Grace Chow (Lin Jun Li), run the local general store with their daughter, Lisa (Helena Hu). They put a face to the fact that Chinese immigrants were present in the South in the 1930s. More than just background characters, Bo and Grace take on important roles defending themselves and others from vampires.

Even white characters are carefully crafted to symbolize the visible and invisible threats to Black lives. Villains like vampire leader Remmick (Jack O’Connell) try to steal the blues and soul music from juke joint patrons, conveying the commodification of Black culture for white consumption. Landowner Hogwood (Dave Maldonado), on the other hand, presents a physical threat to Black bodies with his plans of murder. Through this multilayered writing, every character serves a deeper purpose and amplifies the film’s meaning.

Bonus for Body Diversity: +1.00

Annie is played by Mosaku, a dark-skinned woman with a larger body than Hollywood’s usual female leads. Stack deeply loves Annie, and the two share a tasteful sex scene that challenges Hollywood’s rigid beauty standards that typically only show thin people as sexually attractive.

Mediaversity Grade: A- 4.83/5

Sinners blends Southern culture, jazz and blues, and stunning cinematography into a satisfying and unexpected horror film. Along with other genre films from the last decade, such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) and Us (2019), and Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021), Coogler cements his place alongside other Black storytellers who are expanding the way horror films make critical social commentary.

Like Sinners? Try these other films written or produced by Ryan Coogler.

Grade: ALiDecember 10, 2025Great for: Technical, Great for: Race, Great for: Body Diversity