Summary
Ryan Coogler blends southern gothic with a bold genre shift, delivering a tense, blood-soaked thriller that refuses to play safe.
If ever there was a film of two halves, it’s Ryan Coogler’s sultry southern genre bender. From the moment SINNERS opens—with a bloodied figure entering a church in the Jim Crow South of Mississippi—Coogler firmly establishes a sense of time and place. He also sets up a mystery, one he’s in no hurry to unpack. Like the blues music that runs through the film’s core, it’s unhurried, soulful, steeped in history, and digs deep into the roots to find something resonant in every lingering note.
When twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to their southern hometown after several years in Chicago—and with ties to one of the city’s more infamous gangsters—they have big plans. Intending to open a gin joint on the outskirts, they rope in their younger cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a preacher’s son with a gift for the blues. On opening night, a mysterious stranger, Remmick (Jack O’Connell), arrives with a band of musicians looking to play. But no one quite trusts them—and for good reason.
At first, SINNERS feels like a movie you’ve seen before. Coogler loads every frame with period detail and populates the world with figures from the brothers’ past, including old flames (Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmi Mosaku). A stretch of scenes with town shopkeepers Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo Chow (Yao) focused on low-stakes trades and dealings threatens to drift, but each piece serves a purpose. They all lead to one moment—a fiery visual collision of blues, African folk pasts and funk-drenched futures—that might be one of the most radical things Coogler has put to screen. And then, just as suddenly, he flips the table.
This is the part where most reviews would spoil the turn—some even in the headline. But part of the power of Coogler’s script lies in discovering exactly when and how it veers from sweaty southern gothic into something far more violent and otherworldly. It becomes a siege film, where the last few standing must battle something darker still.
If you’ve already pieced together where it’s going—or simply read about it elsewhere—you might find yourself briefly wondering whether Coogler has painted himself into a corner. At times, it feels less like the characters are fighting an external evil and more like they’re punching and shooting their way out of the film they’ve so carefully constructed up to this point.
Jordan’s dual performance helps ground these tensions, keeping the idea of duality—along with brotherhood, belief, fate—firmly in the audience’s minds. Steeped in music and mysticism, and shot with striking clarity on the expansive canvas of IMAX, Coogler’s touch ensures that SINNERS is anything but neutral.
Having gone from Fruitvale Station straight into the blockbuster arena with Creed and Black Panther, Coogler proves here that prestige drama and box office spectacle aren’t mutually exclusive—but they don’t blend without a bloody fight. Even after the climactic showdown, he still has a few tricks left up his sleeve. It’s a rare thing to be genuinely caught off guard by a film, and Coogler deserves real credit for making such bold, uncompromising choices.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Ryan Coogler | WRITERS: Ryan Coogler | CAST: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 17 April 2025 (Australia), 18 April 2025 (USA)
