Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)

[hearthesilence]

The baffling thing about him is that he's actually a talented writer. With a dullard like, say, Svet Atanasov, the edgily "controversial" takes are pretty much the only thing that's ever going to catch anybody's eye, but White is perfectly capable of writing high-quality pieces if he was ever that way inclined.

There's a theory that at some point, he decided to become a troll, something that gained credence when he got thrown out of the New York Film Critics Circle for obnoxiously heckling Steve McQueen at their awards ceremony.

I've posted this before, but the one time I saw him in public was when he moderated a discussion with the New York Film Critics Circle at BAM for this program. You couldn't believe it was the same person.

[nicolas]

The film’s DP hinted at variable aspect ratios coming to the Blu-ray.

[Maladroit Aggregator]

Is this the first feature to have a credited “Emotional Support Coordinator”?

Oh muh god, these people can get SO fucked

They never would have survived the 1970s as a child. Every day (in real life, not on a film set) we roamed around town, got offered drugs by bikers, called crackers by black kids, chased by skinheads, nearly run down by hillbillies in F150s... our parents were nowhere to be found, no one looked out for us, and yet, we all survived into normal adulthood.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Is this the first feature to have a credited “Emotional Support Coordinator”?

Oh muh god, these people can get SO fucked

They never would have survived the 1970s as a child. Every day (in real life, not on a film set) we roamed around town, got offered drugs by bikers, called crackers by black kids, chased by skinheads, nearly run down by hillbillies in F150s... our parents were nowhere to be found, no one looked out for us, and yet, we all survived into normal adulthood.

You know your adulthood doesn’t seem that normal if you’re choosing to use your free time trying to conjure up rage baiting posts to gain attention from strangers online, possibly as a way to compensate for mommy and daddy not being there for you, also who’s offended by cracker nowadays, I can guarantee far worst stuff is being said in high school (heck middle school) cafeterias then that, maladroit such. Anyways do I think it’s a tad silly, yes, but if you’re making a film with a primarily black cast based at least a little on topics of racial prejudice (so I’ve heard, not watched the movie yet) which is still a very big problem still for a lot of minorities, especially black people, then perhaps it would be wise to have someone there if it brings up unpleasant feelings or memories in someone during production.

[swo17]

Barry Jenkins talked about this role in his Underground Railroad commentary. Like, if you acted in a brutal rape or murder scene there would be someone available to talk to to ensure you didn't internalize the experience too much.

But yeah, these are the people ruining the world currently

[hearthesilence]

Spoiler

I can’t be the only one who think its odd that the racist whites are singing Irish folk songs, right? Weren‘t the KKK anti-Catholic?

I have mixed feelings about that part of the film myself, but FWIW, Coogler had this explanation for it:

Spoiler

“I’m obsessed with Irish folk music, my kids are obsessed with it. My first name is Irish. I think it’s not known how much crossover there is between African American culture and Irish culture and how much that stuff’s loved in our community,” Coogler said. “It was very important that our master vampire in this movie was unique, and as specific as the situation was. It was important to me that he was old, but also that he came from a time that pre-existed these racial definitions so that he would be extremely odd, and that it would all seem odd to him. But also that he would see it for what it was and offer a sweet deal, if that makes sense. And that the music was just as beautiful.”

[thirtyframesasecond]

The more I think about the film, the funnier I think it is.

Spoiler

Cornbread trying to come back in and asking for his money; Rimmer being so upset when they cut his song off and he says we're just going to slowly walk away. Jack O'Connell was great in this

[therewillbeblus]

I thought this was a fine, messy movie. Coogler is at his best in the first act, which feels borderline-novelistic in its deliberate pace and for how it imbues a strong sense of mystery and world-building at once. The second act was good too, especially the musical sequences, but they tried to fit a lot into a short timeframe - Hailee Steinfeld's arc needed more to earn its intended emotional payoffs, and the character development in general felt cut short just when it was blossoming - that includes all the fun side characters, who were memorable even with just a few lines. And that brings along the main problem: This film establishes itself as an epic and never delivers on its promise. The narrative structure of an uninvited surprise coming into these characters' lives is emulated by a jarring second-to-third act transition that doesn't work very well, and so the film is defeated by its own climax. pianocrash's Avengers observation is apt, and Jack O'Connell isn't given enough to work with to pull off an engaging villain in a film with these ambitions, even if he's effectively creepy earlier in the movie. I was surprised that the film had the spine to

Spoiler

gruesomely kill off all its female characters with what felt like closer, harsher attention than the male ones

if only for how it contributed to this vicious dog-eat-dog worldview, breaking through the fantasy of sustained success for people of color. I also liked the juxtaposition between "the real" (some on-the-nose stuff here for sure, especially when they just name that in the mid-credits sequence - about music, sure) way of resilient living for black folks and the vampire cult's allegory for a collective attitude of surrender breeding relief, which would do no good but takes the pain of living harshly away. In that sense, the cult emulates an addiction mentality that's a bit nuanced from vampirism's traditional addiction metaphors, and the way they're portrayed reminded me of Doctor Sleep's depiction of its own vampire-y group, in a good way - slightly campy with serious ideas behind it, making it believable if not entirely formidable for the story being told

[Red Screamer]

My experience was basically inverted, I thought the vampire stuff in the back half was handled with some creativity and genre muscle — if we have to have these hammering allegorical horror movies, at least they should have comparable smarts behind their metaphors. The stakes of inviting the vampires in, for example, were milked dramatically in a few different ways, including for some good humor, as mentioned above. Meanwhile, I found the set-up in the first half dramatically inert and confusing; so many speeches back and forth without well-defined characters or visual oomph. And Michael B. Jordan is borderline silly in these scenes with a very artificial performance that suits the film better when the genre elements come to the fore. The musical sequence people highlight as being particularly ambitious is an impressive feat of sound design, but it juts out from the rest of the film and never gets integrated back in any satisfying way beyond general thesis-delivery. Plus, I'm not sure it really communicates how much you love the blues if you interrupt a blues song one minute in with a voiceover explaining the genre's cultural significance. Overall, the movie's fine, but the hype of a return to well-made studio films is, as usual, overblown.

As for the Elegant Dandy Fop's complaint, I saw the set-up as:

Spoiler

the vampires are an assimilationist force that promises an exterior peace in exchange for profiting off the group's culture and lifeforce. Which is a separate problem from the Klan, who just want to segregate and kill. Jack O'Connell's Irish vampire, it's awkwardly implied, took this exchange deal in the distant past, which is why his culture has been assimilated, and he now seeks to do the same to others. The Irish folk music is supposed to be the equivalent of blues for black Americans (if we saw excerpts of the film's world in between the body of the film and the coda, maybe we'd see a Rolling Stones-esque vampire blues group making millions off of the genre). It's easy to read the vampires as Coogler's commentary on his Black Panther experience: liberal-facing supporters of "equality" who just want to exploit the trends of identity politics for big corporate profits and then move on. Like a number of black pop stars, his solution outside of these two options seems to be independent black capitalism — Michael B. Jordan says "black-owned" with a gleam in his eye at some point — represented by the juke joint, a small business that builds community while making money.

[hearthesilence]

I'm not sure it really communicates how much you love the blues if you interrupt a blues song one minute in with a voiceover explaining the genre's cultural significance.

I remember Richard Brody correctly pointing out how poorly it played when Seb (Gosling's character) explained jazz by doing exactly the opposite of what he was arguing for, which I think could have been fine if the film followed through and allowed the audience to do just that later on, but it never does.

I think it would have been better to allow the music to speak for itself, but I think a lot of people just want that info spoon-fed to them and the arguments to be hammered bluntly. Pains me to say this, but it's pretty much how a lot people respond to pop music if they find anything "important" about it, where the ideas are spelled out in big letters. Sometimes literally, where you go to a show and they project something as simple as a single word that everyone wants to hear.

[The Curious Sofa]

Spoiler

Using white vampires as a stand-in for white culture or the desire for whites for the simultaneous destruction and coopting of American black culture isn’t necessarily the most subtle metaphor. Also, I can’t be the only one who think its odd that the racist whites are singing Irish folk songs, right? Weren‘t the KKK anti-Catholic?

Spoiler

Once they've been turned, the black characters also join in with the Irish folk songs, implying that the vampires take on the traits of their Irish maker, who was not part of the KKK. Therefore, the two KKK vampires would not have sung Irish folk songs while they were human.

I've always enjoyed films that shift genres and thought this was a blast. It did a better job of making that transition than From Dusk Till Dawn, which unlike this, abandoned all the character development it had established once the vampire mayhem kicked in. The second act is one of the great party scenes of all time.

[ex-cowboy]

My thoughts too - an overall more enjoyable film than From Dusk and good fun once the action kicks in. But for me the best part was the build up and the development of the characters and milieu.The use of different aspect ratios (at least in the Imax version) looked great aswell. My one slight gripe with the early part of the film is the use of

Spoiler

two 'jump scares' in the first few minutes. They felt unnecessary and almost threatened to undermine the build up

[andyli]

I believe those genre clichés from the very start were thrown in to reassure the audience that they walked into the right film they bought tickets for, rather than some sequel to Killers of the Flower Moon or something. It’s like the director knows you would’ve spent the next half-hour sitting there wondering that.

One issue I have: I’m still struggling to deal with the dual-AR thing, even though quite a few films have used it nowadays. For now it’s simply a distraction to me. The thing is that I don’t buy the idea that each AR fits a certain mood, type of action, etc. How can an organically made film be that binary, easily divided into two parts that happen to be pegged to one of two frames, and keep alternating? If AR matters so much to the story they tell at each point, shouldn’t it be uniquely designed to fit each shot, therefore completely foregoing the idea of constant dimension? What the filmmakers, not just those specific to this one film, are doing now seems like a convenient compromise out of unwillingness to commit to the idea and push the boundaries.

[pistolwink]

This was such a hard-sell film. The first hour, where about as much happens as would happen in a 15-minute setup to most horror films, was luxuriated over with balls-to-the-wall Style, little of it inventive or impactful. I think of the long steadicam shot (or is it two shots?) that follows the mother and then the daughter as they cross the street from one storefront to another. The shot was done with the sort of self-conscious bravura usually reserved for the first minute of a film, or its climax, but here it serves to illustrate a perfunctory bit of exposition that would be mostly meaningless by itself (and probably eliminated altogether from most movies). For a little while all this Style generates a mild sense of portent—how could it not?—until you realize it's not really adding up to anything. People complain that mainstream films increasingly feel like trailers for themselves and this is probably the best (worst) recent example I could name.

I was surprised by the number of my female friends who liked this, given that the whole thing seemed to be written by a guy stuck in the mindset of a 14-year-old boy (not in a good way). None of the characters was exactly richly imagined, but the women in particular were insultingly drawn as sex-crazed vamps of one kind or another, defined almost entirely by their horniness for one of the male characters.

I also really, really did not like the insistently shallow-focus look of this, which was not limited to closer shots.

Folks who liked this must have a really different set of expectations for cinema than me, because I found it almost worthless. I can imagine a case being made for it as camp, since it is so insistently dumb, but it would be very tedious and elephantine camp indeed. Oh well.

[therewillbeblus]

I was surprised by the number of my female friends who liked this, given that the whole thing seemed to be written by a guy stuck in the mindset of a 14-year-old boy (not in a good way). None of the characters was exactly richly imagined, but the women in particular were insultingly drawn as sex-crazed vamps of one kind or another, defined almost entirely by their horniness for one of male characters.

As mentioned above

Spoiler

I was shocked by how gruesomely and casually the women were dispensed, compared to the men. There's a case to be made for this representing the harsh way women were treated in westerns, but still jarring on a narrative level

[erok910]

I thought this movie was pretty bad, personally. I don't think much was put into structure, character or themes. It felt like they were throwing stuff against a wall at a certain point in runtime. Which I totally understand artistically- it's just what he did, that was how he got it done- totally understandable. It was between this and nothingness. But I thought Jordan was mediocre, if not terrible, and the twin aspect obviously didn't help this, nor the film.

I think mentions of From Dusk in reference to this are generous at best. This guy can't make a B movie- I guess I may be wrong from a point of view because it is that by classical definition. In my opinion of course, he wasnt able to thread the needle on a drama version of his b movie vampire thriller musical either. I'm astonished at the reception, though. It feels like he is treated with kid gloves. I guess I just don't get it. I remember seeing Fruitvale in the theater and enjoying the minimalist drama- but didn't really dig that one either. It looks like a failing upward situation, but as said- hard to complain about a filmmaker doing his best. Hope his next is better, feel like I have been saying this to myself about Coogler every single movie. I just don't feel comfortable being harsh about it I suppose.

[pistolwink]

The way I figure it is, Black filmmakers, female filmmakers, etc. have no less right to make mediocre (or downright bad) films as many white male filmmakers have made and will continue to make. It's insulting to hold them to either a higher or lower standard.

[Murdoch]

This is the first film by Coogler I've seen and it is a big mess, but at least a beautiful one. The photography in this is stunning in parts and that's really what kept my attention the whole time.

Unfortunately the film devolves into a dumb action movie, and in a way that feels very unearned.

Spoiler

The sparring dialogues and musical interludes of the survivors inside and the vampires outside I found pretty captivating, and wish the film had stuck with that back-and-forth, hoping this would swell into some type of musical duet/battle between the two sides.

Instead we have a character commit the dumbest decision I've seen on film in some time by shouting at the vampires to come inside. While this is played as her being enraged that the vampires have turned her husband and the risk they pose to others in the town, it's still so head-scratchingly stupid that I wasn't willing to allow the film to bat it away with such a basic explanation for her behavior. Then the film devolves into a big brawl which makes no sense as the only person to show any fighting skills before this brawl is Jordan and given the number of vampires and their quickness, the fight really should be over as quickly as it began. Even more strange is that before this brawl the vampires are near impervious to bullets (I'm thinking primarily of Steinfeld sprinting away from Jordan twin's murder while being shot repeatedly in the back), yet during the brawl they're knocked around and stunned.

I think I'd be more forgiving of this if any of these characters were that interesting, but they all just are the basic outlines of characters outside of Preacher Boy, Annie and the Jordan twins. It all just feels like Coogler is trying to pack a TV series' worth of characterization into an hour. I felt no dramatic tension during the fight because I really didn't care about most of the people in the fight, plus Annie's death was telegraphed only a few scenes earlier.

The Klan aspect also felt very tacked-on to give some tension to Jordan surviving the night. They just appear at the perfect time and Jordan goes full action hero in killing them with every gun in his arsenal (even walking out straight into their gunfire to shoot at them?). If the Klan had been more of a presence, it would make sense, but they're not even in the film except the guy that sells the twins the property.

Plus the head vampire survived how many years yet he stands out in an open field just before sunrise while he monologues at Preacher Boy?

I actually find it fun picking the various plotholes in this film apart. But it's frustrating because there are parts of the film which are spectacular, like the music transcending time scene and the vampires dancing to Irish folk music. Definitely needed a few rewrites as there is a great movie in here somewhere.

[erok910]

I wasn't commenting on black filmmakers, just his films specifically. He reminds me of Rian Johnson, who I championed after seeing Brick in theaters when I was about 14. I made a huge mistake on that guy, I really don't like his films. They seem to get unbelievably worse while the reception seems to just get better.

Coogler seems similar in that it was just the wrong bet. I find it hard to be harsh on them because it seems like they are trying to make good movies, I just don't think they can. I could probably go moment by moment with this movie about why I didn't dig it, but I also am unsure of what good it would bring in terms of criticisms, and what I'd be criticizing beyond the obvious 'stuff I just don't like.' Cool that other seem to dig it, I just don't understand. But yeah, I definitely wasn't talking about his being black or anything. There may be something about virtue signaling in there, but I don't even think the film has that in its DNA- despite some claims praising or knocking it for that. Ryan Coogler can also say he meant certain things to be in there, but I don't see it. Reminds me of when Nolan talked about Frances Bacon's influence on The Dark Knight and the makeup and Schnabel telling me something along the lines of how "he can say whatever he wants. That's not what I saw."

I rewatched Sinners though, still didn't get much from it. Also reminds me of Dune- I guess I'll just keep rewatching it every once in a while if I'm curious to see if thoughts have changed on it. Really agreed with a lot of what Murdoch said though, succinct post in the spoiler section- it explains a lot of how I felt about it. I think I felt the film to be so aggressively mediocre that I don't really know what to say, because I don't feel like I understood what it was going for beyond being a mainstream movie. Sorry if there's a lot of bad English, second language here.

[pistolwink]

I think I was responding to some other comments upthread in re. black filmmakers. Or maybe a post went missing?

It's weird that so many people, including critics and filmmakers I respect, liked this one so much. I must be missing something, because I can't think of a single thing of value in it. The blocking, camerawork, editing, and individual performances were often downright incompetent, not to mention the insultingly jejune treatment of period and Black culture. Like I wrote above, the whole experience felt like being immersed in the mind of a not-too-interesting, extremely horny 14-year-old boy.

[The Curious Sofa]

Maybe it's because I mentioned Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot? Peele and Coogler are acclaimed black filmmakers who make mainstream genre movies that deal with the African-American experience who have been/are rebooting a classic sci-fi TV show.

Anyway, I don't get the hate for Sinners here, it's still my favourite Hollywood movie of 2025.

[MichaelB]

Anyway, I don't get the hate for Sinners here, it's still my favourite Hollywood movie of 2025.

Second favourite for me after One Battle After Another, but it's a decently close second.

Although I should caveat this by admitting that the number of Hollywood movies I've seen this year definitely doesn't hit double figures and might not even be much more than those two!

[bearcuborg]

Finally saw this in 70mm IMAX at the massive AMC Lincoln Center screen. I liked it more than some here, less than others. The frankness of the oral/clit sex scene was masterfully done. Delroy Lindo never disappoints. And Ryan was not afraid to show us natural light/shadows.

I didn’t appreciate the AR changes. But like most people, I really enjoyed the anachronistic music sequence. I was reminded of MTV-from Janet and Michael Jackson joy of dance, Missy Elliot and Hype Williams visual flair, and the social consciousness of Beyonce and Kendrick.

The mid credits scene was really cool - especially as someone who grew up in the Chicagoland area

Spoiler

seeing Buddy Guy brought a huge smile to my face.

[Perspexicon]

Finally caught up with this after seeing the avalanche of award nominations, and was fairly baffled. I don’t think it’s a terrible movie by any means, but it seems so self-evidently mid-at-best that I’ve had my biggest “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills” reaction in a while. A lot of critics I respect really like this, and I just don’t get it. So, it’s a big relief to see some of the more negative takes in this thread.

Others have raised many of the same criticisms I would, but something in particular that struck me is how specifically millennial-coded most of these characters feel in dialogue and characterization. These don’t seem like people from the 1930’s; they seem like people from the 2020’s inhabiting a 1930’s setting. Michael B. Jordan’s character(s) are probably the worst offenders in this regard, but I’d also add into this bucket basically everything having to do with women and sex. Others in this thread have used the word “jejune”, and that’s a fair characterization, but I think you could further specify this as representing a particular, contemporary form of jejunity – what some would call “porn-brained”.

[Altair]

I equally wasn't a fan, but I imagine Coogler knew what he was doing in having his characters speak and act in a contemporary way, rather than attempting to emulate or inhabit the 1930s: the setting becomes a dressing for the story he wants to tell - it's clearly not meant to be a rigorous recreation of its era, but a fantasia on the themes and ideas he's drawn to (whether that works is of course another matter).