Title: Sinners
Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:
HOMER: You have to kill the *head* vampire.
LISA: You’re the head vampire?
MARGE: No, I’m the head vampire!
LISA: Mom?
MARGE: I do have a life outside this house, you know.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Hey, at least the vampires aren’t racist.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 5 eight-ball jackets out of 5.
Tagline: “Dance with the devil.”
Better Tagline: “Maybe never invite anyone in your house. Ever.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: The twin Moore brothers, Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) have just returned to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Fresh from Chicago, with funds most likely ill-gotten, the two are there to open their own juke joint. Recruiting many of their old friends and family to help, the opening night looks to be a great success. That is, until the powerful guitar playing of their cousin “Preacher Boy” (Miles Caton) draws the attention of Remmick (Jack O’Connell), an ancient vampire who loves music almost as much as he loves tearing out throats.
“Critical” Analysis: Sinners is writer/director Ryan Coogler’s fifth feature film, and his first non-IP regulated story since Fruitvale Station, his acclaimed 2013 debut (the other three efforts are Creed and both Black Panthers). All of his films have been critically lauded, but it’s safe to say that Sinners is far and away his best movie to date.
Where to start? Probably with the actor who’s been in every one of Coogler’s projects, Michael B. Jordan. Jordan’s career has always been far more than Adonis Creed or Killmonger (RIP, Wallace), but he and Coogler have a very creatively productive collaboration. Smoke and Stack aren’t diametric opposites, which would offer more chances for capitol-A Acting, but wouldn’t be realistic. Instead, Jordan’s portrayal highlights their similarities while shading them both.
Stack is the slicker, more ebullient brother, while Smoke is serious and business-oriented. Both were soldiers, which comes to bear both against the undead as well as in the movie’s … let’s call it “viscerally satisfying” denouement. Call it a gimmick if you want, but Jordan makes both brothers distinct and complicated characters.
Both have also left baggage behind. Trouble may or may not be following them from Chicago, but Stack’s former paramour Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) is still hanging around, and unwilling to let him off the hook (at least, until she learns the very real — and very heartbreaking — reason he left). Smoke’s former relationship, with Annie (Wummi Mosaku), the local “root lady,” is sorrowful for different reasons. Not for nothing, the BAFTA-winning Mosaku is one of the film’s high points.
The acting is top-to-bottom excellent. Newcomer Miles Caton, as the son going against his pastor father’s wishers, carries much of the film’s emotional weight. Delroy Lindo’s bluesman Delta Slim is a superlative performance in a career full of them, while O’Connell makes Remmick truly frightening: a monster who isn’t mindless, and worse: likes to play with his food.
One big theme in Sinners is the power of music, and how it can connect the physical world with the spiritual (for all the good and bad that entails). There are two musical set pieces (among many other vignettes) that are so incredibly powerful, it’s difficult to pick the best one. The first, featuring Preacher Boy’s virtuosity (“I Lied To You”), is a hallucinatory masterpiece. The second is a nightmarish interpretation of “The Rocky Road to Dublin” by Remmick and his demonic sidemen. The former is inspirational and triumphant, the latter? Nightmarish and sinister. Juxtaposed in tone and affirmation, yet equal in commanding your attention
Both songs encapsulate Sinners’ overarching theme of danger and alienation. Yes, this is a movie with horror elements, but it’s reductive to call it a “horror movie.” Ryan Coogler brings these elements to this story set in the Jim Crow south to amplify the everyday horrors present for those who lived it. The vampire angle is just an supernatural magnification of the predatory horseshit any marginalized community could recall from their own experience.
Sinners is some of the finest and most self-assured filmmaking in recent memory. Drawing from Ryan Coogler’s own recollections of growing up in Mississippi, it speaks to experiences I can never fully comprehend, but he tells the story in such a way that anyone can relate. Its heartfelt, suspenseful, horny, gentle, funny, terrifying, and riveting — all often within the span of seconds. This is one I’ll be digesting (and revisiting) for a long time. A stunning accomplishment.
Ask A 15-Year Old:
RFTED: What was your favorite part. And don’t say, “When Michael B. Jordan took his shirt off.”
15-YO: Stack’s reaction when he heard Preacher Boy sing for the first time.
RFTED: Yeah, that was pretty great.
Sinners is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
