Sinners (2025)

Five out of five. No complaints whatsoever. Sinners is a fantastically made film that everybody needs to see, and I say that as someone who went in with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score setting an unfairly high bar.

The setup: Ryan Coogler — Creed, Black Panther — gives us twins, both played by Michael B. Jordan, moving back from the city to their small hometown in 1932 to open a blues club. Then vampires show up and everything falls apart.

Temper your expectations on the vampires

Strip away the allegory and the symbolism and this is a vampire movie, but the vampires don't turn up until the second half. Know that going in. The entire first half is character work and dynamics, and it earns every payoff in the final ten minutes. None of those moments land even half as hard without that patience. When the vampires do arrive they're genuinely cool — great gore, and one third-act action scene that's breathtaking.

Coogler is completely in control of the camera

This is the thing I keep coming back to. There are long stretches about blues music — people singing, dancing, playing — that in any other director's hands would read as pretentious or just out of place. Here they build the tone and the characters. The one-shot where Miles Caton plays the blues in the club is one of the most breathtaking scenes in the film. In the finale it feels like Coogler is physically forcing your eyes to stay on the screen.

The score is the best part

Ludwig Göransson (Tenet, Black Panther, Oppenheimer) has done one of his best scores yet. I haven't seen a director and composer this in tune since Chazelle and Hurwitz on Babylon. I will be shocked if it doesn't win Best Original Score.

Performances

Jordan is outstanding in the dual role — the brothers act similar but the motives and mannerisms are distinct, and he sells that. The standout, though, is Miles Caton as the younger cousin. This is his first ever movie and he stands toe-to-toe with Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld.

Stay for the mid-credits scene

The whole runtime I kept thinking this is really good but waiting for the secret ingredient. It's the mid-credits scene where everything finally clicks and ties the film together. Do not miss it.

Shot on IMAX film cameras. I saw it in IMAX and that final fight would not hit the same anywhere else.