A new juke joint in the prohibition-era Mississippi Delta is besieged by vampires on opening night in Sinners, now playing in Prague and cinemas worldwide. This masterfully-crafted film from director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) elevates the From Dusk Till Dawn template to high cinema, and contains some unforgettable musical sequences and a pair of dynamite performances from Michael B. Jordan—but the climactic horror elements feel far too conventional for the outstanding period drama they follow.
Sinners stars Miles Caton as Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore, who returns to his father’s chapel in the film’s opening scene covered in blood and carrying the splintered remains of his guitar. He seems to be the only survivor of a night of terror—and this opening flash-forward, along with a prologue that references creatures from Irish folklore, sets an ominous tone that lingers over the rest of the film, but won’t be fully realized until halfway through the movie.
Sammie works by day as a sharecropper in the cotton fields but has ambitions of becoming a blues musician. He gets his chance the morning before Sinners‘ cold open, when his twin half-brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) pick him up to play guitar at their brand new juke joint, financed with money and booze stolen from Italian and Irish mafia in Chicago, and opening that evening.
He’s not the film’s lead, but Jordan dominates Sinners with a pair of engaging and completely distinct performances. We can initially tell Smoke and Stack apart through the costuming—one wears a red hat, the other blue—but the unique energy Jordan brings to each quickly distinguishes them. Few actors this side of Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers have created such fully distinct characters in dual identical roles.
Before opening for the big night, Smoke and Stack recruit some additional assistance in the form of suppliers Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo Chow (Yao), cook Annie (Wunmi Mosaku)—who happens to Smoke’s estranged wife, and an expert in the occult, bouncer Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller), and pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo). Stack’s former lover Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson), who catches Sammie’s eye, also show up for the grand opening.
Halfway through Sinners, the film (literally) raises the dead with its musical showstopper: Sammie’s much-awaited debut performance, a one-take toe-tapper that blends past and present musical influences as the camera swirls through the juke joint to reveal African drummers and an electric guitarist. In IMAX cinemas, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s widescreen lensing expands to fill the frame as composer Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack accomplishes a similar feat aurally, filling our eyes and ears in what will undoubtedly be one of cinema’s standout scenes of 2025.
It’s so good, in fact, that it completely shifts the film’s narrative as a trio of vampires led by Rennick (Jack O’Connell) are attracted to the good vibes and request entry to the juke joint. They play a memorable rendition of the folk song Pick Poor Robin Clean in an attempt to gain an invite, but Smoke and Stack are aware of the kind of trouble these patrons may pose—not because they’re vampires, but because they’re white. The vampires stick around outside anyway, and start turning anyone who leaves the joint, resulting in a memorable rendition of Wild Mountain Thyme and an eye-popping Irish jig.
Sinners features the usual vampire movie lore—sunlight, garlic, wooden stakes—but these characters have yet to see Tod Browning’s Dracula, so Annie has to dig past the Bram Stoker basics. In films like Fright Night or Let the Right One In, the vampire’s need to be asked inside is a central metaphor for the main character inviting evil into their lives. Here, it’s just another trope to be assimilated into the narrative, and feels especially silly contrasted against the grounded nature of the rest of the movie.
In something like From Dusk Till Dawn, it’s fun when the characters scramble to figure out how to defeat the vampires and use their knowledge to survive the night. Sinners accomplishes this sense of fun, in a similar manner. But the film had been operating at a different level before the climax, as evocative and distinct in musical and period detail as the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?
As much of a bloody good time the finale might be, it’s inevitably a little disappointing to see Sinners take that turn; a pair of epilogue sequences—one involving the Ku Klux Klan, another set in the 1990s and starring blues legend Buddy Guy as Sammie—hint at more interesting directions the story could have taken. But Sinners is still a lot of fun, and nothing can detract from the dynamite musical numbers that highlight the movie. This is the kind of original, auteur-driven film that cinemas are starving for, and deserves all the critical praise and box office success coming its way.
