“Sinners”: The Most Unconventional Blockbuster of 2025

Ryan Coogler, the visionary behind “Black Panther,” has unleashed “Sinners,” a film that storms into global cinemas with audacity. The story follows twin brothers, both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, who, after stints as soldiers and gangsters, return to their Mississippi hometown to open a bar. A blues musician’s electrifying performance catches the attention of an Irish vampire lurking nearby, setting the stage for a cinematic triumph that marks a pinnacle for its creators.

There are moments at a live rock concert when a guitarist’s solo, a vocalist’s wail, and a drummer’s primal rhythm converge to plunge the audience into a trance—a near-mystical state where music becomes a portal to another realm, eclipsing reality. Cinema rarely achieves this, but Coogler’s “Sinners” is a radiant exception.

For the 38-year-old director and his close friend and creative counterpart, Michael B. Jordan, this film is a defining moment. Their careers soared in 2013 with the low-budget “Fruitvale Station,” which won both jury and audience awards at Sundance. That emotionally charged indie drama, not without its manipulative edge, foreshadowed the Black Lives Matter movement, transforming a story of police violence against African Americans into a near-activist manifesto.

In 2015, Coogler found his stride in auteur-driven blockbusters, reimagining Hollywood’s sacred “Rocky” saga with the unexpected spin-off sequel “Creed,” again starring Jordan. By 2018, a seismic shift occurred: Coogler’s “Black Panther,” with Kendrick Lamar’s music and Jordan as the magnetic antagonist Killmonger, proved a comic-book film with a Black superhero could conquer the global box office. Its sequel, “Wakanda Forever,” lacked the late Chadwick Boseman, Jordan’s character (who perished), and Lamar’s score, and failed to replicate the original’s sensational success.

Undeterred, Coogler went all-in, pitching Warner Brothers an original script for a high-budget blockbuster set in the American South of the early 1930s. Jordan seized the opportunity to play dual lead roles as the twins Smoke and Stack.

World War I veterans, hardened by both European battlefields and Chicago’s criminal underworld, the brothers return to their small town with a suitcase stuffed with cash. They purchase a former sawmill warehouse from a burly racist and swiftly transform it into a juke joint. The staff—musicians, bartender, and bouncer—are drawn from old friends and family.

Naturally, Smoke and Stack harbor hidden motives, but their plans are disrupted—not by police, rival gangsters, or even the Ku Klux Klan, which makes an appearance, but by vampires. These bloodsuckers, having evaded Native American trackers, descend on the bar’s patrons, eager to feast on the crowd gathered for drinks and live blues.

In plot and its two-part structure, “Sinners” echoes Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s “From Dusk Till Dawn.” Yet Coogler’s film, while matching that drive, is less visceral and exuberant, instead delving deeper and smarter. Its final ten minutes, a sort of epilogue, lean closer to Jim Jarmusch’s vampiric romance “Only Lovers Left Alive.”

Coogler enriches the indie-vampire postmodern canon not just with scale—bolstered by a hefty budget—but with a distinct sense of place and time. Set in the Mississippi Delta during the height of Jim Crow laws, the film’s authentic backdrop of blood-soaked streets and cotton fields transforms Coogler’s invented vampirism from a cinematic conceit into a fantastical yet plausible reality.

Some viewers may accuse the filmmakers of racism, pointing to white vampires preying on African Americans as propaganda rather than art. But “Sinners” is far from simplistic. The title refers primarily to the twin gangsters, who have spilled their share of innocent blood, but it extends to other marginalized groups, including impoverished Irish immigrants who make impeccable vampires (and are ghouls any worse than mobsters?). Aside from episodic Native Americans, capable of tracking ancient evil but quietly retreating from an uneven fight, nearly every character in the film bears some stain of sin.

Coogler, however, sidesteps moralizing. His leitmotif is a fierce demand for freedom, a need so powerful it can reshape ethical boundaries and human nature itself. From minor sins like drinking, dancing, extramarital affairs, or playing “unsuitable” music, it’s a short step to drinking blood, a local preacher warns. Yet that act might grant victims immortality and liberation from social norms and oppression.

This could have faltered as a hollow concept if Coogler aimed solely to make a film about 1930s American racism or vampires. But “Sinners” is also one of the most breathtaking music films in recent years.

The opening scene sets the tone: a young man in tattered, blood-soaked clothes, fresh scars marring his body and face, stumbles trembling into a church during morning service. His father, the pastor, embraces him, urging him to release the “instrument of sin”—a guitar, now reduced to a splintered neck. This introduces the film’s central conflict: when good and evil blur, and only religion offers fragile guidance, where does music lead a sinner—to damnation or salvation? For Mississippi’s former slaves and their descendants, guitar songs were weapons of emancipation, yet early blues, thematically ambivalent, feature flawed, tormented, unhappy protagonists—anyone but saints.

The setting in 1932 is deliberate, tied to a town from which Robert Johnson, a blues genius and founder of acoustic blues, departed that year to wander, never returning. His death in 1936 birthed the “27 Club.” Legend claims Johnson sold his soul to the devil for unparalleled guitar mastery; his name graces every list of history’s greatest guitarists. Naturally, the twins’ younger cousin Sammy (a breakout role by Miles Cayton), who writes haunting songs and performs with mesmerizing guitar accompaniment, is a nod to Johnson’s legacy. Cayton authentically sings and plays himself.

The film’s most electrifying scenes revolve around music performed on-screen, each executed flawlessly. One stands out: Sammy’s guitar solo in the juke joint, where the melody magically expands the old barn’s space, collapsing time. African ancestors join with percussion, unborn descendants add electric guitars and DJ turntables, and the roof ignites with the music’s fire. Shot in a single take on film, this bold, inspired sequence showcases cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who, collaborating with Coogler for the second time, proves herself a singular talent.

Despite Michael B. Jordan’s doubled charisma, “Sinners” is an ensemble piece. Hailee Steinfeld, who debuted in the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” and has since pursued a music career (which serves her here), shines. British actor Jack O’Connell leads a vampire reel to Irish folk with flair, while Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, and Spike Lee veteran Delroy Lindo deliver magnetic performances.

One name in the cast demands special mention: Buddy Guy, likely the last living titan of classic blues, who played alongside Muddy Waters and inspired Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page. His role is small but pivotal; revealing more would spoil the experience. Viewers should stay through the credits and the post-credits scene.

At 88, Buddy Guy, still touring and running his Chicago blues club, was personally persuaded by Coogler to join the film. The endeavor nearly failed—Guy hadn’t been to a movie since “Jaws”—but his grandchildren, fans of “Black Panther,” convinced him to sign on.

A key collaborator, Coogler’s longtime composer Ludwig Göransson—winner of four Grammys and two Oscars for “Black Panther” and “Oppenheimer”—is a lifelong blues devotee. Named almost after Albert King (his mother’s love for Beethoven won out), Göransson crafted a transcendent soundtrack. He penned expressive original themes and assembled a roster of stellar musicians, creating an album that feels like instant classic.

Miles Cayton’s soulful voice as Sammy contrasts beautifully with songs by Jayme Lawson, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jack O’Connell. These share space with Buddy Guy’s stunning covers and originals, alongside contributions from electronic artist James Blake, Alabama Shakes’ fiery Brittany Howard, rapper Rod Wave, and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell. Behind the scenes, solos by young blues guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and drumming by Metallica’s Lars Ulrich elevate the score.

Such powerhouse soundtracks for films seemed extinct—too costly and complex. Yet Göransson delivers a producer’s miracle, akin to staging a legendary tribute concert.

What, then, is “Sinners” truly about? Life itself is sin, and pretending otherwise is futile. As Jarmusch taught, there are only two paths: zombie or vampire. Music, that undeniable force of sin, offers a middle way.

It can preserve youth, grant immortality, and transcend moral divides, momentarily blurring good and evil. One can live a long, nearly endless life not as a vampire but as a bluesman. Buddy Guy’s relentless tour, guitar in hand, infecting new generations with the incurable virus of musical freedom, is proof enough.