Here’s one of 2025’s critical darlings. Sinners is an impressive take on the horror genre, written and directed by Ryan Coogler. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jack O’Connell.

B. Jordan has a double role as twin criminal brothers in 1930s Mississippi Delta. Upon returning to their hometown, they face supernatural forces and enter into a musical world of life or death battles.

Wild Mountain Thyme and Plenty of Sinners

Set in 1932, the plot follows identical twins and WWI veterans Elijah (nicknamed Smoke) and Elias (nicknamed Stack). Michael B. Jordan plays both characters. Returning to hometown Clarksdale, Mississippi after seven years away as gangsters, they buy a sawmill and hookup with their younger cousin Sammie (Miles Caton).

Sammie is a gifted blues guitar player and singer.

The trio decide to open the sawmill as a juke joint, whilst recruiting musicians from the local town to work at their new establishment. As you’ll be able to tell from the below scene, Sinners has a slow burner of a pace that focusses on characterisation.

As that plot plays out, the Irish immigrant Remmick (played by Jack O’Connell) hides from vampire hunters with a Klansmen couple. He turns them into vampires, too, with his charismatic but deceitful ways. Whilst also sporting some impressive Irish folk music knowledge.

Folk music plays a huge part in the film, with the vampire troop sporting a mighty fine set of lungs and musical skills. After they stop performing, Coogler layers the film’s score over the rest of the scene (excellent bit of directing).

Along the way there are many elements of dark humour, as seen in cult classic 1999 jaunt Ravenous. That film also has a recurring banjo musical theme.

But blues music and Irish folk really hone down the Sinners experience, a film driven along by its musical motifs. The soundtrack has won many plaudits as a result. Swedish composer and musician Ludwig Göransson worked on the score

The plot winds itself around to a full-blown From Dusk till Dawn (1996) type conclusion, with townsfolk and vampires beating the crap out of each other in confined quarters. It was directed by Robert Rodriguez, who Coogler has said is a major inspiration for his work.

However, Coogler’s script covers much more advanced themes, such as cultural commentary, racism, and segregation. From Dusk till Dawn is a more daft and played for laughs, so Sinners is something of a clever overhaul of that concept.

The usual bunch have claimed sinners is the “woke” From Dusk till Dawn. Kind of a dense stance to take, as always, this time given the inherent campness of Robert Rodriguez’s film. It’s ludicrous (in a fun way) with its homoeroticism etc., but don’t let that get in the way of cherry picking your complaint points.

Anyway! Yes, then, Sinners is a fine film. The cast is terrific and the use of music often brilliant, with the first hour being a fantastic bit of characterisation and plot development.

Even if the conclusion wanes a bit (it did for us, anyway), there’s still plenty to enjoy here over the first 90 minutes. Not least the brilliant directing and cinematography, plus that newfound lust for blues music you’ll take from its run time.

The Production of Sinners

The film has been a big talking point in 2025 and is regarded as one of the top 10 best of the year. That’s reflected by its box office, where it earned $367 million worldwide off its $100 million budget. It’s had loads of nominations for awards (Golden Globes, National Board of Review, American Film Institute etc.) and we’re certain it’ll get a bunch at the Oscars.

It was shot from April to July 2024 on 65mm film, which is why it has such a great look. Everything was filmed out in New Orleans.

Sinners has been widely celebrated for its themes around the great migration. See Andrew Lawrence’s Sinners piece on the highs and lows of the Black experience:

“The Black and white framing might sound heavy-handed in passing, but that’s only because films have traditionally presented it in reverse. Coogler, though, doesn’t just flip the script. He suffuses it with deep cultural and historical context. He shows how Black Americans manage to find happiness in spite of the false choices they’re presented to carry out their lives – in this case through the story of the great migration.”

That nods in to the fantastic Questlove documentary Summer of Soul (2021), which also depicts overcoming racism through musical creativity.

Coogler’s influences were the previously mentioned From Dusk till Dawn, but also Rodriguez’s other film The Faculty (1998). Elsewhere, he took inspriation from No Country for Old Men (2007) and the ever inspiring Fargo (1996).