It’s safe to say the United States is in another period of uncertainty across cultural, sociopolitical, financial, and even environmental spheres. The current presidential administration continues undermining and repealing anything that has to do with racism, homophobia, and the like. From destroying DEI policies across a boatload of different professions to insistence that “wokeness” towards race and LGBTQ+ groups is a cancer in America’s identity—that of Christian, white nationalists—President Donald Trump is intentionally dividing the nation with meaningless cultural battles to make big bucks. In his America, slavery was an embarrassment meant to be covered up; transphobia, racism, and other forms of xenophobia remain, with any mention of its existence now void of importance. Director, writer, and co-producer Ryan Coogler, whether he thought of the U.S.’s current trajectory or not, offers a near-perfect antidote in Sinners, using the very same hatred and evil that in-power politicians and larger social groups relish, to craft a beautiful piece of love, compassion, and resilience.

Sinners is a phenomenally crafted fantasy horror-thriller that muddies the lines between the evils of man and vampire to sinfully blurry degrees. In the Mississippi Delta, 1932—AKA, Jim Crow South —criminal twins Smoke and Stack, collectively known as the “Smokestack Twins” (both played by Michael B. Jordan), return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi after a seven-year stint in Chicago, working for notorious gangster Al Capone. Couriering heaps of cash from an undiscussed, massive robbery, their return sends shivers through their hometown as they promise to open a juke joint for Black sharecroppers and the Black Clarksdale community as a whole. They enlist their musically gifted little cousin, Samuel “Sammie” Moore (Miles Caton), whose raw talent for blues music is so powerful that the souls of the past, present, and future come together to listen. Enlisting other unique Clarksdale characters to staff the joint—from Smoke’s estranged, Hoodoo practitioner wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a shopkeeping Chinese couple, a drunken musician and a big-boned sharecropper—the Smokestack Twins buy a farmhouse from the Grand Wizard of the local KKK branch (unbeknownst to them), and create an electric atmosphere of musical mesmerization and almost magical freedom. They quickly find, however, that Sammie’s music is so powerful that an ancient vampiric evil—led by Irish charmer Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his similarly soulful Irish tunes—arrives to turn the bar’s guests and workers into bloodsucking monsters. Through vampire action balanced with heartfelt drama and vivid verse, Sinners explores culturally shared trauma, different kinds of bonds, pain, unrelenting hatred, religious fear, and the healing power of music as a group grows in the face of seemingly endless repression.

Sets, costumes, and accents all firmly reel viewers into a world of Southern culture almost a century ago. Finely tailored black-and-gray suits adorn every businessman, the wealthy women clad in form-fitted summer dresses, and the less fortunate workers wander in their overalls and hay hats as hardily constructed automobiles clunkity-clunk by and molasses-like southern accents drawl. While Southern charm runs amok, lightening the otherwise intense burden of fatal discrimination, the Smokestack Twins’ return to Clarksdale turns the colorful scenery into a landscape of terse stares and isolation. While now in their leather-pressed hats, overpriced matching suits, and hidden holsters, racism marches on and around the twins’ plans: “There ain’t no Klan no more,” Hogwood (David Maldonado), the secret Grand Wizard and farmhouse seller, assures the twins, only after he’s spit on their new property twice in disrespect. Black people are still kept in shackles, just not physically; no real money, no real clothes, and no real lives unless they steal it for themselves.

Fortunately, thanks in large part to Jordan’s tenacity in distinguishing between the two, Smoke and Stack are equal parts tough and charming, balancing each other out whenever either one gets into racially charged conflicts: “The best part of me is him,” Smoke admits to his wife at the juke at an intense moment. Together, they faced impossible odds, charging down the white-favoring system to get insanely rich and give back to others under the white man’s thumb: “For a few hours, we was free,” Stack says later, reminiscent of the powerful atmosphere his and his brother’s joint once emanated. The rest of the cast also deserves praise—Steinfeld is fierce in her anger and hurt towards Stack as he continues pushing her away to supposedly “… keep you safe”; Mosaku as Annie is both stern towards Smoke’s crime-driven flakiness and in her firm support for him through Hoodoo, even if it “couldn’t work for our baby”; O’Connell as Remmick is conniving, charmingly deceptive and almost equally relatable, as he seduces the protagonists with promises of “equality,” Irish-African historical kinship, and Earthly paradise—but it’s Jordan’s prowess in the role, Miles Caton’s pure talent, and the culturally charged connections between music, spirituality, good vs. evil, and morality that make Sinners so special. At every turn, what’s being said can be superimposed into a larger historical significance, like with Remmick’s promise of belonging: “I am your way out. This world already left you for dead. Won’t let you build. Won’t let you fellowship. We will do just that. Together. Forever,” he calmly spits out. His false promise of “fellowship,” charged by shared history between Irish forced labor and African slavery, works two-fold. While Remmick may very well mean his words, like Chicago, Smoke finds Remmick to be “… nuthin’ but Mississippi [hate] with tall buildings instead of plantations”—Remmick is just another false prophet delivering eternal suffering and control. The twins already came back down to Clarksdale to deal with “… the devil we know,” so why deal with a new devil promising ideas too good to be true? Whether dead or alive, every dynamic and interaction is chock-full of such complexities. Combine that with breath-stealing songs from Cadon on an old guitar, superb transitions between different genres and tones, and gory vampire delight, and Sinners delivers an impeccably layered, intense action-thriller.

Thus, Sinners is not only very entertaining but socially necessary. Ryan Coogler, in his first entirely original creative project, demonstrates his graceful strength as a filmmaker, delivering one of 2025’s most memorably insane films born purely from his wit and will. There’s good reason why Sinners continues receiving smatterings of award nominations and a few wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, and Actor Awards; Sinners is creative, picturesque, deliberate, funny, tragic, horrifying, musical, spiritual, action-packed, and above all, emboldened by its ensemble in translating how sad (and unnecessary!) violence and hatred is. With a little bit of every genre thrown into one—and deliberate technological manipulation to demonstrate tonal shifts—Sinners is sure to please film lovers, vampire diehards, Ryan Coogler obsessives, cast fans, and blues music enthusiasts alike. There are a few moments when the script surprisingly dulls, but those are brief enough for the rest of this bite-worthy masterpiece to flourish. Sinners is not just a must-see but also an essential reminder of why current political trends must remain temporary: evil, of any and all kinds, has no place in America.

Screens Saturday, 1/17, 2:00 p.m. @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Presented by Brookline For The Culture