Sinners (2025 film)

Sinners is a 2025 American horror film produced, written, and directed by Ryan Coogler. Set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta, the film stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as criminal identical twin brothers who return to their hometown in the Jim Crow South, where they are confronted by a supernatural evil. It co-stars Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton (in his film debut), Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, and Delroy Lindo.

Coogler began developing the film through his production company Proximity Media, with Jordan cast in the lead role. The project was announced in January 2024, and after a bidding war, Warner Bros. Pictures acquired distribution rights the following month. Additional roles were cast in April. Principal photography took place from April to July 2024. Longtime Coogler collaborator Ludwig Göransson composed the film's score and served as an executive producer.

Sinners premiered on April 3, 2025, at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City, and was theatrically released in United States on April 18, 2025, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received critical acclaim and was a commercial success, grossing $369 million worldwide against a budget of $90–100 million. In addition to this, the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute listed it among the top ten films of 2025. Sinners garnered several awards and nominations, including a record sixteen nominations at the 98th Academy Awards, and thirteen nominations at the 79th British Academy Film Awards, with Coogler winning the award for Best Original Screenplay at the latter. It also earned four wins at the 31st Critics' Choice Awards, two wins at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards (including Cinematic and Box Office Achievement) and five nominations at the 32nd Actor Awards (including Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture).

Plot

In 1932, identical twins and World War I veterans Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack" Moore return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after spending seven years in Chicago working for the Outfit. Using money stolen from criminal syndicates, they purchase a sawmill from landowner Hogwood to start a juke joint for the local Black community. Their younger cousin Sammie, a singer and guitarist, joins them despite his pastor father Jedidiah's warnings about the sins of blues music.

The twins recruit pianist Delta Slim as a performer, local Chinese shopkeeper couple Grace and Bo Chow as suppliers, field worker Cornbread as a bouncer, and Smoke's wife Annie as a cook. Annie believes her Hoodoo practices kept the twins safe, but Smoke doubts them for not preventing their infant daughter's death. Stack runs into his ex-girlfriend Mary, whom he abandoned to protect her from the White community. Elsewhere, Irish-immigrant vampire Remmick shelters from Choctaw vampire hunters with a married Klansmen couple, whom he turns into vampires.

On the joint's opening night, Sammie, Delta Slim, and Pearline – a singer with whom Sammie becomes enamored – perform on stage. Sammie's music is transcendent, unknowingly summoning spirits of performers both past and future to join the crowd. However, the performance also attracts Remmick and his vampires, who offer money and music in exchange for entry. A suspicious Smoke refuses. The twins realize that their patrons' reliance on company scrip makes it impossible for the joint to be profitable. Reasoning with Stack that outside income is necessary, Mary steps outside, only to be turned into a vampire by Remmick. Returning inside, she seduces and fatally bites Stack. A shocked Smoke shoots Mary, but she is unaffected and escapes. Outside, Remmick turns Cornbread.

Smoke closes the joint early; as the patrons and Bo leave, the vampires turn them. Stack revives as a vampire, but flees after Annie repels him with pickled garlic juice. Annie realizes their assailants are vampires and tells the survivors how to deter and kill them. Although Remmick and his vampires share a hive mind, their personalities remain intact.

Still unable to enter the joint unless invited, Remmick tries to negotiate by inviting the survivors to join him, saying that vampirism offers immortality and freedom from persecution. He promises to leave in exchange for Sammie, whose musical skills he wants to use to summon the spirits of his lost community, also revealing that Hogwood heads the local Klan and plans to attack the joint at dawn. They refuse, and Remmick threatens to attack the Chows' daughter Lisa at their home.

Enraged, Grace invites the vampires into the joint, and a fight ensues. Grace, Bo, Annie, and Delta Slim are killed, while Mary escapes and Remmick turns Pearline. Smoke fights Stack and then assists Sammie in defeating Remmick and the remaining vampires, who are all incinerated by the light of the sunrise. Smoke sends Sammie home before he kills Hogwood and his men, but is fatally shot. He reunites with Annie and their daughter after dying. Meanwhile, Sammie disregards his father's pleas to seek salvation and travels to Chicago.

In 1992, an elderly Sammie, now a successful blues musician, is visited by an ageless Stack and Mary at his local blues club. Stack reveals that Smoke spared him at the joint on the condition that Sammie live in peace. After declining the couple's offer of immortality, Sammie admits that despite being haunted by that night, until the violence, it was the greatest day of his life. Stack wistfully agrees, since it was the last time he saw Smoke or the sun, and the only time they were all truly free.

Cast

Production

In January 2024, an untitled period film from writer, director and producer Ryan Coogler was reported to be in development through his production company Proximity Media, with longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan cast in the lead role. Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Universal Pictures were in a bidding war to acquire the distribution rights to the film, which carried a budget of around $90 million. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. greenlit the film with a production budget of $80 million, but the final budget climbed to $100 million. In exchange for the distribution rights to the film, Coogler was asking studios for first-dollar gross, final cut privilege, and ownership of the film twenty-five years after its release. The following month, Warner Bros. won the distribution rights to the film by acceding to Coogler's terms.

In April 2024, Jack O'Connell was cast as the film's villain. Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, Hailee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li and Lola Kirke were cast in undisclosed roles. Wunmi Mosaku was cast as Smoke's love interest. Yao, Miles Caton, Peter Dreimanis, and Christian Robinson were added the next month. Halsey would audition for the role that went to Steinfeld. Machine Gun Kelly was offered the opportunity to audition for the role that went to Peter Dreimanis, but declined because he was not comfortable saying "nigger".

Principal photography began in New Orleans on April 14, 2024, under the working title Grilled Cheese, and wrapped on July 17. It was shot by cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw on 65 mm film using a combination of IMAX 15-perf and Ultra Panavision 70 cameras and scenes thus alternate between the 1.43:1 and 2.76:1 aspect ratios. In shooting this movie, Arkapaw became the first female director of photography to shoot any movie on large format IMAX film. Kodak created a 65mm version of their Ektachrome 100D 5294 film stock specifically for the production, where it was used for a flashback sequence. The production spent $67.6 million on-location in Louisiana. The film's allocated budget was reported to have ultimately risen to around $100 million. The film's production designer Hannah Beachler acknowledged that the way the church in the film was designed included crossed beams that made the "Wakanda Forever" gesture and paid homage to the late Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Storm Studios, Rising Sun Pictures, Base FX, Baraboom Studios, Light VFX and Outpost VFX provided the film's visual effects. Some of the film's costumes were originally designed by Ruth E. Carter for the planned MCU film Blade, but when production on it stalled, Carter was approached by Coogler to work on his film. Given both films' shared time period and similar settings within the Prohibition era, Carter was able to reuse her research for Sinners and was allowed by Marvel Studios to buy costumes she made originally for Blade to be used on Sinners. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said the studio no longer needed the costumes after deciding to move Blade from a period setting, so they were happy for Carter to use them on Coogler's film.