‘Sinners’ review: Ryan Coogler, Michael B Jordan draw blood in period vampire thriller

Dir/scr: Ryan Coogler. US. 2025. 137mins 

An ambitious melding of pop spectacle and serious intent, Ryan Coogler’s swaggering vampire film has much to say about race and class divisions in America, a country that sucks dry its most vulnerable citizens. Sinners takes its time building suspense, first establishing the world of 1932 Mississippi in which a group of Black characters gathers at a newly-opened juke joint, only to discover that some of their white neighbours are vampires. Although sometimes a little overstuffed, the picture consistently gets under the skin thanks to its expertly-staged fright sequences that reverberate with insidious societal ills.

Delivers the sort of accomplished mainstream entertainment that has been in short supply of late

Warner Bros. releases the film in the UK and US on April 18, betting that audiences will show up in droves for this reunion of Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, who starred in Fruitvale Station and Black Panther. Jordan plays twin brothers in Sinners, joined by a high-profile supporting cast that includes Hailee Steinfeld and Delroy Lindo. Shot on IMAX cameras and delivering the sort of accomplished mainstream entertainment that has been in short supply of late, Sinners is based on an original screenplay by Coogler, so there’s no familiar intellectual property to lure in viewers. Still, Warner Bros. will be hoping for better commercial results than another recent gamble, Bong Joon Ho’s underperforming Mickey 17.

Coogler taps his regular creative team, including cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter for this handsome look at the Jim Crow-era South. Gangster twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) have returned home after a stint in Chicago working with Al Capone, with plans to open a juke joint that will quickly turn a profit. Smoke’s ex-girlfriend Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Stack’s former flame Mary (Steinfeld) both have  mixed feelings about seeing them again after so long. 

Once day gives way to night the festivities get underway, with dancing, drinking and impassioned blues music filling the juke joint. It’s then that Smoke and Stack encounter Remmick (Jack O’Connell), an eerie musician who asks to enter their establishment. The brothers are suspicious, and they have good reason: quickly, they realise that Remmick and his fellow musicians are vampires out for blood.

A Sundance winner with his debut Fruitvale Station, Coogler successfully made the leap to studio fare with Creed and the Black Panther films. But Sinners possesses a broader scope and nerve, as the writer-director unapologetically delivers a politically-pointed action film in which this poor Black community is imperilled by white vampires determined to destroy them. Tellingly, as Sinners begins, Smoke and Stake are reassured that they have nothing to fear in Mississippi — the Ku Klux Klan is long gone, they’re told — but, even before vampires start wreaking havoc, the brothers know they have to be careful living in a county hostile to their existence.

Jordan’s twin performances are not appreciably different from one another — Smoke is more business-minded, always watching out for the more ostentatious Stack — but the actor manages to locate the vulnerability within both characters. In this regard, their love interests are crucial, with Steinfeld conveying sultry scorn while Mosaku is tender and seductive as the woman Smoke foolishly left behind.

None of Sinners’ large ensemble is intricately layered, but the cast leave impressions nonetheless. Especially arresting is newcomer Miles Caton as teenage blues guitar prodigy Sammie, the cousin of Smoke and Stack, who has been sheltered from the dangerous life they have pursued. Caton’s musicianship shines in a film rippling with propulsive blues music and a gritty, Southern-fried score from another frequent Coogler collaborator, Ludwig Goransson. 

Sinners luxuriates in its sweaty, sexy atmosphere, patiently upping the sense of creeping dread until, at last, Remmick appears and the film turns into a violent, entertaining vampire picture. Vampirism proves to be a handy metaphor for Coogler, who lets it be a stand-in not just for racism but also cultural appropriation and assimilation. This is hardly the first horror film to combine scares with social commentary, but if Sinners isn’t especially novel in this regard, the gusto Coogler brings to both his pulpy action sequences and his thematic points certainly compensates.

Especially viewed on a large Imax screen, Sinners feels appropriately epic as dashes of Quentin Tarantino and John Carpenter’s B-movie showmanship find their way into Coogler’s crowd-pleasing flair. Even when the movie loses momentum or risks overstaying its welcome, the audacity of his vision is infectious — and harder to contain than those rampaging bloodsuckers.