Sinners vamps up the 2025 box office
Film Review: ‘Sinners’
Review: Sinners is the evocative and bold blockbuster that audiences need.
Sinners (2025) is just what the film industry needed right now: an original, action-packed monster movie with an important message to tell and a beautiful way of telling it. It’s is a surprise hit at the box office, reeling in record-high reviews in recent years.
Writer-director Ryan Coogler partners with longtime friend and collaborator Michael B. Jordan for the fifth time, adding another great film to his already-impressive filmography. A movie set in 1930s Mississippi about blues music — with some vampires thrown in — sounds like a strange combo, but Coogler truly makes something special. It’s one of the best — if not the best — movie of the year so far.
One of the major highlights and attractions to this film is the underrated powerhouse cast. Coogler must love working with Jordan so much that he cast him twice in this film. Jordan plays both Smokestack twins, bringing unique traits and subtleties to each brother. Surrounded by names like Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo and new actor Miles Caton, this film had so much heart and talent. The predominantly Black cast is important for the industry and audiences to see, and hopefully Coogler’s influence can lead big studios to follow suit.
Another standout aspect of this film was the camera work. Some seriously impressive shots were accomplished, such as long one-takes and creative camera movements during action scenes. I was especially impressed when both twins were shown in the same frame. This film used similar techniques as Mickey 17 (2025), a recent film where Robert Pattinson plays multiple roles. I love when new technologies push boundaries and set a new standard for future films, and Sinners does so very well. A further testament to Jordan’s acting ability, this movie truly shows how a long and arduous filming process can produce a seamless, visually striking result.
The film’s plot revolves around powerful music that can pierce time and space — so fittingly, the soundtrack had to be fantastic. Composer Ludwig Göransson, another longtime collaborator with Coogler, created some impressive sounds and arrangements to do justice to this premise. Matched with Miles Caton’s hard work to learn the blues, the film’s music is angelic and emotional, wowing audiences and driving home the film’s focus on pure and powerful music. This film was shot specifically for IMAX, and the sound design really benefited from that format.
Unfortunately, despite the great sound and performances, some of the southern accents were a bit hard to follow along with and I feel that some of the southern drawls were lost in the music. This is a similar criticism that I have of nearly all of Christopher Nolan’s movies, which were mostly filmed on IMAX cameras. Nolan himself was credited as a special thank you on this film because of the help he gave director Coogler on using these cameras for this unique format. While this might be a technological issue and not a directorial one, I hope it can be solved in the future.
I really enjoyed this movie, and the general audiences seem to be enjoying it too. On a $90 million budget, the film has grossed about $45 million and received rave reviews and ratings. In a time of reboots, sequels and franchises, Sinners is the original, powerful and thought provoking film that audiences not only want, but need.