Sinners (2025 film)

Sinners is a 2025 American musical horror film^[4][5][6] produced, written, and directed by Ryan Coogler.^[7] Set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta, the film stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers who return to their hometown to start again, only to be confronted by a supernatural evil. The film co-stars Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo.

Sinners
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ryan Coogler
Written by	Ryan Coogler
Produced by	Zinzi Coogler Sev Ohanian Ryan Coogler
Starring	Michael B. Jordan Hailee Steinfeld Miles Caton Jack O'Connell Wunmi Mosaku Jayme Lawson Omar Miller Delroy Lindo
Cinematography	Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Edited by	Michael P. Shawver
Music by	Ludwig Göransson
Production company	Proximity Media
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	April 18, 2025 (2025-04-18)
Running time	138 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90–100 million
Box office	$287.9 million[2][3]

Coogler began developing the film through his production company Proximity Media by January 2024, when Jordan was cast. After a bidding war, Warner Bros. Pictures acquired distribution rights the next month, and additional roles were cast in April. Principal photography took place from April to July. Longtime Coogler collaborator Ludwig Göransson composed the film's score and served as an executive producer.

Sinners was theatrically released in the United States on April 18, 2025 by Warner Bros. Pictures.^[8] Critics praised Coogler's direction, Göransson's score, and the cast performances, and the film has grossed over $287 million worldwide, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 2025.

Plot

In 1932, identical twins and World War I veterans Smoke and Stack Moore return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after years spent working for the Chicago Outfit. Using money stolen from gangsters, they purchase a sawmill from racist landowner Hogwood to start a juke joint for the local black community. Their cousin Sammie, an aspiring guitarist, joins them despite his pastor father Jedidiah's warnings that blues music is supernatural.

The twins recruit pianist Delta Slim and singer Pearline (with whom Sammie becomes enamored) as performers, Smoke's estranged wife Annie as cook, local Chinese shopkeeper couple Grace and Bo Chow as suppliers, and field worker Cornbread as bouncer. Smoke and Annie argue over her occult beliefs: Annie believes her practices kept the twins safe; Smoke bitterly points out they could not prevent their infant daughter's death. Meanwhile, Stack reconnects with his white-passing ex-girlfriend Mary, who resents Stack for abandoning her when he left for Chicago, which Stack says was to protect her. Elsewhere, Irish-immigrant vampire Remmick flees from Choctaw vampire hunters and violently turns a married Klansmen couple into vampires.

At the joint's opening night, Sammie's music is transcendent, unknowingly summoning spirits of both past and future to join the entranced crowd. Hearing the performance from outside, Remmick and his vampire thralls offer money and music for entry. Suspicious, the twins refuse. Mary reminds Stack that the joint needs the income and meets Remmick outside, where she is turned. She returns inside and kills Stack by drinking his blood. Smoke intervenes and shoots Mary but her wounds instantly heal and she escapes. Outside, Remmick attacks and 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, deducing that their assailants are vampires, educates the survivors: only sunlight, silver, or wooden stakes can kill vampires; they cannot enter a building unless invited; and killing Remmick will neither save nor destroy those he has turned. Although Remmick shares his thralls' memories, their personalities remain intact.

Remmick, still unable to enter the joint, promises to leave in exchange for Sammie, whose musical skills he wants to use to summon the spirits of his lost community. He notes vampirism offers immortality, freedom, and escape from racism, warning that Hogwood, who heads the local Klan, plans to attack the joint at dawn. When the survivors refuse, Remmick provokes Grace by threatening to attack her daughter Lisa at her house; Grace furiously invites the vampires inside to keep them away from Lisa.

In the ensuing battle, Grace is immolated after staking Bo, Delta Slim sacrifices himself, and Annie, upon being bitten, is euthanized by Smoke before she can turn. Mary, distraught over Annie's death, flees the joint. Smoke defeats Stack, while Remmick turns Pearline and fights Sammie at a nearby river. Sammie hits his silver guitar over Remmick's head, which stuns his thralls in shared pain, before Smoke stakes Remmick, rescuing Sammie. As the sun rises, Remmick and his thralls are incinerated by its light. Smoke sends Sammie home before he kills Hogwood and his men, but is fatally shot. He witnesses a vision of Annie and their daughter before he dies. Meanwhile, despite his father's pleas to renounce music and seek salvation, Sammie leaves for Chicago and becomes a blues musician.

Sixty years later, Sammie is visited by an unaged Stack and Mary after finishing a performance at his blues club. Stack reveals that Smoke spared him at the joint under the condition that Sammie would live in peace. After declining the couple's offer of immortality, Sammie performs for them. As they leave, Sammie admits that despite being haunted by that fateful night, until the violence, it was the greatest day of his life. Stack agrees, since it was the last time he saw Smoke or the sun, and the only time he ever truly felt free.

Cast

• Michael B. Jordan as Elijah "Smoke" Moore and Elias "Stack" Moore, criminal twin brothers
• Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Stack's ex-girlfriend who passes for white
• Miles Caton as Sammie "Preacher Boy" Moore, Smoke and Stack's cousin and an aspiring musician
  • Buddy Guy as older Sammie Moore
• Jack O'Connell as Remmick, an Irish vampire
• Wunmi Mosaku as Annie, Smoke's wife and a hoodoo practicioner
• Jayme Lawson as Pearline, a married singer
• Omar Miller as Cornbread, a sharecropper and bouncer
• Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, an elderly pianist
• Peter Dreimanis as Bert, a local KKK member and Joan's husband
• Lola Kirke as Joan, Bert's racist wife
• Li Jun Li as Grace Chow, Bo's wife and a shopkeeper
• Saul Williams as Jedidiah Moore, a pastor and Sammie's father
• Yao as Bo Chow, Grace's husband and a shopkeeper
• David Maldonado as Hogwood, a local KKK leader and Bert's uncle
• Helena Hu as Lisa Chow, Bo and Grace's daughter
• Andrene Ward-Hammond as Ruthie, Sammie's mother
• Nathaniel Arcand as Chayton, a Choctaw vampire hunter
• Tenaj L. Jackson as Beatrice, Cornbread's pregnant wife

Production

Sinners is the fifth collaboration between writer–director Ryan Coogler, actor Michael B. Jordan, and composer Ludwig Göransson.

In January 2024, an untitled period film (rumored to take place in the Jim Crow-era South and involve the undead) 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.^[9][10] 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.^[11] In exchange for the distribution rights to the film, Coogler was also reportedly asking studios for first-dollar gross, final cut privilege, and ownership of the film 25 years after its release.^[12] The following month, Warner Bros. won the distribution rights to the film by acceding to Coogler's terms.^[10]

Additional cast members were announced in April and May 2024.^[13] Principal photography began in New Orleans on April 14, 2024, under the working title Grilled Cheese and wrapped on July 17.^[14][15][16] It was shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw on 65mm film using a combination of IMAX 15-perf 70 mm and Ultra Panavision 70mm cameras^[17] and scenes thus alternate between the 1.43:1 and 2.76:1 aspect ratios.^[18][19][20] The production spent $67.6 million on-location in Louisiana.^[21] The film's allocated budget ultimately rose to around $100 million.^[22][23]

Music

Main article: Sinners (soundtrack)

Coogler's frequent collaborator Ludwig Göransson worked on the soundtrack of Sinners.^[24] Göransson described Sinners as a personal and ambitious score, reflecting his own musical journey.^[25] He drew inspiration from blues music and performed the score on a 1932 Dobro Cyclops resonator guitar, the same one Sammie carries throughout the film.^[24][26] During the pre-production, Coogler sent Göransson several recordings from the 1930s and 1940s, particularly those of Robert Johnson and Tommy Johnson.^[27] Göransson and Coogler insisted that Ludwig's wife Serena produce the songs. Serena Göransson, a classically trained violinist, said the southern Black music had to be handled with care and expert consultation and that she felt "like a steward with this project [...] especially with the music. I just feel that it has a life of its own..."^[24]

The couple worked with Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, a blues producer who owns Royal Studios, and visited the B.B. King Museum and local juke joints in Clarksdale and Indianola with him for inspiration. The Göranssons and Mitchell recorded the songs at Royal Studios over five days with musicians such as Alvin Youngblood Hart and Cedric Burnside.^[27] Mitchell also brought in other blues musicians such as Brittany Howard, Raphael Saadiq, Bobby Rush, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram and Buddy Guy (who also appears in the film).^[27][28] The Göranssons rented a studio converted from a church in New Orleans, and worked with the supporting cast of Jack O'Connell, Lola Kirke, Peter Dreimanis and Jayme Lawson, rehearsing their songs multiple times. Much of the film was recorded live on set, with the cast members performing alongside other blues musicians.^[24] Hailee Steinfeld wrote and recorded the original song "Dangerous" for the film.^[29]

Unlike most Warner Bros. films, which have soundtracks released through the company's in-house label WaterTower Music or record labels owned by Warner Music Group, the soundtrack and score to Sinners were released through Sony Music labels.^[26] The soundtrack was released on Sony Masterworks on April 18, 2025, the same day as the film,^[30] featuring 22 tracks performed by an array of blues musicians, alongside the cast members.^[31][32] The lead single "Sinners", performed by Rod Wave, was released two weeks prior.^[26][33]

Release

Sinners was released in the United States on April 18, 2025. It was previously scheduled for release on March 7, 2025, but was delayed to April (swapping dates with Mickey 17) to allow for more time needed in post-production due to the scarcity of film stock labs for the project, which heavily utilized film cameras.^[34][35][36] In addition to a standard digital release, the film also received 10 IMAX 70mm prints,^[37][38] and 5 standard 70mm prints.^[39][40]

Reception

Box office performance

As of May 12, 2025^[update], Sinners has grossed $217.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $69.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $287.1 million.^[2][3] Some publications said the film needed to gross $170–185 million to break-even when factoring in its production budget, Coogler's first-dollar gross, premium video-on-demand, and streaming deals with Prime and Netflix.^[41][42] Other industry sources placed the break-even point at $200–225 million, with Puck going as high as $300 million, because of the film's budget, estimated $50–60 million marketing spend, and the presumption that theaters keep half of ticket sales.^[43][44] Many fans of the film and industry figures like Ben Stiller called out media coverage, specifically pieces from Variety, The New York Times, and Business Insider, that undermined the film's wide appeal by focusing on its box office performance, Coogler's salary, and speculation about its profitability.^{[45][46][47][48]}

In the United States and Canada, Sinners was projected to gross $30–40 million from 3,308 theaters in its opening weekend.^[42][49] The film made $19.2 million on its first day, including an estimated $4.7 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $48 million, topping projections to finish first at the box office, upsetting Warner Bros.'s own holdover A Minecraft Movie.^[41] The opening marked the best start for an original film since Jordan Peele's Us ($71 million in 2019), and the first time a studio had two films make over $40 million each over a single weekend since 2009. Walk-up business, particularly on Saturday, and word-of-mouth contributed substantially to the opening, with 61% of attendees buying their ticket the same day.^[41][50] Premium large format and IMAX screenings made up 45% of the opening.^[51] Exit polling indicated that 47% of moviegoers bought tickets because of Jordan, 40% for Coogler, and 45% because of positive word-of-mouth, and that 64% of attendees were 35 or younger, with 46% being 25–34 and 2% under 18. The audience was 49% Black, 27% Caucasian, 14% Latino and Hispanic, 6% Asian, and 4% Native American/other, "a strong turnout among different demographics".^{[41][44][50][52]} Sinners also made $15.4 million from 71 international markets, for a global opening weekend of $61 million.^[53]

Word-of-mouth momentum helped Sinners earn the second-best Monday haul for an R-rated horror film at $7.8 million, behind It ($8.6 million in 2017).^[54] It ended its first week ahead of the seven-day totals of The Conjuring ($61.7 million in 2013) and Get Out ($49.8 million in 2017) with $77.5 million.^[52] Sinners exceeded second weekend projections ($19.2–24 million)^[55] to outgross new releases and top the box office again with $45.7 million. Its 4.9% drop is the third-best second-weekend performance for a film that debuted to over $40 million after Shrek (+0.3% in 2001) and Avatar (−1.8% in 2009);^[56] the second-best second weekend for an R-rated horror film after It ($60.1 million); and the third-best second weekend for Coogler after Black Panther ($111.6 million in 2018) and its sequel Wakanda Forever ($66.4 million in 2022). Deadline noted that the film's audience had broadened, with women making up 56% of patrons (up from 43% in the first weekend) and those under 25 comprising 34% (up from 20%).^[52] The film also made $13.5 million over that frame from 71 foreign markets, a total attributed to word-of-mouth and strong holds in several countries.^[57]

After ceding its premium-large format and IMAX screens to newcomer Thunderbolts*, Sinners achieved the best third weekend for a horror film with $33 million (a 28% drop), topping It ($29.7 million).^[58] Helped by "exceptional holds" in Latin America and Europe, it also made $10.4 million internationally over the weekend.^[59] Sinners crossed $200 million domestically in its fourth weekend,^[60] becoming the first original film to do so since Coco in 2017.^[61]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 352 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "A rip-roaring fusion of masterful visual storytelling and toe-tapping music, writer-director Ryan Coogler's first original blockbuster reveals the full scope of his singular imagination."^[62] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[63] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale (the highest grade for a horror film in 35 years), while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 92% overall positive score, with 84% saying they would definitely recommend the film.^[41]

Reviewers praised Coogler's vision and the film's cinematography; Rolling Stone critic A.A. Dowd commented that the director was "swinging wide and far beyond the boundaries of franchise fare", while Wendy Ide of The Observer wrote that "Coogler's assurance and vision holds everything together."^[64][65][66] Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post cited Coogler's "impressive self-awareness", as well as Jordan, Mosaku, and Caton's performances.^[67] Several critics suggested that the film's more grounded first half was superior to the supernaturally driven later acts.^[68][69][70] Peter Travers of ABC News declared Sinners the best movie yet released in 2025, writing that it was Coogler and Jordan's "best and most daring work yet".^[71] In a more negative review, The Wall Street Journal's Zachary Barnes praised Jordan's performance, but wrote that Sinners did not pull together thematically, arguing that "Mr. Coogler's imagination remains limited by the conventions of Marveldom."^[72]

The music of Sinners was widely praised by critics, who noted its centrality to the film's story. David Ehrlich of IndieWire wrote "This isn't the first time that a Ludwig Göransson score has been inextricable from the texture of a Ryan Coogler movie, but Sinners opens with someone talking about a kind of music 'so pure it can pierce the veil between life and death, past and future'... and then proceeds to show us exactly what that sounds like."^[73] Mae Abdulbaki of Screen Rant stated "The music alone, from the songs played by the characters to the score by Ludwig Göransson, takes the film to another level."^[74] Amy Nicholson of Los Angeles Times described the score as "phenomenal", adding it is music "you've never heard and yet it seems to come from deep inside our pop-cultural soul".^[4] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter described it as "flavorful [...] with the score and the blues performances fusing together to intoxicating effect."^[75] Barnes, of The Wall Street Journal, called Göransson's score "a twangy marvel of genre-crossing interpolation."^[72]