Ryan Coogler knocks it out of the park with ‘Sinners’
- Craig Shapiro
- Jul 16
- 6 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Michael B. Jordan gives a remarkable performance as Smoke, center, and Stack, left, twins who return to Clarksdale, Miss., after fighting in World War I and running booze for Al Capone to open a juke joint. Here, Smoke tells Remmick (Jack O’Connell, center), Joan (Lola Kirke) and Bert (Peter Dreimanis) that they’re not welcome. Good move: They want to do more than play music — they’re vampires.
(Click an image to scroll the larger versions)
“SINNERS”
4K Ultra HD, 2025, rated R for strong, brutal violence, language, sexuality; Digital copy via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Movies Anywhere (4K), YouTube (4K)
Best extra: The feature “Blues in the Night: The Music of Sinners”
WHO KNOWS? If Ryan Coogler’s Uncle James had never played the mighty Howlin’ Wolf's recording of “Wang Dang Doodle,” he may never have made “Sinners.”
And that would be a shame, because his “love letter” to the man who introduced him to the blues is one of the year’s best movies and, given its exceptional video and audio presentation, is bound to finish 2025 on more than a few top 4K lists.
“Music is the most accessible art form,” Coogler says in the feature “Blues in the Night.” “If you want to take a look at our story, you kind of have to start there.”
“Our” being the African-American story. Like his other films, “Sinners” is rich in African folklore, explodes the myth of Black freedom and shows the importance of ancestry and family. And as he did in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Coogler mourns those broken lineages and “makes bare the stains of American racism,” Robert Daniels writes for RogerEbert.com.
(1-3) Bloodied and traumatized, aspiring bluesman Sammie Moore (Miles Caton, left, second photo) drags into his father’s church the next morning. (4) Sharecroppers work the cotton fields of the fertile Delta. The opening scene was captured with the massive IMAX cameras.
No question, “Sinners” is all of that, and then some. Actor Jayme Lawson (“The Batman”), who plays the sultry Pearline, calls it a “drama-comedy-vampire (more on that)-thriller-horror musical.” What’s not to like, right?
Built solidly on the binding power of music, the setting couldn’t be more fitting — Clarksdale, Mississippi, the heart of the Delta blues, in 1932. Michael B. Jordan (Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed,” “Black Panther”) is terrific as twins Smoke and Stack. Dressed to the 9s with wads of cash and a truckload of Irish beer, they return home after time in the trenches of World War I and running booze for Al Capone in Chicago to open a juke joint.
The story begins the morning after when a bloodied Sammie Moore (Miles Caton, a former backup singer for H.E.R.), a blues phenom called Preacher Boy, drags into his daddy’s church carrying the broken neck of his resonator. His father had warned him when he set off with Smoke and Stack that he was courting the Devil with that guitar. He was right.
Smoke and Stack buy a shuttered saw mill from the racist Hogwood (David Maldonado, “Deepwater Horizon”), recruit Sammie and the alcoholic bluesman Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo, “Da 5 Bloods”) to entertain, the Hoodoo conjurer Annie (Wunmi Mosaku, (“Deadpool & Wolverine”) to cook, shopkeepers Lisa and Bo Chow (Helena Hu, the “Watchmen” TV miniseries, and Yao, “#LookAtMe”) to run the bar and the sharecropper Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller, “8 Mile”) to watch the door.
(1) Stack and Smoke buy the shuttered sawmill that they’ll turn into a juke joint. (2&3) Smoke draws a pistol on Terry (Sam Malone), an old acquaintance who was rifling through their truck. (4) Shopkeepers Lisa and Bo Chow (Helena Hu, Yao) agree to run the bar. Super widescreen scenes (2.76:1) were captured with the 65mm film cameras mounted with anamorphic lens.
Old hurts are revisited, too. Smoke and Annie are still mourning the loss of their infant son, and Mary (Hailee Steinfield, the Coens’ “True Grit”), a white woman who passes as black, runs into Stack after returning from Arkansas to bury her mother. She was in love with Stack and waited in vain for him to return after he and his brother fled Clarksdale.
As the joint is being readied, Remmick (Jack O’Connell, “Unbroken”) shows up at the squalid doorstep of Bert (Peter Dreimanis, “Sundown” cinematographer) and Joan (Lola Kirke, “Gone Girl”). He’s being pursued by Choctaws, and for good reason. Eyes aglow and fangs showing, he’s a vampire, and soon turns Bert and Joan, promising them inclusivity and an eternal life free of pain.
Coogler comments on racial assimilation when Remmick promises those at the juke joint the same thing, if they would only invite him in. Before the bloody face-off, Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald
Arkawpa ("Wakanda Forever”) create two dazzling dance sequences, one set to the blues, the other to an Irish folk song, that underscore the power of music.
Does anyone survive? Only one way to find out.
(1) Sammie dazzles Stack when he breaks out his resonator. Caton played the guitar himself for the movie. (2-4) They head to the train station where they convince bluesman Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo, second photo) to bring his talents to the venture. (5) Mary (Hailee Steinfield) is at the station, too, and that spells trouble: She was once in love with Stack and waited in vain for him to return from the war. (6) A chain gang labors in the Mississippi sun. (7) Smoke reconnects with the Hoodoo conjurer Annie (Wunmi Mosaku). They’re still mourning the death of their infant son.
VIDEO/AUDIO
Shot in 65mm super widescreen and 70mm IMAX, “Sinners” (2.76:1 & 1.78:1 aspect ratios) looks phenomenal. Cotton fields stretch into the distance with startling clarity, black levels are deep and rich, and detail is wonderful, even in the shadows. Arkapaw also makes effective use of soft focus to illustrate the characters’ isolation. In his review for Slant magazine, Jake Cole points out that Coogler consulted Christopher Nolan about shooting in IMAX. The 4K presentation of “Sinners,” he writes, “is comparable in its flawless replication of high-gauge celluloid as the UHD of Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’.”
The reference-quality Dolby Atmos soundtrack is a revelation, too. Full and deep, there’s no competition between the faint, off-screen dialogue and the fine-tuned score by Coogler’s frequent, Oscar-winning collaborator, Ludwig Goransson (“Black Panther,” “Oppenheimer”).
The Vampires are Coming!
(1-4) On the run from vampire-hunting Choctaws, Remmick convinces Bert and Joan to let him inside their home. Bad move.
EXTRAS
Warner Bros. has included five short-ish features and a handful of deleted scenes.
“Blues in the Night: The Music of Sinners” (13:44) This one is the starting point. Goransson says it’s so easy to work with Coogler because he peppers his “tonal language” with “a lot of musical beats and musical ideas.” Coogler also told him that he wanted to work on a guitar-driven movie, so authenticity was top priority. Done. The musicians who signed up include Cedric Burnside, Eric Gales, Rhiannon Giddens, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Bobby Rush and Lars Ulrich. Caton plays his own resonator and the legendary Buddy Guy appears at the end as the elderly Sammie. To say that he still has it is a huge understatement.
“Dancing with the Devil: The Making of Sinners” (32:35) Coogler says “Sinners” was the first film he made “as a fully formed human being.” Incredibly, he wrote the script in just two months and wanted to explore the irony of maintaining one’s agency and zest for life in a time or intense oppression.
“Thicker Than Blood: Becoming the Smokestack Twins” (10:45) Jordan didn’t just “play” Smoke and Stack, he gave them distinct personalities and developed a way of speaking and even moving that defined those personalities. It really is a remarkable performance. FX teams from L.A., Norway and Australia all had prominent roles in rising to the technical challenges.
“Spirits of the South” (7:58) Religion professor Yvonne Chireau discusses the prevalence of Hoodoo in the Deep South, describing it as “a tradition of remembrance.
“Wages of Sin: The Creature FX of Sinners” (10:51) Mike Fontaine, the special effects makeup designer, got his wish: to work in New Orleans on a vampire film, a process that began with the images that came to mind after he read the script. It was clear that “Ryan didn’t want to hold back,” he says.
You shouldn’t hold back, either. “Sinners” is an absolute blast.
— Craig Shapiro
(1-4) With Sammie entertaining, opening night at joint gets off to a roaring start, but the place burns to the ground when the vampires attack.
(1&2) Now a vampire, Mary mauls Smoke after luring him into a back room. (3) Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller), a sharecropper the twins signed up to watch the front door, joins the fray. (4&5) Remmick and Stack celebrate with the rest of the undead, but Smoke isn’t about to down without a fight. (6&7) As Remmick burns in the light of a new day, Smoke and Sammie watch in horror.
SPECS:
100 GB disc
True 4K mastering
Video bitrate: 63.75 Megabits per second
5-perf 65mm film stock, 2.76:1 aspect ratio - 112 minutes of footage
15-perf 70mm IMAX film stock, 1.43:1 aspect ratio IMAX Theatrical film, 1.78:1 matted physical media, 1.90:1 matted Digital IMAX, approximately 25 minutes
HDR10 maximum light level: 253 nit
Max frame average light level: 36 nit
Box office worldwide: $366 million
Thanks for the breakdown of film formats and stock, including minutes.