Sinners

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on December 11, 2025.

(MA15+) ★★★★★

Director: Ryan Coogler.

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, Delroy Lindo, Peter Dreimanis, Lola Kirke, Li Jun Li, Yao.

"Yeah we look like twins, but that's only because we don't have our hats on."

It’s tempting to liken Sinners to the Tarantino/Rodriguez collab From Dusk ‘Til Dawn; another movie of two halves that suddenly explodes into a vampyric onslaught of spurting blood.

But whereas From Dusk ‘Til Dawn sinks its teeth into you literally out of nowhere with its gear-grinding tonal shift, Sinners broods and builds, hinting at the darkness on the horizon and unseen forces simmering below the surface. When it finally sinks its teeth into you, its the peak of a crescendo, not an out-of-nowhere gimmick.

Perhaps a better comparison would be Get Out, where the theme of racism collides with the genre of horror to make something astonishing and fresh. The result in both Sinners and Get Out is a movie that will stand the test of time thanks to refreshing mixes of new elements to create tension, scares, depths and even laughs in an excitingly unique way.

In Sinners, Jordan stars as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who return to the Deep South in 1932 to set up a juke joint. Everything seems perfect for opening night... until some uninvited guests turn up.

A truly cool soundtrack filled with Delta blues, Irish folk, and other more modern flourishes helps the heavy atmosphere of the film build like a storm that's waiting to burst, and when it finally does, the downpour is blood red. It is a film of two halves, but the tonal shift never feels wrong or off. Coogler does an astonishing job of keeping the underlying darkness consistent, and foreshadowing the increasing magical realism perfectly.

The moments of startling violence that come with the film's vampyric pay-off are very effective, but so are the character moments. Everyone in the story - from the Smokestack twins to their forgotten lovers Mary (Steinfeld) and Annie (Mosaku), from upcoming blues prodigy Preacherboy (Caton) to jaded blues legend Delta Slim (Lindo) gets their moment to shine.

The performances are top notch, especially Jordan, Steinfeld and Mosaku, but it's hard to fault a single thing in this tasty new spin on the age-old vampire movie.