Ryan Coogler writes, directs and produces’Sinners‘, a story set in the Mississippi Delta during the era of Jim Crow laws and which raised nearly $370 million worldwide on a budget between $90 and $100 million. In June 2025, when the film had been in theaters for nine weeks, critics were already at its feet: it was the first film without a sequel or franchise behind it to exceed $200 million in the United States since ‘Coco’. Now you can see it in Netflix.
Michael B. Jordan plays two twins who return to their native Mississippi in 1932 from Chicago, with money of dubious origin to set up a blues club and dance hall in an old barn. The first half of the film moves like a classic Southern drama, with familial and racial tensions. The second half changes register and turns the place into a scene of supernatural terror, with a threat that Coogler himself has recognized as inspired by ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ by Robert Rodríguez.
The film also draws on blaxploitation from the seventies and the twilight western, in a Macedonia of references and styles with their own personality, as demonstrated by lto musicwhich occupies a central place in the proposal. The soundtrack, composed by Ludwig Göransson, takes up the Delta blues tradition and its associated mythology, including the legend of the pact at the crossroads, attributed to musician Robert Johnson. And all with a very balanced cast and fantastic secondary characters like Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld and newcomer Miles Caton.
‘Sinners’ achieved sixteen nominations at the 98th edition of the Oscars, the highest number in the history of the ceremony, surpassing the previous record of fourteen nominations shared by ‘Naked Eve’, ‘Titanic’ and ‘La La Land’. Finally, it took four: Best Actor for Jordan, Best Original Screenplay for Coogler, Best Score for Göransson and Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkapaw. A true triumph for cinema outside of franchises that opened a path to the release of the most emasculating blockbusters.
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