Sinners (2025) Film Review ⭐ 8.5/10

 

Sinners

🎬 Director: Ryan Coogler
🎯 Genre: Southern Gothic musical horror

🖋️ Review

With Sinners, Ryan Coogler has crafted one of 2025’s boldest genre hybrids: a searing exploration of sin, guilt, and racial memory set in the deep South, told through a mix of horror beats and electrifying blues-infused musical sequences.

Michael B. Jordan stars as Jeremiah, a preacher’s son who returns to his decaying hometown after years away, only to find that long-buried wrongs have rotted into something monstrous. The narrative weaves traditional Southern gothic imagery—rotting churches, weeping willow-lined cemeteries—with nightmarish horror set pieces. Spectral figures croon blues laments, townsfolk speak in riddles, and a creeping red fungus seems to pulse in sync with old unconfessed sins.

What makes Sinners remarkable is how Coogler uses music. The film bursts into full-bodied blues performances at moments of crisis, the lyrics serving as both confession and curse. Critics noted how these sequences felt like exorcisms, expelling the guilt of generations.

🎨 Technical & thematic richness

Shot on 65mm IMAX, the film has a tactile beauty. Every bead of sweat on Jordan’s brow, every splintered pew, every flickering lantern glow stands in hyper-real relief. Ludwig Göransson’s score (paired with traditional Mississippi blues artists) creates a haunting counterpoint, pulling us deeper into this world of blood and redemption.

Underneath the genre trappings lies a profound meditation on ancestral guilt and the way communities become complicit in their own rot by refusing to reckon with past evils. NPR praised it as “a lavishly serious popcorn movie, with weight that lingers long after the last reel.”

🏆 Verdict

8.5/10 — Daring, at times messy, but unforgettable. Sinners is a feverish hymn to the ghosts we carry and the price of not telling our family’s truths.