Sinners (2025) – Movie Review “I can’t stop thinking about this movie!!”
If you’ve seen Sinners, you know it’s one of the best movies of the year. I finally saw it and wanted to share my thoughts.
To preface: I had no idea what this movie was about going in. I knew Hailee Steinfeld was in it, I knew Michael B. Jordan was in it, and that Ryan Coogler directed it—but truly, that’s all I knew. I have so many thoughts and so much to say – I’ll try to keep this concise, but no promises. And of course: major spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen it, don’t read further. Trust me—this is not a movie you want spoiled.
I literally just got out of the theater about 15 minutes ago, so these are my unstructured thoughts. I may do a follow-up with more in-depth analysis later.
First of all: this film is real art. It’s so original, so creative, and so unexpected—but the filmmaker guides you through every twist. In a time of recycled storytelling and tropes, this felt completely fresh. I had no idea what would happen next.
Three scenes in particular really stuck with me.
The first is the one I can’t stop thinking about: when Sammy starts playing music and singing, and the past, present, and future all come together in that one room. I felt transported to another dimension. I got chills. You could see it visually—how African music from thousands of years ago, the blues from the early 1900s, hip-hop, breakdancing—all of it is connected in this deep spiritual way. It was just moving beyond words. Honestly, I feel like I need to watch the film again just to re-experience that scene.
The second scene I can’t stop thinking about is at the very end, when Sammy is older and playing in that bar, and Stack and Mary come in and have that conversation. It was such an interesting filmic choice to show how much can happen in a lifetime. We tend to think of the 1930s as this far-off time—sharecroppers, cotton plantations, the KKK lynching people—that it doesn’t exist anymore. But by the end of Sammy’s life, it’s the 1990s. That’s basically now. Coogler’s choice to show this as all happening within one lifetime drives home how recent and present these undercurrents still are.
A personal favorite from a filmmaking perspective was the scene in the car with Stack and Sammy, when Sammy pulls out the guitar and starts singing. His voice is gorgeous—it completely transported me. But also, the way it was shot felt very old-school cinema. The background was blurred, almost like they were on a set where the background is moving but the car is still. I felt like that was a deliberate choice to hearken back to an older style of filmmaking, and it set up a great contrast with the later, more gritty and realistic parts of the film.
Another theme that stuck with me—and I want to preface by saying I’m not Black, and I haven’t read other reviews yet, so this is just my initial reaction—is the way Sinners explores the power of Black joy. When it exists, it fills the whole room. It can’t be contained. But because of the world we live in, that joy always feels short-lived. Whether it’s Sammy and Stack singing in the car or people dancing at the juke joint, something always interrupts it. The tone always shifts. It feels like the film is making a point about how joy in Black communities is often fleeting—not because it’s not real, but because it’s constantly under threat.
I also keep thinking about the symbolism of people letting others in the door—only to be attacked. It felt like a metaphor for how Black communities have always let others in, whether by choice or force, only to be co-opted or betrayed. Think of how often Black music, fashion, and expression have been taken, distorted, and used without credit or care. This idea of “we let you in, and you hurt us” really resonated.
Another theme was the falsity of freedom. Stack and Smoke create freedom for themselves. They have money, they have means, they buy the place, put on the whole show. But it’s all false. Because in society’s eyes, they’re still just Black men. No amount of money or power can change that. The film makes it clear that those KKK guys were coming either way. Even without the vampire element, the Black joy we saw would have been crushed. The place would’ve been burned down. It was going to end.
Spirituality and religion are another thread I’m still unpacking. There’s belief, but also skepticism of organized religion. Annie talks about spirits and vampires, and she becomes the one who can explain what’s happening. There are references to older religions that predate Christianity—reminding us that for many African people, their spiritual traditions were stripped away and replaced with forced religion. It made me think about how, even within Christianity, there’s a deeper, older connection to ancestry and belief.
There’s also skepticism around religion as control. Sammy’s father asks him to put down the guitar—something seen as devilish—but for Sammy, that guitar is his soul. He says that before everything happened, that night was the best night of his life. Leaving his hometown felt like a rejection of the version of religion he grew up with. And then at the end, when the vampire tries to kill him, it almost feels like a baptism—dunking him in water and bringing him up again—but it doesn’t work. Whatever the vampires are trying to offer is a false salvation.
As someone who’s neither Black nor white, I thought the inclusion of Asian characters was fascinating. The shopkeeper, turned into a vampire, becomes a weapon used against the Black community. But his wife ends up helping them. To me, that felt like a reflection of how minorities are often pitted against each other, but also how they can be each other’s greatest allies.
Hailee Steinfeld’s character was also really interesting. There was something there about the veneer of whiteness—how you might think it protects you, but ultimately, it doesn’t. She’s the first victim of the trio, and it felt like a commentary on how passing can only take you so far.
I always say that great movies are both hyper-specific and universal. Sinners is exactly that. It’s hyper-specific to Black America—its history, trauma, joy, and cultural inheritance. But in exploring what’s passed down through generations, it becomes universal. I left the theater thinking not just about everything I’ve mentioned, but also about how I’m the product of Indian farmers thousands of years ago in the Indus Valley—and how I might be the origin of something else, thousands of years from now.
Beyond that, the film is visually stunning. The storytelling is original and precise. The acting, dialogue, and cinematography are all top-notch. And the relationships—especially the one between Stack and Smoke—felt deeply real. It broke my heart when Smoke said, “He was the best thing about me.”
For all the big ideas this film explores, it never loses sight of its characters.
This movie was incredible. Thank you for reading, despite my broken promise to keep it concise.I have so much more to say, and I’m excited to read others’ takes too. I’ll probably return with more thoughts soon. In the meantime, if you’ve seen it, I’d love to hear what stuck with you.
Author: Sonia Thosar