Why is Sinners Breaking Box Office Records?
It’s the smash no-one saw coming. So what is Sinners, and what makes it so unique?
good.film
24 days ago
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Big question to kick off this week: is cinema circling the drain? Pessimistic punters might tell you audiences are declining because Hollywood churns out nothing but same-same studio sequels, stuffed with CGI and second-tier comic-book characters you’ve barely heard of (Kraven the Hunter, anyone?). The kinder take? We want to go to the cinema, but there’s nothing GOOD to see!
Well, here it is. Sinners is a wholly original, $90 million roll of the dice from Ryan Coogler, director of Creed and Black Panther, and arguably Hollywood’s most exciting Black voice right now (no shade, Jordan Peele – please don’t send us to the sunken place). Coogler believed in his film to such an extent that when Sinners ran over budget, he covered the extra spend – and that big bet has struck gold. As of mid-May, Sinners has seared its way into the record books, grossing over $300 million worldwide – and it’s not done yet.
The Quick Bite on Sinners
What’s Sinners About? Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again - only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Who Directed Sinners? Ryan Coogler
Who Stars in Sinners? Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell
Where Can I See Sinners? In cinemas NOW. Get discount movie tickets
Why is that a big deal? Because it’s hit milestones that no original film has reached in nearly a decade. We’re talking no pre-existing IP, no comic book origins, no adaptation of a Saturday morning cartoon or video game character. Sinners is now the top-grossing original film in the U.S. since Pixar’s Coco in 2017 – and its opening weekend was the biggest for an original film this decade, beating out Nope (okay, Jordan Peele is REALLY coming for us now).
Perhaps more impressive, Coogler has now became the first Black director with FOUR films on his resume to gross over $100M in the US. And if the studio system wasn’t already sitting up and paying attention to Coogler’s modus operandi, it definitely is now: he negotiated a super-rare, landmark deal with Warner Bros. to REGAIN full ownership of Sinners 25 years after its release. So in 2050, all rights to the film – like streaming royalties – will revert to him.
It’s an historic arrangement in Hollywood (basically only filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino can demand it), but it’s not about ego or greed. Coogler pushed for the deal to make a point about Black ownership and legacy – the exact themes that are central to the film. As The Source shared on Instagram, This ain’t just about numbers – it’s shifting culture. Coogler’s work continues to prove that authentic, powerful Black stories belong at the top. And we do mean “top” – Sinners enjoys an astounding 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as we type this.
It’s no surprise that Sinners sprang from the rich soil of Coogler’s own Black heritage. He’s explained in interviews that it’s partly an ode to his great-uncle James, who fled Jim Crow Mississippi with not much more than a guitar and a deep love for blues; soulful twangs that echoed through Coogler’s childhood. Flash forward a few decades to Coogler’s lightning-bolt idea: what if he blended that soulful (and painful) history with a supernatural twist?
First up, is Sinners a vampire movie? And why is that meaningful?
Fangs for asking! The short answer is yes – but forget the schlockiness of Wesley Snipes’ Blade or the aspirational YA-ness of the Twilight series. Coogler has lassooed the classic tropes of vampire mythology – like physical strength, insatiable greed, and a lust to possess what doesn’t belong to them – and used them as a potent allegory for Black culture’s historical exploitation (especially in the South). This may sound a little absurd at first. But Coogler has built his characters and their world so effectively across Sinners’ first hour, that vampires knocking at the door doesn’t feel like a cheap swerve. Instead, it deepens the stakes (and not just the pointy wooden kind). But the neck-chompers don’t appear straight away…
After an intriguing church opening that hints something majorly freaky has gone down the night before (possibly with claws?), Sinners flashes us back to one day earlier: Mississippi, 1932, and the immediately arresting Smokestack Twins, both played with incredible attention to detail by Michael B. Jordan. They’re coming home from years in Chicago, impeccably tailored and obviously flush with cash: fine suits, watches and gold tie clips. How did they achieve it? And are they returning – or running?
Coogler lets our imaginations fill in the blanks, peppering rumours through the opening scenes to spice up the “Smoke” and “Stack” backstory: We heard you were running with Capone. We heard you hit a casino. They answer with gold-capped toothy grins that could charm the skirt off a preacher’s wife – Don't believe everything you hear. They’re back to start their very own “juke joint”, basically a rural blues bar and dance hall for Black locals to let their cares melt away for a Saturday night. For us, by us. Like we always wanted.
They’re not mucking around either: they want to open TONIGHT. One by one, they collect all their needs. They buy the old sawmill from a sly white local, who isn’t thrilled with making these “boys” landowners, but the price sure is right. They rope in friends to cook crawfish and sort out their liquor supplies – putting a bullet in the backside of a local who tries to pilfer from their truck (you don’t steal from the Smokestack Twins without having the scars to show for it). And they get their musicians lined up, like their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), who’s a helluva blues guitarist. WHOOOO boy! Smoke whoops, We're gonna make some money!!
What makes the opening of Sinners so great to watch?!
It’s hard to sum up just how great the energy is in these early scenes. Coogler must’ve said a silent prayer of thanks every day for his leading man, MIchael B. Jordan (who’s appeared in every film he’s directed). He’s utterly magnetic as both characters: there’s a clear goal for these two, and we want them to succeed. Like Tony Soprano and his pals or Walter White’s misdeeds in Breaking Bad, it’s vicariously thrilling to watch them stack their chips into this new enterprise. When the juke joint opens, it’s a delirious release: dancing, drinking, joy… until a mysterious trio of white Irish “musicians” appear at the door.
With their instruments in hand, the white trio seem sweet as pie asking if they can come in and join the band. They just want to add to the vibes, guys! But it’s important to remember what the juke joint represents to Smoke, Stack and their Black and minority 1930s community. This is a place they can be fully themselves – free of oppression, free of judgement. It’s no accident that the lead vampire, Remmick (Jack O'Connell) is Irish, and demos an Irish folk song with his group. There’s hints that he wants to appropriate their music; to somehow steal Sammie’s talent and claim it as his own. Naturally, at its heart, it’s not about the music: Coogler’s using these parallels to highlight the history of colonialism, theft and oppression that burns between the two cultures.
So Sinners is more than just a “horror movie” – there’s deeper cultural themes?
Yep. It’s a story that wicks enormous tension from the preexisting social and economic tensions of the South at the time – and the constant threats of violence that existed for these communities. They were continually pressured to bury their roots and divorce themselves from their histories. Consider Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack’s former lover who’s spent her life “passing” as white, like her mother, to protect their family from the KKK. Interestingly, shooting the film actually prompted Steinfeld to explore her own mixed-race identity IRL: This role has brought me closer to myself, to my family, and my family history, she told Refinery29.
Then there’s Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke’s estranged wife, who’s in many ways the heart of the film. She’s a spiritual healer – or to be accurate, a hoodoo practitioner (not to be confused with voodoo, which is more about spirits, “hoodoo” is a set of beliefs & rituals rooted in African diaspora, promoting healing using herbs and other natural objects). So Annie’s character really embodies the idea of keeping a connection to African spirituality alive, and clinging onto traditions that the ruling class would rather quash. You could say it’s a nod to cultural memory. Why can’t these traditions live on in Mississippi?
For Annie, these ancestral practices are a source of strength – something she draws on in memory of the baby daughter she shared with Smoke, who we learn early on died as an infant. It’s a facet of their past that, while only directly mentioned in a few scenes, lends a huge weight to their actions. In one intimate scene, the fantastic composing by Composer Ludwig Göransson really captures the ache between them, doing what any great score does – communicating their shared feelings of injustice, trauma and heartbreak without saying it out loud. Later, Annie makes Smoke promise her that if she’s attacked, he’ll kill her before she “turns” – because We've got someone waiting for us on the other side.
There’s even further cultural depth to Sinners when you consider the other period-accurate minorities that Coogler has factored into the story. Take a cursory spin through TikTok (we did it so you don’t have to) and there’s reels galore, with commentary on characters like grocery store owners Grace and Bo, who signify the real “cheap labour” history of Chinese-Americans in the post-Civil War South. Others have picked up on the key inclusion of Choctaw Native American horsemen, who attempt to warn two (white) characters about Remmick and the threat he represents.
The implication is that the Indigenous peoples are far more in touch with the land, the spirits and their surroundings than the naive white folks, who dismiss the warnings of “the savages” (to their peril!). Filmed with consultation from both groups to ensure they were on point, both of these elements have been praised for their inclusion in Sinners, countering the kind of erasure that period films often make of minority cultures – intentionally or otherwise.
How well does Sinners capture the 1930s – and what’s with the fake money?
One of the first things you’ll notice with Sinners is how “lived in” the world feels. The sets and costumes don’t feel like sets and costumes, they feel real. It’s a testament to the authenticity of a period that’s been carefully reconstructed by Coogler’s design team, led by Production Designer Hannah Beachler and Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter (both Black artists who each became the first African-Americans in history to win Oscars for their craft – coincidentally for another Coogler collaboration, Black Panther). They could be looking at a repeat for Sinners. The film might not have been cheap, but every single dollar is on the screen.
Speaking of dollars, you might notice two scenes where characters try to pay with scraps of paper, or wooden coins, which might seem odd if you’ve never heard of “scrip”. They’re basically tokens, like Monopoly money, that Black plantation workers were paid in; another historically accurate detail that Coogler drew from the Jim Crow-era South. And because scrip was only valid at a plantation store, it meant that Black workers were paid in a currency they couldn’t use anywhere else – effectively trapping them in a cycle of dependence.
What’s interesting is seeing Smoke and Stack’s opposite reactions to an older gent who tries to pay for his liquor shot with these wooden coins. Smoke nearly cuts him off with a hasty This ain’t no charity! kind of reaction, but Stack pulls his twin aside to remind him that the man worked hard for that “money” – and there’ll be more patrons in the same position. It’s a smart scene because it’s a reminder that it’s not just Black workers that face economic exploitation, it also affects the business owners. For the Smokestack Twins, buying a property and turning a profit are the manifestation of a dream: independence. But swapping liquor for fake money means they’re still being held down by white systems designed to keep them powerless.
One last point about the era: it’s important to the story that Smoke and Stack are both WWI veterans. They fought for their country along with 380,000 of their fellow African Americans – despite not even having a federally protected right to vote (that wouldn’t arrive for another half-century). What does carrying that kind of anger around do to these brothers? We get an idea when Sinners reaches a climax involving the Ku Klux Klan, and Smoke’s old WWI machine gun gets dusted off. A lot like Django Unchained, the palpable release of trauma – and a form of redemption being carried out – makes for a thrilling finale.
What’s the significance of the music in Sinners?
The music that Coogler’s characters embrace in Sinners isn’t just a soundtrack – it’s a force. Like something supernatural, it feeds their souls, it connects them, and it’s an outlet for their pain. Music weaves through the characters’ backstories like a tapestry: there’s the shame felt by Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) whose music has been affected by his alcoholism, and the pressure felt by Sammie and the path he feels pushed down by his father, a preacher who warns him that his music will invite the Devil in. Then there’s the scene where Smoke, Sammie and Delta Slim pass a roadside chain-gang, singing together in rhythm to match the endless swinging of their picks.
It all taps into old superstitions: that the Blues is “the devil’s music,” or that in the eyes of white folks, Blues music is a call for resistance that threatens them. Coogler even taps into the myth of the “Deal with the Devil” at the crossroads, hinting that Sammie is an alt-universe version of Robert Johnson. Maybe he DID sell his soul to the Devil, and Remmick is the Devil coming to claim it? Even Sammie’s guitar is significant, with its distinctive silver features – silver being famously handy to fight off fanged folk, right? Spoiler alert: by turning his instrument into a (literal) weapon, Sammie’s music goes from being a cause of shame to a force for good.
What’s with the scene where Sinners jumps into the future?
Actually, it’s more like the future comes to them. There’s a superb, eye-popping sequence mid-way through Sinners when Sammie hits the stage at the juke joint, and his playing is so good it literally sets the place on fire. It’s a fantastic scene in the dictionary sense: we’re clearly watching a fantasy play out, as the music seems to conjure up spirits from the past (like African tribal dancers) and the future (a shining electric guitarist who looks like he’s straight out of a Black Daft Punk tribute band).
In one long, choreographed steadicam shot, Coogler whirls us through every corner of the juke joint as the crowd heaves, sparks fly, and cultural motifs appear as if they’ve been zapped in from another dimension. It all speaks to the absolutely vital place of music to the African American community, like blood pumping through their culture, and the cultural connection that it provides them across generations – demonstrating music’s power to transcend time and space. It’s a ballsy swing, but it’s one of the film’s best sequences.
So - what’s the takeaway from Sinners?
It can really all be summed up in a word: freedom. Sammie feels free when he plays. The folks in the juke joint are freed of the subservience that white onlookers bring to their daily lives. The Smokestack Twins aim to free themselves from a criminal past. Even Remmick offers freedom: Let me in, he reasons, and you can show those KKK boys who’s really in charge.
In the same way that Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning Get Out used horror stylings to deliver a truly knockout social satire, Sinners is a total wolf in sheep’s clothing. Another great comparison is Prey: what looks like a thriller sequel is actually a fantastically rich and plaintive cry about environmental protection and Native American genocide. Like those films, it may be tempting to chalk Sinners up as a genre flick, but putting it in that popcorn box means fundamentally discounting the powerful messaging at its core.
Full disclosure: we don’t usually love “horror films”, but we can’t stop thinking about this movie. Who knew that vampires and Jim Crow would make such a stunning thematic fusion? Well, Ryan Coogler did, building a wholly original story around a metaphor that shoots Sinners straight into the upper echelons of brilliant Black storytelling. The result is so much more than a horror flick. It’s Coogler’s love letter to Black culture, the music that flows through Southern Black families like blood, and the injustices that get that blood boiling.
