The Emotional Appeal of Sinners

poster for Ryan Coogler's Sinners (2025)

Recently, I saw Ryan Coogler’s Sinners for the third time in the theater, and at the end of the movie there’s a beautiful montage of the main character Sammy’s experiences on what he calls the best day of his life. He asks his cousin Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan, if he felt the same way. Stack replies, “Yes. That’s the last day I had my brother. It’s the last day I saw the sun.” As we dive into Sammy’s memories, and Stack’s memories of that day, the song “Last Time I Seen the Sun,” performed by Miles Caton and Alice Smith, plays.

Now, I mention that this was the third time I’ve seen the movie because it was the first time I cried during it. Both the song and the images created such a beautiful, bittersweet montage of joy—and therefore loss—that I was completely overcome. And it dawned on me why this film has been resonating with me so much, and perhaps why it’s resonated with audiences. My hypothesis might also explain why some people fail to fully experience or appreciate the beauty Ryan Coogler has brought to the screen.

Sinners is a film about many things, but most of all, it is a story about the joy that communities can feel when they are united by a shared purpose, and the loss and terror experienced when that community is infiltrated by outsiders.

In 2024, it was announced that Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan would collaborate again on a new project. This time, it would be a supernatural horror film featuring Black vampires. For those of us who have been waiting—very patiently—for Disney and Marvel to get their act together with the new Blade project, this announcement was a no-brainer. It also felt like a bit of a smack in the face from Coogler to Disney, because they absolutely should have tapped him to direct Blade. But I digress.

Sinners is a coming-of-age story about a young man named Samuel Moore, played by Miles Caton, who has the gift of blues music. He can play guitar, and he has an incredible voice that can literally summon the ancestors. On one particular day, he is visited by his twin cousins, who’ve been away in Chicago. They are Elias and Elijah Moore—also known as Stack and Smoke. Smoke is the oldest, Stack is the youngest, and they’re known as the Smokestack Twins—both played by Michael B. Jordan. They are war veterans, drifters, crooks, and sinners who return to the Mississippi Delta to start their own juke joint. They are the metaphorical devil on Sammy’s left shoulder.

On his right shoulder is his father, Jedediah, a preacher who wants him to give up blues music and promise to be in church on Sunday morning. Because his father is a preacher, folks call Sammy “Preacher Boy.” But Sammy loves the blues. And on this day, he answers the call to follow his cousins as they gather community members to open their juke joint. Everyone is having the time of their lives—until they are visited by a demonic vampire who wants to steal Sammy’s gift.

There are so many things that make this film special, including Michael B. Jordan’s performance, Miles Caton’s incredible debut, and Coogler’s collaboration with several of his longtime creative partners—Hannah Beachler, Ruth E. Carter, Ludwig Göransson, to name a few.

One of the film’s primary motifs is the idea of ownership. The Smokestack brothers want to own their own juke joint, so they purchase a sawmill for it. They desire to own something that belongs to them. The character of Mary, played by Hailee Steinfeld, longs to own a family. Annie, played by Wunmi Mosaku, wants to own her faith. Sammy longs to own his craft. These are all things that feel self-created, rooted in identity and effort. They are things that should belong to them by birth, by right—the right to earn money, to purchase property, to belong to the families you’re born into, to own your expression, and to walk your own path of faith.

The problem comes in with the character of Remnant, who desires to own something that does not belong to him. He’s willing to kill in order to create a cult-like following and steal the gifts and talents of others.

But perhaps the most beautiful element of this film is its portrayal of authentic community. The scene where Sammy plays “I Lied to You,” and the ancestral spirits emerge and commune with the people dancing in the juke joint, is a magnetic, magnificent work of art. What we’re witnessing is true community—people coming together to create something larger than themselves. And if that community could be protected and cherished, it would truly be heaven on earth.

But unfortunately, as is true in life, there are interlopers who want to come in and destroy that sense of unity. The film becomes a cautionary tale—to protect what we have before it’s gone. We see this play out in the decision Sammy must make at the end of the film: whether to put down his guitar or give in to his father’s demands.

So I circle back to my third time watching this film in theaters, and the tears I shed during that final scene. Because so rarely in life do we feel like we have something that truly belongs to us—and so often, we know what it means to have those things taken away. And I think that’s what resonates with me so deeply in Sinners. It is beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. It shows us a glimpse of what could be.

Before I close out this video, I have to acknowledge that Ryan Coogler continues to be part of stories that feel like they were made for us, by us. I felt something similar when I watched Black Panther in 2017. At the end of that movie, I was crying—not just because of the beauty I had witnessed, but because, once I stepped outside the theater, I knew it no longer belonged to me. And that was how I felt watching Sinners.

So if you find yourself struggling with some of the film’s themes or the artistry on screen, ask yourself: do you know what it feels like to have something so beautiful—and then to lose it? But still, to rejoice in the time that you had it? Maybe that perspective will help this film resonate with you a little more.