Sinners — The Best Film of 2025, so far

In 2013, Ryan Coogler debuted with his first film, Fruitvale Station, an acclaimed independent movie about the struggles of a young African-American citizen, based on real-life events. In the next 12 years, he's directed 4 movies, like Black Panther and Creed, always working alongside Michael B. Jordan to tell stories about the African-American community. Now, after 3 years since his last feature (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), he's delivered a new original film. Only this time, he might have just passed from a popular, talented director to a popular, talented, and prestigious director. In this article, I'll give my opinion on why Sinners is his best film yet and also the best film of this year so far.

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A pair of twins returns to their hometown in Mississippi in order to open their own Blues club for their community. But they will be threatened by evil vampires.

First thing to explain: Sinners is labeled as a horror movie, but that's only in the prologue and the last third of the film. Before getting to that, the film is a drama about two brothers with the dream of joining their community in a place where they could be free. That's why the movie takes a lot of time to introduce its characters and themes. The way it is built up makes it much bigger and more complex than the average monster horror movie.

In this decade, we've seen some of the classic monsters return to the big screen, now as metaphors for real-life fears. In 2020, we had The Invisible Man (a movie I already wrote about) as the personification of an abusive relationship. Now, Coogler uses vampires as a metaphor for cultural assimilation. The vampire leader is an Irishman whose home was taken over by the British. He knows the same atrocities will happen to every other culture. As a vampire, he sees himself as a saviour, joining as many cultures as he can into one. But he doesn’t realize he's doing the same thing they did to him. This gives more layers to the vampire lore. They’re not just bloodthirsty monsters pretending to be polite so people let them in; they are a representation of people who lost their identity when it was absorbed by powerful, hungry people. Furthermore, the Catholic faith, which is usually a shield against vampires, this time is portrayed as another way of cultural assimilation or imposition by making them feel guilty about their own culture.

In this case, culture is portrayed by music, specifically Blues, which is considered one of the biggest gifts the African Americans have given to the world. We see how this kind of art is capable of transcending time. With a concept like that, this film had to deliver some Oscar- and/or Grammy-worthy compositions. Ludwig Göransson proved once more why he is one of the best composers today. These must be some of the best original songs written for a movie in a long time. Plus, the soundtrack is also magical; no scene would have the same impact without the music. It even managed to deliver a song that quickly went viral on social media, something that not every production can achieve.

It's funny how this year we all expected Robert Pattinson to deliver an amazing double-character performance in Mickey 17. Instead, it was Michael B. Jordan as a pair of twins trying to start over by uniting their people. One brother is cold, protective, and determined, while the other one is more passionate, comical, and joyful. Jordan managed to give life to characters equally deep but also different from each other. The rest of the cast also deserves all the praise. Hailee Steinfeld is a passionate and determined woman trapped between two worlds who's willing to take huge risks for love. But if there's an actor who deserves more attention, that's Miles Caton; he practiced for months to play the guitar and sing for this role. All that work paid off when he starred in one of the best scenes of the movie. His career is just getting started, which means we may have a new young rising star. The rest of the characters are not as complex as them, but we spend enough time knowing them, and they are really endearing, which works perfectly for the classic monster movie. All this just proves the huge capacity for character building Coogler has.

Speaking of the technical work, we have a lot of talent behind it. We already talked about the music, but we haven’t mentioned the rest. Ryan Coogler reunited many of his previous partners to make this movie feel unique. The cinematography looks astonishing in every moment, but especially at night. From the sunset until the sunrise, we see everything, and it looks spectacular. Most of the visual effects are saved for the final showdown, and then we see a lot of practical effects to create a violent, bloody, and scary battle against the vampires. They also use some digital effects for very specific shots for the twins and to show the powers of the vampires, but most of the time it's all done with practical effects. All the topics around the segregation, the perfectly executed battle, and its endearing characters help this final act from getting too over the top and stay more grounded, despite the unusual mix of stories.

Sinners is definitely the best movie of 2025, at least for now. It's been almost a month since it came out, and it's still in theatres and people are still talking about it. It is among the highest-grossing films of the year, which means excellent news for Warner (which is also earning a lot from A Minecraft Movie). But it is a bigger victory for original films. This has proved that people still want to see deep and meaningful original stories, no matter how strange the concept sounds. I strongly recommend you watch Sinners on the biggest screen you can. Even if it's too early to say this statement, I think it will get a lot of nominations next year. For now, Coogler can enjoy this hit and his new reputation as one of the best directors today, whose next movie we'll all be patiently waiting for.