Ryan Coogler’s Black-led, genre-bending vampire epic creates history with 16 Academy Award nominations, marking a rare year when horror, history, and Black experience have been recognised across every major category
There’s a particular thrill in watching a director take off a tailored studio suit and try on something ingenious, imaginative, and genre-bending. Sinners, which has created history for being the only film in the history of Oscars to have snagged 16 nominations, is that movie for Ryan Coogler, the director of Fruitvale Station (2013), who has earlier helmed million-dollar franchise films, like the Rocky series spinoff, Creed (2015), and Marvel’s Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
Shot on large format IMAX 70mm film and Ultra Panavision 70, Sinners is an ambitious, occasionally confused, and deeply alive Southern Gothic horror musical that spends so much time getting drunk on atmosphere that you briefly forget it’s meant to turn feral. When it finally does, it does so with a grin and a snarl. Made with a budget of about $100 million, it stands out for its fresh approach to mixing genres and its focus on Black experiences in the American South.
Yes, there are vampires in the film, but Sinners is not in a hurry about them. When they arrive, it’s with an almost mischievous delay, as if the film wants to test your patience. If you came expecting fangs every 15 minutes, you may squirm, but will still be hooked. If you’re willing to let the film change shape, the payoff is considerable.
A historical drama, a horror story
The story centres on twin brothers, Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore and Elias ‘Stack’Moore, both played by Michael B. Jordan. They are veterans of World War I who worked in Chicago's criminal world. In October 1932, they return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as the home of blues music. Using money from bootlegging, they buy an old sawmill from a former Klansman and turn it into a juke joint. This place becomes a hub for Black people to gather, play music, and find community during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, when a series of anti-Black laws had pretty much become a way of life.
Coogler, who has written and directed the film, takes time to build the setting in the first part. He introduces a group of characters who help run the juke joint. Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) is the cook who provides strength and care. Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), an experienced guitarist, is excellent in the music scenes. Sammie, the twins' cousin portrayed by Miles Caton, sings and plays the dobro guitar with great skill. Other characters include Stack's former partner Mary, played by Hailee Steinfeld, who can pass as white, and Pearline (Jayme Lawson), who develops feelings for Sammie. The staff also features Cornbread, the bouncer played by Omar Benson Miller, and Grace and Bo Chow ( Li Jun Li and Yao).
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Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who has become the first woman of colour to be nominated in the category, creates a moody atmosphere in almost every scene. The sound design includes details like creaking floors, cooking sounds, and guitar notes, making the scenes feel real. As Sammie's music grows more intense, vampires appear. Led by the Irish vampire Remmick (Jack O'Connell), these creatures, besides blood, seek to take the blues music, which represents Black culture and pain. The movie shifts from a drama about the past to a horror story with elements of a siege, reminding you of films like Night of the Living Dead. It includes action with a style from Blaxploitation movies and musical moments that turn scary.
The vampires stand for cultural theft, showing how others have taken from Black communities. Vampire rules like needing invitations tie into ideas of permission and involvement in oppression. The film explores these without letting them show through the characters’ actions.
Smoke deals with guilt and tries to protect everyone, while Stack is more charming but willing to accept darkness to survive. Jordan makes the twins feel like different people — who share the same face, the same trauma, and yet arrive at opposite reckonings — through small changes in how they move and speak. It’s arguably Jordan’s career-best work. Mosaku's Annie is a strong supporting character while Lindo brings wisdom to Delta Slim, and Caton's Sammie shines in the music parts. Steinfeld handles Mary’s complicated role quite well. The group works together to make the juke joint feel like a real place of resistance.
Come for the Blues
The film's technical department is strong, too; the sets recreate 1930s Mississippi accurately. Costumes and makeup fit the time period. Visual effects mix real blood and fights with supernatural touches, like using guitar parts as weapons. The original blues-inspired soundtrack and score, composed by Ludwig Göransson, draw on the 1930s Mississippi blues, folk, and soul, incorporating original recordings from artists like Brittany Howard, Rod Wave, James Blake, and Raphael Saadiq. The editing keeps a steady pace, though the early parts can feel slow before the action starts. It’s romantic in parts, (it has the ache of the doomed love stories), funny in flashes (the twins’ banter lands like old-school vaudeville), and deeply mournful about broken lineages and stolen futures.
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Coogler’s most personal film yet, Sinners is messy in places, masterful in others, but unforgettable in nearly every frame. Was the 16-nomination haul a surprise? In retrospect, yes and no. Throughout late 2025, Sinners was a strong contender but not the presumed frontrunner. It was seen as a ‘dark horse’ or ‘genre outlier’ that might snag technical nods and perhaps a directing/acting nod, but few foresaw it dominating to this degree. Horror elements and vampire subject matter historically face uphill battles (only The Silence of the Lambs, has won Best Picture among horror-adjacent films). Also, Coogler’s previous Oscar experience was limited (Black Panther earned technical nods and a costume win but no Picture/Director even though it was nominated in the former), so expectations were low-key. It was speculated that the film’s R-rating and bold racial themes might alienate older voters.
However, the Academy — which officially implemented new diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards for Best Picture eligibility, starting with the 96th Academy Awards (2024), to increase the number of non-White nominees, and is hungry for original studio films that take risks — rewarded it with the record-breaking nomination tally. However, the question worth asking is could Sinners convert these nominations to wins or suffer a The Color Purple (1985) fate —11 nods, zero wins — or a Titanic-style sweep (11 out of 14). Predictions vary wildly: strong locks in technical categories (sound, effects, cinematography), likely wins for Jordan and Coogler, but Best Picture remains a battle against its close rival, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.
For all its excesses, Sinners is refreshing. It doesn’t always connect. It overreaches. It indulges. But it also sings, stomps, bleeds, and remembers that cinema is allowed to be strange. Come for the blues. Stay for the audacity; original films like this don’t come around often, and when they do, it’s worth letting them make a little noise. What Sinners ultimately represents is not just a personal high point for Coogler or a statistical anomaly in Oscar history, but a reordering of value within the Academy itself. That, more than the number 16, is the history Sinners has made.
