Sinners is not just an awards-season headline — it is a feature film that has reshaped conversations around horror, legacy and Black storytelling in cinema.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, Sinners is a Southern Gothic horror drama centered on twin brothers who return to their Mississippi hometown hoping for a fresh start, only to confront supernatural forces that threaten their lives and dreams. While vampires drive the surface-level tension, the film goes much deeper — exploring generational trauma, racial injustice, faith, music and ancestral memory.
A Film Powered by Music and Memory
Music plays a defining role in the movie’s emotional weight. The Oscar-nominated song “I Lied to You,” written by Raphael Saadiq alongside composer Ludwig Göransson, is performed in the film by Miles Canton in the role of blues musician Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore.
The track anchors one of the movie’s most powerful sequences — a juke joint scene that traces the evolution of Black musical expression. Coogler has described Sinners as intentionally structured like music itself, with emotional peaks and valleys that mirror a song’s dynamic range.
From Black Panther to Horror History
Following the global impact of Black Panther, Coogler leveraged his industry capital to bring a deeply personal story to the screen. Much like Black Panther shifted perceptions of comic book films during awards season, Sinners is challenging long-standing assumptions about horror films being overlooked in major categories.
The film earned 16 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, making it one of the most recognized films of the year.
BAFTA Night and the Bigger Picture
At the BAFTAs, Sinners won three awards, becoming the most decorated film by a Black director in the ceremony’s history, surpassing 12 Years a Slave directed by Steve McQueen.
However, the celebration was overshadowed when a racial slur was shouted during the ceremony while cast members were on stage. The incident sparked backlash and public apology, briefly shifting attention away from the film’s historic achievement.
Yet in a way, the controversy underscored one of the film’s central themes: racism as a persistent horror woven into both past and present.
A Film That Feels Like Legacy
Writers and critics have noted the lineage present in Sinners, pointing to the influence of creatives like Octavia Butler, Julie Dash, Spike Lee and Jordan Peele, whose film Get Out redefined modern horror.
For Saadiq, contributing to the film felt like channeling generations of blues and gospel tradition. That same ancestral thread runs throughout the movie — making Sinners feel less like a standard horror release and more like a cinematic conversation across time.
In the end, Sinners stands as more than controversy, more than awards and more than genre. It is a film rooted in history, powered by music and driven by storytelling that honors both past and present.
