Sinners

This is a story told through its music, and it's so well done.

Sinners is a redemption movie, a revenge movie with elements of Blaxploitation, and certainly a red-blood-soaked horror movie&#59; it’s also deeply romantic and has the rhythms and audaciousness of some of our boldest musicals.

Somewhere in this artful and audacious 137-minute horror/thriller is an even more phenomenal 120-minute film.

Yes, Coogler fluffs the ending, but by then all the heavy lifting has been done.

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan deliver a vampire movie for the ages.

Do all the narrative and thematic threads come together? No. Sinners almost works better in parts than as a whole. But it’s always enthralling, as if you too is trapped in a spell, as if you’ve struck a bargain with the devil.

Because no matter how good Sinners is on the surface, its power lies deeper. Not as a means to manipulate, but to inspire and grant us permission to set ourselves free. The only person who should control your life is you.

Sinners excels at how it successfully and succinctly illustrates how culturally, ethnically, and politically layered the South is.

Coogler makes it work through force of will, and the ability to make us feel intoxicated with the film’s energy and impressive visionary overtures. Music is love and danger and life.

There's so much more to love in Sinners. Coogler's film-nerd 10,000 hours are on ecstatic display, from the Miller's Crossing–like antics in the woods to the Jack Torrance–esque theatrics of his clown-faced demonics.