Sinners has critics and audiences going absolutely feral — some are calling it a genre-defining work, others think the discourse is doing more heavy lifting than the actual movie. Is this a genuine landmark in horror cinema, or are we projecting greatness onto a film that's just very good? Pick a side.
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Add your commentMy grandmother grew up in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s and she used to tell us stories about what the nights felt like, the sounds, the superstitions people held onto. Watching this film I cried twice and I wasn't even expecting to. It captured something true about that world.
watched it with my dad who is 64 and does not watch horror. he was quiet for the whole drive home and then said 'that was about us.' I don't really have anything to add to that.
Saw it opening weekend with zero expectations and walked out with my mouth open. The way it weaves together Black American history, blues mythology, and actual horror tension is something I haven't seen in a studio film in maybe fifteen years. This is not hype. This is a real movie.
I have never in my life heard the entire theater gasp in unison THREE separate times at different moments in the same film. Whatever you call it, it worked on a room full of strangers as a collective experience in a way that almost no movie does anymore.
The thing that elevated it for me was that nobody in the film is a fool. The characters make reasonable decisions given what they know and they still can't escape. Horror where the characters are intelligent is so much more disturbing than horror where they're just stupid.
The Michael B Jordan dual performance thing is actually impressive in a way I can't fully explain without spoilers. He's doing something physically and emotionally that most actors couldn't carry in ONE role, let alone two.
we're really out here debating whether a film that moved this many people this deeply is 'truly great' or 'just very good' and I think that debate itself is kind of the answer. films that don't matter don't generate this conversation.
I genuinely cannot believe a major studio greenlit this. A period horror film about Black Americans with this much ambition and this little compromise. Even if you think it's slightly overrated, the fact that it EXISTS and is THIS good is worth celebrating.
The cinematography alone deserves every award conversation it's getting. There's a sequence in the third act — if you've seen it you know the one — where the color grading shifts and the camera just holds still, and I genuinely grabbed my friend's arm in the theater. Pure filmmaking craft.
My theater had maybe twelve people in it and the collective silence during the long take near the end was the most I've ever felt connected to strangers. Cinema does something streaming just can't. Go see this in a theater.
the musical sequences are genuinely some of the most joyful and terrifying cinema of the past decade simultaneously and the fact that coogler managed to make those two feelings coexist is actual genius
People saying overhyped: what was the last horror film you watched that had a studio budget, a Black director, this level of craft, AND opened to these numbers? Context matters. Even if it's 'only' really good, what it represents for the genre is significant.
went in expecting horror got sucker punched by grief. I was not ready for how much of this film is actually about loss. horror works best when it's really about something else and this is really about something else
That's like saying Get Out wouldn't work without its racial context. OF COURSE the context is doing work — that's what it means to make a film with intentional thematic choices. The setting and the horror aren't separate things, they ARE each other.
It's actually scary. Like jump scare AND dread scary. The elevated horror label is lazy — this film does everything. It's scary, it has real emotional weight, and it has something to SAY. Not one or the other.
The film is historically set but the themes are completely contemporary. That tension between community and the forces that want to dissolve it, the way music is both protection and danger — it reads directly to right now. That's what separates good horror from great horror.
I've now seen it twice and noticed things the second time I completely missed the first. Films that reward second viewings are in a different category from films that are just entertaining. This is in that category.
I teach film studies at a community college and I've already added it to next semester's syllabus. There are at least four scenes I want students to analyze for how they use space and sound to create menace. Whether you love it or think it's overpraised, it is absolutely teachable cinema.
Can we talk about how good the supporting cast is? Everyone's focused on MBJ (deservedly) but the ensemble work is quietly exceptional. Every character feels like a real person with history you didn't get to see.
it's good but yall need to calm DOWN. every year there's one movie black twitter decides is the second coming and then six months later nobody talks about it. i enjoyed it but masterpiece is a stretch
Funny that the people saying 'calm down' are the ones getting upset about other people being excited. Let people enjoy things that moved them. Not every enthusiastic reaction is delusion.
I can have genuine reservations about a film without being a contrarian. The third act has real structural issues that the hype is papering over. Loving a film doesn't mean being blind to its problems.
the vampire mythology in this movie is genuinely creative and I say that as someone who thought vampire stories were completely played out. the way it connects the folklore to music and community and displacement is not something I've seen done before
the ending has divided people and i respect that but i thought it was the bravest choice they could have made. they didn't give the audience the easy version. that's rare.
nah some films earn that word quickly. Parasite was called a masterpiece in the first week it screened at Cannes and it was. Time doesn't automatically confer greatness, presence of greatness confers greatness
Okay fine I'll admit it. I went in skeptical specifically because of the hype. Came out a convert. The hype is at least 85% justified which is more than almost any hyped film manages. I was wrong to be dismissive.
Different kind of scary. Get Out is dread and paranoia. Sinners is more visceral alongside the dread. I'd say they're equals in different dimensions rather than one being better.
literally the scariest movie ive seen since hereditary. i couldn't sleep properly for two days. some of those images are just LODGED in my brain now and i cannot get them out
Best horror film since Hereditary is still a bold claim but I'm closer to agreeing with it than I expected to be when I walked in. That's the honest answer.
Went with a group of five friends. Two of them said top five horror films ever made. Two said really good, nothing more. One fell asleep in the second act. I'm somewhere between the first and second groups. The discourse is probably a little ahead of the film but not by much.
Masterpiece is a word that should be retired from film discourse for at least five years. Call it excellent. Call it essential. Stop calling things masterpieces two weeks after release.
people really out here comparing it to Get Out and Hereditary and I've also seen 'best horror film since The Shining' which is absolutely unhinged and we need to pump the brakes on that comparison specifically
The real test is whether people are still talking about it in five years. Parasite, Hereditary, Get Out all passed that test. Give Sinners time to breathe before crowning it.
the music choices are doing SO much of the heavy lifting and I think that's both a feature and a criticism honestly. when the score hits right this film is transcendent but strip the soundtrack away and some scenes are a bit emptier than people admit
people who say its overrated are the same ones who said everything was overrated. contrarianism is not a personality
Saw it dubbed in Spanish for my mom and even in translation it landed. The emotional core is strong enough to survive localization which tells you something about how well-constructed the storytelling is at the foundation.
The historical setting is doing a ton of work and I wonder if the film would hit as hard without it. 1930s Jim Crow Mississippi is such a loaded backdrop that almost anything set there carries automatic weight. I'm not sure the horror mechanics themselves are as original as people claim.
Overhyped. It's a B+ movie getting A+ discourse because people are desperate for something to celebrate after years of mid blockbusters. Good film. Not a landmark. Move on.
Coogler made Black Panther which I thought was fine but overpraised. He made Creed which was genuinely great. Sinners sounds like it belongs in the Creed column based on what people are saying but I haven't seen it yet — is it actually scary or more 'elevated horror' vibes?
my only issue and it's a small one is the pacing in the first 40 minutes. there's a lot of setup and some of it could have been tightened. once it kicks in though it absolutely does not let go
fair point but also sometimes you can just feel when a film has that quality while you're watching it. doesn't always take years to confirm
Honest question: is this actually scarier than Get Out? Because I feel like Get Out gets cited as the benchmark for socially conscious horror and I want to know where this lands relative to it before I go spend $17 at the theater
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