Sinners (4K UHD Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Jul 29, 2025
• Format: 4K Ultra HD
• 

Director

Ryan Coogler

Release Date(s)

2025 (July 8, 2025)

Studio(s)

Proximity Media/Warner Bros. Pictures (Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment)

• Film/Program Grade: A-
• Video Grade: A
• Audio Grade: A+
• Extras Grade: B+

Review

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is the rare film that’s easy to describe but difficult to fully apprehend. On the surface, it’s pure high concept: a Depression-era juke joint in Mississippi is besieged by vampires. Film at 11:00. That makes Sinners sound like an inversion of From Dusk Till Dawn, with the vampires trying to get inside instead of the patrons trying to get out. That would be true enough, if Sinners was indeed a vampire story. Yet the greatest trick that Ryan Coogler ever pulled was convincing studio executives and audiences alike that he was making a film about the undead, when Sinners is actually nothing of the sort. Instead, it’s a film about life itself, and the source of that life isn’t found in the human body, but rather in the human heart (in the metaphorical sense only). Oh, these vampires do indeed spill great gouts of blood all across the expansive canvas that Coogler crafted for the film, but that’s where Sinners diverges not just from traditional Hollywood vampire lore, but also from the mythology of the Mississippi Delta.

During the prologue of Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Dracula, Vlad Tepes renounces God, plunges a sword into a cross, and then uses the church’s communion cup to drink the blood that somehow comes from the stone, proclaiming, “The blood is the life.” Never mind the fact that despite the film’s somewhat impertinent full title Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the scene has nothing whatsoever to do with Stoker (and Dracula never utters that phrase anywhere in the novel, although Renfield does use it a few times). While Stoker did hint at a connection between Vlad the Impaler and Dracula, he never really offered an origin for the Count’s vampirism. Yet in screenwriter James V. Hart’s rewrite of Stoker, he offered this scene as an explanation. Vlad first blasphemes God verbally and desecrates the sacred objects in the church, before finally violating God’s command in Leviticus 17:10-16 not to consume blood since “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” In so doing, Vlad becomes a vampire of his own volition, and he represents the ultimate in blasphemy against God and man: an undead creature that has to continue drinking the blood of the living in order to survive. The life was indeed in the blood.

In Sinners, Coogler didn’t just invert Quentin Tarantino’s formula for From Dusk Till Dawn; he also inverted the concept of vampirism itself. Yes, these are “traditional” vampires, at least in Hollywood terms: they can’t enter a room unless they’ve been invited, and they do drink blood while regenerating any damage done to them, although they can be killed via a stake through the heart or by exposure to direct sunlight (the latter being the most Hollywood of all vampire tropes, even though it actually traces back to F.W. Murnau). Yet life for these vampires isn’t really in the blood; that’s just a means of maintaining their undead existence. They’re not so much driven by a lust for blood as they’re driven by a lust for life, and that life is represented by something else entirely: music, or more specifically in this case, the Delta blues. In Sinners, the life isn’t really in the blood, it’s in the music.

The opening of Sinners carefully establishes the central conflict of the film, which demonstrates how blood isn’t really thicker than water. Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) is an aspiring young singer/guitarist, torn between loyalty to his father, the Reverend Jedediah, and his deep-seated love of the blues. Yet he can’t resist the siren call of his cousins the Smokestack Twins (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role), who have returned to Mississippi after spending time as bootleggers in Chicago. They’re using the illicit money that they earned there in order to set up a juke joint in an unoccupied building purchased from racist white landowner Hogwood (David Maldonado). Their intention is to provide a venue where poor black sharecroppers can escape the workaday pressures of the Jim Crow South (while making a buck or two in the process, of course). It’s a battle for Sammie’s soul, with the church on one side and temptation on the other.

Smoke and Stack manage to pull together a diverse group that includes local musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo); the hulking Cornbread (Omar Miller) as a bouncer; and Chinese storeowner Bo Chow (Yao) and his wife Grace (Li Jun Li) to manage everything. They even attract Smoke’s estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Stack’s ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), as well as unhappily married singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson), who has caught Sammie’s eye. Much of their efforts in building this establishment are represented in a montage set to the Willie Dixon classic Wang Dang Doodle, not the original 1960 Howlin’ Wolf recording or even Koko Taylor’s 1965 version, but rather a new recording featuring Tierinii Jackson, Shardé Thomas, and Cedric Burnside. That’s significant, because it shows how the life contained within music can draw different generations together. Coogler makes that point manifest when Sammie plays his song I Lied to You, a moment so powerful that it ends up blending past, present, and future together. As he performs, the life that’s represented in his music transcends space and time, drawing in African tribal dancers, a Bootsy Collins style electric guitarist, some members of the Peking Opera, and even a few DJs to scratch some discs. It’s such a transcendent experience that his performance seems to ignite the building itself, exposing the life contained within to the hungry undead spirits waiting outside.

As the camera pulls back on Sammie burning down the house, it reveals Irish-American vampires Remmick (Jack O’Connell), Bert (Peter Dreimanis) and Joan (Lola Kirke) standing outside, and just like Sammie, they’re unable to resist the siren call of the blues. They’ve been looking for an injection of new blood, and not just the literal kind, either. They’re accomplished musicians of their own, and they try to worm their way into the juke joint by demonstrating their talents while playing some Irish folk songs. Remmick actually dates back to the old world, having dealt with British colonialism in Ireland, which he thinks gives him common ground with these poor black sharecroppers. Yet it’s clear that something’s not quite right here, and when Smoke and Stack deny them entrance, all literal Hell ends up breaking loose.

Sinners actually owes as much to Bill Gunn’s landmark 1973 vampire film Ganja & Hess as it does to Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez. It’s really an ethnographic study of how tribal myths and traditions ended up informing the culture of the rural south and the conception of the Delta blues. It’s no accident that Sammie’s playing is able to conjure up spirits from that tradition, nor is it a coincidence that Annie practices Hoodoo, which is also a blend of various ancient cultural traditions. Like the blues, Hoodoo was born of the pain and suffering experienced by enslaved peoples in the United States, a suffering that continued long after slavery was nominally abolished—out of the plantation frying pan, into the Jim Crow fire. All of that informed the creation of the blues, a form of music born of pain and suffering that somehow still manages to celebrate life. The blues is life, as Remmick clearly understands.

Given the centrality of music in Sinners, it’s easy to question why Coogler chose vampires as his antagonists instead of devils of a far more literal sort. After all, the history of the Delta blues is intertwined with stories about Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil in order to gain his uncanny ability to play. Yet that’s another trope that Coogler inverts in Sinners. There’s no Faustian bargain here; Sammie’s musical gifts are an inherent part of his body and soul. Coogler’s “devils” come a-knockin’ because they’re the ones who are unable to resist the siren call of the blues. As vampires, they end up assimilating the essence of their prey, so they don’t just want to suck Sammie’s blood; they want to absorb his music as well and claim it as their own (a fact that Remmick freely admits). So, it’s perfectly natural that vampires are involved in Sinners. After all, bloodsuckers of various sorts have been assimilating black music for many decades now and claiming it as their own, and the only Faustian bargain that the original musicians ever made was in the contracts that they signed with record companies—arguably the worst bloodsuckers of all.

Ultimately, in the battle for Sammie’s soul, he’s just a victim caught in the middle of spiritual warfare that doesn’t have his best interests at heart. Reverend Jedediah believes that the blues is the devil’s music that’s leading his son astray, but he couldn’t possibly be more wrong about that. In reality, it’s not the devil’s music, and that’s why these vampiric devils crave it so much that it ends up leading them astray instead. Both the Church and the forces of darkness want to claim Sammie’s talents for their own, hindering him from following his muse wherever it may lead him (even back to Smoke and Stack’s adopted hometown of Chicago, as it turns out). In Sinners, the only real blasphemy against God and man is to prevent artists from expressing themselves however they feel led to do so. That’s what keeps them (and memories of them) alive for generations to come, as Coogler reminds us during a bittersweet coda that blends fantasy with reality.

After all, the life is in the music.

Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot Sinners on standard 5-perf 65mm film (in Ultra Panavision 70 format) using Panavision System 65 Studio and System 65 High Speed cameras with 1.3 squeeze anamorphic Ultra Panatar lenses, and on horizontal 15-perf 65mm film (IMAX format) using IMAX MSM 9802 cameras with the spherical 50mm and 80mm Panavision lenses that were built for Oppenheimer. (The final IMAX sequence was shot using a custom detuned Petzval 80mm lens, while a Canon EF 1200mm lens was used to film the full moon.) Post-production work was completed as a 4K Digital Intermediate, which was then scanned back out to both standard 5-perf 70mm film and 15-perf IMAX 70mm. For true IMAX theatres, Sinners was presented in the variable aspect ratios of 2.76:1 and 1.43:1, while digital IMAX theatres varied between 2.76:1 and 1.90:1 instead. Standard 70mm and DCP versions maintained a static 2.76:1. This 4K Ultra HD version varies between 2.76:1 and the full-frame home video aspect ratio of 1.78:1.

To maintain a relatively consistent grain structure throughout the film, Durald used Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 stock for both formats and under all lighting conditions, underexposed two stops, with a few key shots filmed on Ektachrome 100D 5294 color reversal stock instead. She told American Cinematographer that she wanted the image to have the depth and layers of vintage Kodachrome slide film, since those photographs had “so much clarity and layers to them. It’s important for me that the image has weight to it and feels heavy and textured. It was great to work with a bigger negative and keep my shadows dense.” Coogler had initially wanted to shoot Sinners in Super-16 format, but that would have created stability issues with the extensive visual effects work for the Smokestack Twins, and he discovered that the 65mm 5219 stock gave him the heavily textured look that he wanted.

Those textures really sing in this version, although don’t go looking for 16mm levels of grain, since the large format negatives took care of that. The grain is still there if you search for it, but it’s tight and refined, as are all the fine details of the costuming, sets, and faces. While digital cameras are capable of capturing at extremely high resolutions these days, there’s still something to be said for large format film. Even after being scanned into a computer and finished digitally during post-production, it offers tangible textures that are difficult to reproduce when adding fake grain to native digital. Even the anamorphic distortion at the edges of the frame enhances the overall texture. It’s gorgeous.

Sinners has a carefully modulated color palette, and that distinctive look has been treated with equal care in this presentation. The High Dynamic Range grade (both Dolby Vision and HDR10 are included) is relatively restrained, which is important because so is the palette. Costume designer Ruth E. Carter avoided bright colors that wouldn’t have existed in the clothing worn by poor people in the Depression-era rural South—pale browns, blues, whites, and a handful of reds predominate. Arkapaw lit the juke joint with warm amber tones, in contrast to the cold blues of the vampire-infested woods that surrounds it. (If the life is in the music, then the lighting in the juke joint supports that idea visually.) While the daylight scenes and the brightly-lit interiors have fantastic contrast, the exterior night scenes can look a little flat in comparison, but that’s probably the result of the deliberately underexposed negative, so it’s exactly what Arkapaw and Coogler had in mind. There’s nothing to criticize here.

Primary audio is offered in English Dolby Atmos and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, and the Atmos mix is every bit the equal to the potent visuals on display. Every environment has its own distinct ambience, drawing viewers into the scene by surrounding them on all sides with the natural sounds of each specific setting. It’s a highly subjective mix, too—when characters talk about their memories, the sounds from those memories expand around the viewer (even the feelings that they’re experiencing while they reminisce are represented by ambient tones). That subjectivity even extends to the moving camera—when the camera spins in place during the I Lied to You number, the sounds in the room end up spinning around the viewer as well. (It’s a similar effect to what happens in the Atmos mix for Darren Aronofsky’s Mother.) Yet the music is the still the life of this mix, however thrilling that the gunfire and vampire action may be. Whether Ludwig Göransson’s hypnotic score, the background songs, or the various performances by Miles Caton and others (including some devilishly intense Irish folk songs), it all sounds spectacular here. It’s music you can feel, too—there’s some real heft to the bass, especially when the DJs get in on the action during I Lied to You. The powerful dynamics really thump in that scene (and the jump scares elsewhere are also capable of levitating you out of your chair). It’s a reference quality mix.

Additional audio options include English Descriptive Audio (U.S.) and English Descriptive Audio (U.K.), plus French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital. Subtitle options include English SDH, French, and Spanish.

The Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment 4K Ultra HD release of Sinners is UHD only—there’s no Blu-ray copy included, although it does offer a Digital Code on a paper insert tucked inside. There’s also a slipcover that matches the artwork on the insert. Also available is a Limited Edition Steelbook release. The following extras are included, all of them in HD:

• Dancing With the Devil: The Making of Sinners (32:39)
• Blues in the Night: The Music of Sinners (23:47)
• Thicker Than Blood: Becoming the Smokestack Twins (10:47)
• Spirits of the Deep South (8:00)
• Wages of Sin: The Creature FX of Sinners (10:53)
• Deleted Scenes:
  • Farmhouse Dinner (1:43)
  • Juke Building Montage (2:42)
  • Sammie and Slim Talk at Piano (1:25)
  • Slim Plays My Preachin’ (4:27)
  • Mary and Annie Talk about Gumbo (1:24)
  • Joan Watches Cornbread (:56)
  • Jed Sermon and Steal Away (6:16)

The centerpiece of the extras is Dancing With the Devil, a making-of featurette that’s a cut above the usual EPK fare—no surprise there, considering that it was directed by Constantine Nasr. It’s a love letter to Coogler’s love letter to the blues and classic storytelling—in fact, he says that if blues is the backbone of popular music across the globe, then horror is the backbone of popular storytelling. He waxes poetic about his love of the blues and the cinema, including the many inspirations behind Sinners (and yes, Wang Dang Doodle was the song that made the whole story come together). In addition to Coogler, Dancing With the Devil includes interviews with cast and crew members like Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Li Jun Li, Ludwig Göransson, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, producers Zinzi Coogler & Sev Ohanian, editor Michael P. Shawver, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, production designer Hannah Beachler, choreographer Aakomon Hasani Jones, visual effects supervisor Michael Ralla, and many more. They all stress the collaborative nature of the project, and it was obviously a real labor of love for everyone involved.

The rest of the featurettes are briefer looks at specific components of Sinners. Blues in the Night brings back Coogler and Göransson to discuss the music in the film, joined by Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson, and various musicians who worked on the film like Buddy Guy and Bobby Rush. Thicker Than Blood focuses on the creation of the Smokestack Twins, with Coogler and Jordan joined by Michael Ralla, makeup designer Sian Richards, and Smoke/Stack body double Percy Bell. (It also offers a look at the elaborate custom Halo camera rig that was used to capture data from Jordan’s performance.) Spirits of the Deep South features Professor Yvonne Chireau of Swarthmore College examining the history of Hoodoo and the way that it’s utilized in the film. Wages of Sin gets down and dirty with the nasty, focusing on the outstanding prosthetic makeup work by Mike Fontaine, from the creatures to the abundant gore.

Finally, there’s a collection of Deleted Scenes, which offers both fully deleted material and extended versions of scenes that made it to the final cut. They’re all interesting, but the film definitely plays better as it is. Taken together, it’s not the most extensive set of supplements, but this is one case where quality outweighs quantity—and added together, the various featurettes add up to nearly 90 minutes, which qualifies as a feature-length documentary. They’re all quite good, too. Take all of that, add in reference quality audio and damned near reference quality video, and you have an outstanding representation of Sinners on physical media. For a film that excels so well at representation on both sides of the camera, that’s perfectly appropriate. Highly recommended.

- Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).