Ryan Coogler’s uncle James grew up in Mississippi and died in 2015. He had listened to blues records constantly, and after his death Coogler played them to feel close to him. That habit, the director told the Guardian, is what led him to research the music and, in time, to “this movie.” The movie was Sinners, a vampire film set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932.

On paper it was a big risk for Warner Bros. It was an original story with a mostly Black cast, a budget of about $90 million, and a deal that handed its director unusual power. The Guardian later recalled that Hollywood insiders had predicted it would never make money. Instead it became the highest-grossing film in North America not based on existing material since Inception in 2010.

What the numbers came to

Sinners opened over Easter weekend in April 2025 with $48 million in North America, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Forecasts had expected about $40 million. It beat Warner Bros.’ own A Minecraft Movie to first place, and it was the best start for an original film since Jordan Peele’s Us opened to $71.1 million in 2019.

The second weekend was stranger still. Ticket sales fell only 6%, to $45 million, Variety reported. Horror films usually drop sharply after opening. The BBC quoted The Hollywood Reporter’s finding that no film opening above $40 million had held so well since Avatar in 2009. It was also the smallest second-weekend fall ever recorded for an R-rated horror film.

By December, the Guardian put its gross at $368 million. It had become the 10th-highest-grossing R-rated film ever in North America, ahead of Terminator 2 and the Hangover films. In early 2026 it earned 16 Oscar nominations, the most for any film in the history of the awards. That broke the record of 14, set by All About Eve in 1950 and later matched by Titanic and La La Land.

Where the idea came from

Sinners was Coogler’s fifth feature and his first original screenplay since his debut, Fruitvale Station. Everything in between had been built on something else. Creed revived the Rocky series, and Black Panther and its sequel came from Marvel. By the time of Sinners he was, the Guardian noted, the highest-grossing Black film-maker ever.

He had wanted to tell a story about the great migration for years. “It’s a personal obsession of mine,” he told the Guardian, describing the time when Black Americans weighed leaving the South en masse. He had spent several years interviewing surviving members of the silent generation, his own family among them. His family came from near where the film is set, before they moved to California.

Coogler told RogerEbert.com that in his mind the blues and the vampires were never separate ideas. Blues musicians such as Tommy Johnson said on record that they had sold their souls to the devil to play as they did. To Coogler that was a metaphor for how oppressed people answer dehumanisation through art. “When you see the context, it’s not that crazy,” he said.

He told The Atlantic, as the BBC reported, that he did not want to use existing material as “something to hide behind.”

A third reference came from television. The BFI noted that Coogler cited a 1962 Twilight Zone episode, The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, alongside Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. To The Atlantic he described the feeling he wanted as reading Salem’s Lot with the best blues record playing and a bowl of spicy gumbo.

A deal that raised eyebrows

The Guardian reported that Coogler wrote the script in about two months. It rested on years of research into Delta folklore and blues history, and on advice from university historians.

Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy developed the film from start to finish, The Hollywood Reporter noted. It was a big test for them. Several earlier misses had reportedly led Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief executive, David Zaslav, to think about replacing them.

The terms were generous. The Hollywood Reporter called the $90 million budget a hefty price for a genre film, and noted that Creed had cost $50 million. The studio also agreed that the rights would revert to Coogler after 25 years. According to the Guardian, the deal also gave him final cut. The paper recalled one prediction that the gamble “could be the end of the studio system.” Just a week before the second weekend, the BBC noted, Variety had written that profitability remained “a question mark.”

What it took to make

Coogler shot the film on large-format Imax cameras. Little White Lies noted that the switches between Imax framing and a standard widescreen frame seemed timed to the music. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who had shot Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was the cinematographer.

The heart of the film is a single sequence in the juke joint. Sammie, the twins’ young cousin and a preacher’s son, plays the blues so powerfully that musicians from past and future appear around him. The BFI’s critic wrote that the scene was “instantly recognised” as visionary. Little White Lies described it as one swooping take shot in Imax.

The film also takes its time. UVA Today noted that Sinners spends about half of its two hours and 17 minutes on the characters before any vampire appears. RogerEbert.com’s reviewer counted about an hour before the story even reaches the juke joint. Coleman argued that the first half is still full of danger, because the Delta in 1932 threatened these characters on every side.

The cast widened beyond the twins’ own community. Li Jun Li and the Malaysian actor Yao play Grace and Bo Chow, Chinese grocers in the town. The Guardian reported that Coogler drew on the experiences of Chinese immigrants, whom histories of the South often forget. In an interview quoted by the Guardian, Yao said he was glad to play an Asian character speaking English without a stereotyped accent.

The production drew on specialists. Ludwig Göransson wrote the score, and Hannah Beachler designed the sets, the BFI noted. The Guardian credited the costume designer Ruth E Carter and Coogler’s wife and producer, Zinzi, for helping carry the film’s layers of history.

Who made it

Michael B. Jordan plays twins, Smoke and Stack, returning from Chicago to open a juke joint. It was his fifth film with Coogler, which means he has appeared in every film Coogler has directed. Variety’s critic praised how quietly Jordan separated the brothers, one with a soft smile and one without.

The newcomer Miles Caton, a former backup singer for H.E.R., plays Sammie. The BFI called it a star-making debut. Delroy Lindo plays Delta Slim, a hard-drinking pianist, and Wunmi Mosaku plays Annie, a hoodoo practitioner whose narration opens the film. Jack O’Connell plays Remmick, the Irish vampire who wants Sammie’s songs.

Coogler’s own path ran through the cinema. He told the Guardian that his father took him to see Boyz n the Hood when he was five. That, he said, was the model: a film about a specific American experience that everybody understands.

Why it landed

The film arrived after a slow winter for Hollywood. Robin Means Coleman, who teaches media studies at the University of Virginia and studies Black horror, had a plain explanation. “It’s a good movie,” was her verdict. She pointed out that horror hits arrive almost every decade, from Night of the Living Dead to Get Out.

Critics were close to unanimous. Sinners scored 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, the best of Coogler’s career, and an A from CinemaScore audiences. UVA Today reported that it was the only horror film in 35 years of exit polling to earn that grade. Not everyone agreed. RogerEbert.com’s reviewer called it messy and said its ambitions landed only “in flashes.”

The BBC argued that its mix of genres was part of the draw. It was at once a horror film, a blues musical, a gangster thriller, and a period drama. With no franchise behind it and deliberately vague trailers, audiences could not predict the plot. That, the BBC suggested, sent some viewers back for a second look.

The audience was broad. The Hollywood Reporter cited PostTrak data showing that Black moviegoers made up 38% of opening-weekend ticket buyers and white moviegoers 35%. Latino audiences accounted for 18%.

What came after

The Guardian reported that Sinners became a hit again on HBO Max once it reached streaming. It also noted that Coogler has called the film a standalone story.

The Oscars made him the seventh Black film-maker nominated for best director. He was also nominated for best picture and original screenplay. Jordan told The Hollywood Reporter that watching Coogler “get his flowers” gave him “a tremendous sense of joy.”

Coogler himself traces a change in outlook to Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star. On that film, he said, he had been too anxious to enjoy the work. “I have to see the good in things,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. The film that brought him there started years earlier, with an uncle in Mississippi and a stack of blues records.