Sinners

Let me preface this by saying that neither my dad nor I particularly like horror movies. But we were both utterly blown away by Sinners, and have it as our favorite film of the year. Michael B. Jordan seamlessly plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack looking to start up a juke joint in Mississippi in 1932. Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, Miles Caton and more turn in spectacular performances in a film that explores music, racism, and community… and then adds vampires. Director Ryan Coogler has done amazing stuff (including Black Panther and the Creed series), and he blends history, cinematography, performance, and Ludwig Goransson’s transcendent music together into something that is beyond superlatives. It has a 97% Tomatometer and a 95% Popcornmeter from Rotten Tomatoes, and has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Casting, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects).

“It’s both a wildly ambitious meditation on American history and a rip-roaring good time.” -Dana Stevens, Slate
“There is a scene smack dab in the middle of Sinners where I felt my soul elevate to a new plane of existence.” -Sara Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com
“Sinners had me cheering for every thrill and spill, all while mulling the deeper concerns threaded through it.” -David Sims, The Atlantic
“An awe-inspiring ode to what music means to communities and cultures” -Kyle Logan, Chicago Reader
“Sinners is like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s divisive, dangerous and primed to explode. I couldn’t have liked it more.” -Peter Travers, The Travers Take
“Although Coogler’s film encompasses legend and mysticism, his manner is rationally extravagant; the action, even at its most fantastical, is underpinned by audacious ideas.” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“What a blood rush to exit Ryan Coogler’s Sinners aware that you’ve seen not merely a great movie but an eternal movie, one that will transcend today’s box office and tomorrow’s awards to live on as a forever favorite.” -Amy Nicholson, The Los Angeles Times
“Sinners is one of the most distinctive, confident mainstream films of the modern era.” -Jake Cole, Slant Magazine
“By far the most creatively ambitious, culturally layered, artistically bold twin-led cinematic outing yet — if this sentence feels like a lot, get ready for the movie!” -Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press
“Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a big-screen exultation — a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies.” -Manohla Dargis, New York Times
“Coogler’s Sinners is the best film of the year so far.” -Billie Melissa, Newsweek

And those are just some of the ones that don’t even touch on the vampires…

“Coogler has delivered one of the best blockbusters of the year, and that it has a heart and brain behind all the blood-drenched thrills just makes it that much more satisfying.” -Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
“Far from feeling indulgent, the picture is positively economical in the way it addresses so many ideas – sociological, cultural, historical – while forwarding its rattling, viscera-soaked yarn.” -Donald Clarke, Irish Times
“Sinners has a lot of important things to say, but they’re all cleverly cloaked in a period piece populated by vampires.” -Odie Henderson, Boston Globe
“Sinners is a redemption movie, a revenge movie with elements of Blaxploitation, and certainly a red-blood-soaked horror movie; it’s also deeply romantic and has the rhythms and audaciousness of some of our boldest musicals.” -Adam Kempenaar, Filmspotting
“It’s fun and rowdy and suitably lurid.” -Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine
“This is horror with a sense of purpose and an appreciation of music and history, grooving the body and gnawing at the conscience even as it nibbles on the neck.” -Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Sinners takes a victory lap at The Clyde starting Friday, February 27, and shows Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 7:30, plus Sunday at 2:00.