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Ryan Coogler's Sinners may be a vampire horror but beneath all the bloodshed, it's a bold, heartwrenching love letter to Black community and the transcendental power of music. No other scene in the movie showcases that so completely as the one around an hour in, where Miles Caton's Sammie 'Preacher Boy' Moore picks up his guitar during the opening night of Smoke and Stack's new juke joint outside Clarksdale in 1930s Mississippi.
Set to Raphaael Saddiq and Ludwig Goransson's now-Golden Globe-nominated track 'I Lied to You', the electric sequence opens on Sammie, before switching between the grooving guests and Delroy Lindo's booze-loving Blues legend Delta Slim tickling the ivories in the back. As Sammie shuts his eyes and plays on, Coogler switches from standard widescreen to an IMAX-friendly 1.43:1 aspect ratio – and invites viewers into the sweaty, spirited soirée.
"I thought, 'Maybe we can take a risk and put the audience in a place that they recognize here, an awesome party and a crazy performance that stops space and time and gives you an out-of-the-body experience," Coogler previously told the Los Angeles Times. Mission accomplished, it's safe to say.
Invitation only
As the edges of the frame go hazy, Wunmi Mosaku's hoodoo practitioner Annie says via voiceover: "There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, they can pierce the veil between life and death." With that, the next four minutes play out like a one-shot [cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw has clarified that it is, in fact, three 76-second Steadicam shots stitched together] as the camera passes through the crowd and reveals musicians and hoofers from the past, present, and future.
One second, Sammie's chords are being accompanied by the fast-paced strums of a ngoni-playing West African griot, the next he's rubbing elbows with an outlandishly dressed Jimi Hendrix-type as they shred their Gibson Flying V. There's an '80s-looking, vinyl-spinning DJ, some twerkers, a Zaouli dancer, a Chinese Sun Wukong performer, and others, too, and it's as moving as it is visually arresting.
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In a literal sense, Sammie's song does bridge the gap between reality and the supernatural, catching the attention of nearby bloodsucker Remmick (Jack O'Connell), who descends on the club and starts picking off its patrons. But in terms of the audience, it also acts as the connective tissue between the film's gritty Scorsese-esque first act and its much zanier back half. Dropping those otherworldly elements in without warning, Coogler demands that we leave our expectations at the door and open ourselves up to whatever might come next; in short, he's informing us that anything's possible from that point on.
In a more metaphorical sense, it's a soul-shaking nod to how music can transport us to different times and places, as certain rhythms and lyrics cause us to recall specific, emotionally-charged experiences. "Music and memory share an intimate bond," writes a group of scientists in 'Cognitive Crescendo', a National Institutes of Health paper. "Often, a song can trigger a cascade of vivid memories, while melodies and lyrics, even from years past, can be effortlessly recalled. Such connections correlate with activations in areas like the hippocampus, pivotal in memory storage and retrieval."
Sacred song
It's also a powerful reclamation; an acknowledgement of how so much generation-spanning music, dance, and culture stems from African diaspora and Black history. In the run-up to Sinners' release, Coogler spoke openly about how he'd never been to Mississippi, where his maternal grandfather was born and raised before their family moved to Oakland, California. Blues music, though, always helped him feel connected to his Southern heritage. "We brought this with us… it's sacred," a serious-faced Slim tells Sammie right before he takes to the juke joint's stage. "It's big," he concludes. A song is never really just a song, after all.
"Every movie should have its version of that scene, if it can hold it," Coogler added in the aforementioned interview. "All the choices we made had to commit to getting to it. We had to say, 'This is maybe the most important scene in the movie. Everything that came before and everything that comes after has to support that.' Seeing it come together was one of the most rewarding moments of my career." Note-perfect filmmaking.
Honorable mentions:
The causeway, 28 Years Later – A nail-biting chase sequence set against the backdrop of a dazzling twilight sky? Danny Boyle, you're spoiling us.
Escape from Sensei Sergio's apartment, One Battle After Another – We needed a few small beers to come down from the chaos that was Leonardo DiCaprio's Bob flailing around in his dressing gown.
Ghorman Massacre, Andor –
Concert showdown, KPop Demon Hunters – Rumi, Mira, and Zoey face off against the Saja Boys in the Netflix film's colorful conclusion. Complete with banging final track? That's how it's done, done, done.
Submarine sequence, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – We were holding our breaths along with Tom Cruise, as Ethan Hunt took a death-defying dive in the action franchise's most recent offering.
Sinners is available to rent or buy digitally on Prime Video, Apple TV and more. If you're more of a physical media-type (Ryan Coogler would be proud), you can also grab it on DVD and Blu-ray. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies releasing in 2026.
