Top 10 Takeaways from Ryan Coogler’s Sinners
Posh Auntie here, bringing you all the reflections, revelations, and realness after watching Ryan Coogler’s haunting masterpiece, Sinners. Let’s get into the top ten things that stuck with me…. because baybee, this movie had layers.
1. Everybody Wants Your Gift
Sammy Moore, the preacher boy with a voice blessed by the heavens, realizes that vampires want him because of his gift. That moment felt like a larger truth: the world (and sometimes even the church) will try to possess your light. Protect your joy, protect your talent.
2. Recruitment is Recruitment, Evil or Otherwise
The way the vampire coven grew eerily resembled the way the Klan built their ranks. With fear, manipulation, and twisted loyalty. A chilling parallel.
3. Smoke’s Necklace Moment
Smoke (played by the dreamy Michael B. Jordan) removes his protective necklace at the end. To me, it symbolized surrender. He was ready to let his spirit finally reunite with his lost love and their child. A heartbreaking yet beautiful choice.
4. Love, Loyalty, and Leaving Your Roots
Stack (the other twin ) curses out a white woman and then turns around and professes he’d kill for her. In the end, he stays with her (Mary) as a vampire but confesses he misses the old days. It made me think about how marrying outside your culture can sometimes feel like losing a part of yourself.
5. Sammy’s Voice? Whew, Baby.
Not a revelation, but can we talk about that velvet voice?! Turns out, Sammy (the actor) toured with H.E.R. and she recommended he audition! Sinners was his debut, and what a debut it was.
6. Jim Crow’s Hidden Chains
This movie taught me something new. Sammy introduces himself as a sharecropper from Sunshine Plantation. A chilling reminder that the plantation mentality didn’t end after slavery. Sharecroppers were paid in “wood money” or “plantation coins,” keeping them bound to their oppressors, unable to build real wealth or leave. Jim Crow was just slavery by another name.
7. Smoke and Annie’s Love Story
The hoodoo doctor Annie and Smoke’s connection was pure magic. Their scenes together showed a love that went deeper than flesh. A soulful, ancestral kind of bond. So tender. So rare.
8. Music as Memory and Medicine
The juke joint scenes were more than just performances. They showed how Black folks have always carried our history, our grief, and our joy through music. Even when the world tried to break us, the music kept us alive.
9. Vampires and the Power of Deception
Vampires looked “normal” until they didn’t. A chilling metaphor. Once someone’s been “bitten” by certain ideologies, they’ll try to pull you in too… even if they aren’t truly happy themselves. Powerful stuff.
10. Weaponizing Faith
One of the most mind-bending scenes: the evil vampire reciting the Lord’s Prayer alongside Sammy. He reveals that his Irish ancestors were manipulated by the Bible just like Black folks were. He wanted to absorb Sammy’s gifts,body, soul, and spirit. Faith was used as a tool, but so was Sammy’s brilliance. It’s a lot to unpack.
Final Word:
Sinners isn’t just a vampire movie. It’s a stunning meditation on race, talent, survival, and soul. Ryan Coogler really snapped with this one and we’re better for it.
Stay posh, stay protected, and stay powerful, Aunties.
– Posh Auntie
