Movie of the Day: 'Sinners'

“Sinners,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association “for strong bloody violence, sexual content and language.” Running time is 137 minutes. The nominees for the 98th Academy Awards were announced Thursday morning, with "Sinners" receiving a record-breaking 16 nominations and "One Battle After Another" not far behind with 13.

So what exactly is “Sinners,” shot on large-format film (including IMAX 65 mm and Ultra Panavision 70) befitting the size of its vision, about? Depends which layer you’re looking at.

The outer layer is a story of two brothers coming home to Mississippi in 1932 to launch a juke joint after spending time on the German front in World War I and then learning from Al Capone in gangland Chicago. Peel away, and it’s a story about music, especially the transporting power of the blues. It’s also about love: love that’s lost, love that’s found, love that’s impossible. And it’s about the tenuousness of life in the Jim Crow South.


And then it turns into a vampire film, one of the scarier ones you’ll see in a very long time.

Nominated for: Best picture, director, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, original screenplay, production design, costume design, cinematography, editing, makeup and hairstyling, sound, visual effects, score, song, casting.

How to watch: Stream it on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

Having established himself as a Hollywood craftsman of the first order with hits like "Black Panther" and "Creed," writer-director Ryan Coogler combines his keen commercial instincts with a startlingly audacious treatment of racism and cultural appropriation in America. Before busting out into a no-holds-barred horror film about vampires laying siege on a juke joint, "Sinners" patiently evokes life in the Jim Crow south as the Smoke Stack Twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to their Mississippi hometown in 1932 after a lucrative stint working for the mob in Chicago. Recruiting from the local community, the twins invest their money and muscle into converting an abandoned sawmill into a lively road house, but their grand opening is disrupted by creatures of the night.