It’s 1932, and former soldiers turned gangsters, Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan), are opening a nightclub in Mississippi. It’s going to be a special place, and to ensure its success, they’ve enlisted their cousin Sammie, a remarkably talented blues singer and guitarist, to provide musical entertainment.
That’s the setup of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a supernatural horror movie that starts almost like a prestige HBO drama before morphing into something far more exhilarating. The film’s surprises continue up to its bold, gory, and inventive conclusion. Let’s break down the ending of Sinners.
Sinners is a movie that believes in the unshakable power of music. The narration tells the legend of generationally talented musicians who can reach between the worlds of the living and the dead, bringing spirits forth from all time, including the future. Sammie possesses this extraordinary gift, which is capable of spiritual healing but can also entice evil. A group of vampires takes notice, descending upon Smoke and Stack’s Juke joint.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
That trio of vampires is led by Remmick (Jack O’Connell). They follow traditional vampiric rules—garlic and wooden stakes are their enemies, and they cannot enter a building unless they’re invited in. Smoke and Stack, suspicious of their intentions (and unaware they’re vampires), refuse them entry.
While they can’t get in, they take advantage of those who leave the club, including Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack’s former lover. The vampires turn her, and she enters with ease, turning Stack and unleashing chaos upon the club.
People panic and leave, making them easy prey to be turned into vampires. Suddenly, there are just a handful of humans left in the Club: Smoke, Sammie, Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), Grace (Li Jun Li), Pearline (Jayme Lawson), and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke’s old flame.
After continually failing to tempt the humans into letting them in, Grace, fearful for her daughter’s life, demands that the vampires come in so she can destroy them.
This leads to a spectacular and bloody battle where the deaths pile high, both human and vampire. After the wreckage, only Smoke and Sammie remain of the humans, and they’re seriously outnumbered by the vampires. During the fight, Annie discovers, before her death, that the other vampires can feel Remmick’s pain. Hope is not lost: It’s nearly sunrise, and they just have to make it through the night to ensure their survival.
Sammie escapes outside, and he’s pursued by Remmick. The two fight. Remmick has the upper hand, but Smoke emerges from the water to launch a wooden stake through his heart, killing him. All the remaining vampires watch in horror as their leader perishes, but their fate is sealed too: The sun comes up, igniting them in flames and ensuring their collective death.
Later, Sammie returns home to his preacher father, but Smoke prepares himself for another battle at the Club. In the beginning of the film, we see Smoke and Stack buy the property where they set up their club from Hogwood (David Maldonado), a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The twins are clear that the Klan had better steer clear of their club if they know what’s good for them. Hogwood brushes it off, saying that the KKK is all but gone and they have nothing to fear.
Not true. The day after the Club’s opening, Hogwood arrives with his fellow Klan members to take out the twins and take his property back. But Smoke is ready, using his vast experience as a soldier to kill the entire crew single-handedly before coming face to face with Hogwood. Smoke kills him, but Hogwood gets a fatal shot in of his own. As Smoke lies dying, he sees his love Annie and their unborn daughter, happily cooing away in her mother’s arms.
“You can hold her if you put down that cigarette,” Annie promises Smoke. Smoke puts down the cigarette and holds his baby. Smoke’s death is tragic, but Sinners makes it clear that he’s going to be with Annie and his daughter, a heartwarming prospect given all the death and destruction that just happened.
After Smoke’s death, Sammie drives on the open road, with the same guitar his father demanded he give up, as blues music is inherently satanic. But Sammie knows he has a gift, and nothing will stop him from spreading music across the world. And the film ends.
In a mid-credits scene, Sinners leaps 60 years forward into the future in 1992. Sammie (now played by Blues legend Buddy Guy) is still spreading the magic of his music, spending most of his time at his bar called Purlines (named after the woman he fell in love with, who died in the vampire attack).
After his gig, Sammie drinks quietly at the bar. His security guard mentioned a couple is hoping to meet him, to which Sammie graciously agrees. He’s stunned to discover they are none other than Mary and Stack. It was thought that they died during the attack on the Club. But a flashback reveals that both Mary and Stack escaped that night without being killed—Smoke said he’d only let his brother live if he swore to stay away from Sammie.
Mary and Stack, wearing classic ’90s garb, aren’t there just to share stories. They have an offer for Sammie: Now that he’s approaching death, they can make him immortal. But Sammie has lived a life beyond his dreams, and refuses—“I think I’ve seen enough of this place,” he responds.
The three reminisce about the night that changed their lives forever. “Before the sundown, I think that was the best day of my life,” Sammie tells them. Stack agrees, noting that it was the last day he saw the sun, and the last time he could do anything he desired. “For those few hours, I was free,” Stack tells them.
In flashback, Sammie, Smoke, and Stack drive along the open road, smiling and laughing. Here, they are as free as they’d ever be, blissfully unaware that that sense of freedom and opportunity would vanish forever.
In the post-credits scene, a young Sammie is singing “This Little Light of Mine.” It’s a quiet, yet powerful moment: Despite all the darkness that has threatened to consume Sammie and everyone he knows, and all the rampant hatred that afflicts his existence, he’s going to let his light, and his undeniable talent, guide him through for the rest of his days.
