Sinners is a joy to watch and a challenge to review simply because it manages to tread new ground in such an entertaining fashion. Set in the Jim Crow South of 1932 Mississippi, the story is very much about Black empowerment as twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played with simmering intensity by Michael B. Jordan) return home from adventures in Chicago and elsewhere, looking to open a juke joint for their old community. Dressed to the nines and flashing ample cash, they tap their cousin Sammie (stellar newcomer Miles Caton), a gifted blues guitarist, to perform and thereby ensure a successful opening night. But while the brothers were expecting some trouble from any number of sources, what arrives is far worse than anything they could have imagined.

Captured on a variety of film formats including IMAX and 65mm (Coogler’s mentor has been Christopher Nolan after all), Sinners delivers one of the most effective uses of a shifting aspect ratio I’ve seen, switching between a screen-filling 1.78:1 for several key scenes intercut with an unusually wide 2.76:1 Ultra Panavision 70 for the bulk of the runtime. The latter is particularly striking for its crystal-clear vistas of the Louisiana shooting locations, each fluffy white cotton boll set off against the green fields. Color is manipulated throughout to give the various environments a distinct vibe, like the golden tones of the club at night. The image is blemish-free with nuanced shadows and strong highlights.

Sound is used in inventive ways to tell the story and add a sense of the surreal, creeping up behind us or conveying forces not physically present within a given room. Then of course there’s the music at the core of this tale, which needs to conjure the you-are-there ambiance of the juke joint for long stretches as well as more fantastical, supernatural tuneage that completely surrounds us. Two-time Oscar-winning melodist Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther, Oppenheimer) does a masterful job blending his original compositions with blues, popular, and gospel standards. Much of the music was recorded live on set, always in sublime fidelity, such that we can practically feel Sammie’s fingers on the strings of his Dobro Cyclops.

While I would have appreciated a Coogler commentary, the featurettes we receive instead are a cut above the usual, covering all of the relevant topics in a genuinely interesting manner. The collection of deleted scenes is also meaty and worth our time. There’s no HD Blu-ray disc here but the included Movies Anywhere digital copy code unlocks all of the bonus content in addition to the movie.

With Sinners, writer/director Ryan Coogler has once again proven that he is a filmmaker of the highest order, delivering sights and sounds like none before in a brilliantly crafted, smartly scripted genre-bender that dares the audience to follow. And what a ride it is.

Chris Chiarella