'Sinners' Proves the Theatrical Experience Is as Vibrant and Vital as Ever

'Sinners' provides one of the most exhilarating moviegoing experiences you could ever want, proving the theatrical experience can simply never be beaten.

In the same week Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos spewed his bullshit about saving Hollywood and the theatrical experience being dead, a movie about the undead has proven there’s nothing that can replicate the excitement and thrill of a box office juggernaut everyone wants to see, talk about, and be a part of.

Sinners did the unthinkable in the modern movie landscape, nearly matching its opening weekend gross by dropping a mere 5% in its second weekend, hauling in another $45.7 million domestically.

Sinners proves the theatrical model - and the communal nature of it and film in general - isn’t going anywhere. While Netflix is craven in its attempt to artificially manufacture moments for social media and the zeitgeist, the organic nature of Sinners’ popularity is what makes it so engrossing in the first place. Aside from many of Netflix’s films being downright awful, if there’s one thing most people will do anything to avoid, it’s that overt desperation to create artificial cultural moments.

Like the recent releases of Top Gun: Maverick and Barbenheimer, Sinners has quickly become a moment you want to be a part of; you’ll feel like you’re missing out if you don’t make the active choice to head to the theater and see what the big deal is (and trust me, the movie earns it). When a film is so readily accessible on a streaming platform, it’s inherently disposable (and truly disposable by design in the algorithm and user experience of these streaming platforms), no longer a precious commodity to have to consider and cherish. A streaming service wants you to simply throw it away for the next thing.

So yes, the crescendo of support for Sinners is an important discussion point. In the film, it’s understood there are certain musicians who can “pierce the veil.” They wield such power in their talent they can literally bridge the gap between the living and the ancestral dead. Though I don’t know if a film holds the same power to necessarily coax the presence of the devil (it might!), movies with this same ability to pierce the veil of the everyday consciousness amid so much of the streaming slop should be celebrated.

A lot of people like to say “this is a movie that reminds you why you love going to the movies in the first place” when heaping praise on something. I try to avoid throwing that out there too much, but it’s hard to not feel that sentiment here.

Sinners defies any and all genre expectations, if not exactly the expectations of what you’ll typically see in a vampire bloodfest. But the vampire angle is just a small element of a movie that has so much more inherently to say about the almost haunting power of music and the vital importance of Black culture in general.

Everything happening in Sinners is just so exhilarating - it commands your attention, and as Ryan Coogler intended, you’ll leave the theater feeling like you “had a full meal.” There will always be something else to consider, another angle to talk about, another metaphor to unpack. It might seem unwieldy at times, like it’s trying to say a little bit of everything all at once, but I think it works in the film’s favor. You’ll never get tired of sitting with this one.

The greatest art is immortal, possibly the most essential thing humanity can possess and protect - it’s as important as life itself. There are those who would do anything to steal it for themselves, and there are those who would do anything to defend it. Art’s power is its ability to forge a connection to our past and a bridge to our future. It is a vital cultural organ and must always be cultivated and recognized as such.