Sinners‘ reign as the presumptive best movie of 2025 continues, with it having arrived on streaming via HBO Max, offering fans more chances to analyze its most nuanced symbolism. Director Ryan Coogler makes great use of music from different times and cultures, and music is ultimately the driving force behind Sinners’ ending.
Michael B. Jordan as the Smokestack Twins is undeniably the star of Sinners’ cast, but Sammie (Miles Caton) is arguably the protagonist when the narrative revolves around his arc. Sammie is at a crossroads in his life at the beginning, stealing nights away performing after working as a sharecropper and clashing with his pastor father (Saul Williams) about his pᴀssion for the blues.
In the space of a single day, Sammie is pulled into the world of his twin cousins’ juke joint, has a profound experience of music and community, watches all of it be wrecked by vampire carnage, and makes a final decision in his conflict with his father. However, his father is not the authority figure he defies first to bring the movie to its perfect conclusion.
Smoke Tells Sammie To Get Rid Of Any Reminders Of What Happened At Club Juke
Smoke Wants Sammie To Wash His Hands Of The Whole Thing
After Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his vampire horde storm the building and kill or turn everyone inside, Smoke and Sammie manage to keep the vampires distracted until sunrise, at which point they all burn up. Sammie also smashes his prized guitar fighting off Remmick, and only has the neck left. Smoke tells Sammie to go home and bury the guitar.
Sammie protests as Stack told him that the guitar had belonged to blues singer Charley Patton, but Smoke clarifies that the twins inherited it from their father. Smoke is making a final attempt to clean all the evil from Sammie’s life, telling him to get rid of any reminders of that night and preparing to make his final stand.
Having lost Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Stack, Smoke is fully prepared to die and is planning on doing it taking out members of the Ku Klux Klan. However, aside from the guitar remains being a potentially distressing souvenir to Sammie from what transpired, Smoke is still defeatedly trying to sever any connection that might bring Sammie back to a place like this — i.e., blues music.
Smoke Somewhat Agrees With Sammie’s Father About His Blues Aspirations
He’d Prefer Sammie Led A Simple, Righteous Life
Though he and his uncle don’t seem to have the most friendly relationship, Smoke seemingly agrees with Sammie’s father that Sammie should stay away from blues music and the places it is performed. Jedidiah sees the blues as sinful, as people go to jukes and bars for drink and pleasure rather than working honestly or taking care of their families.
Smoke might have hoped that if he gave Sammie what he wanted for one night, he would then go down the “right” path.
With some more personal experience, however, Smoke doesn’t want Sammie to be a permanent establishment of his juke joint because of the potential criminality it attracts — he and Stack stole and killed in order to get the juke up and running. People may partake in superficial sins there, but Smoke’s fears run deeper.
The twins see their uncle as fundamentally good, even if he is upтιԍнт, in contrast to their abusive father. They were partially driven to crime as a livelihood because they were turned away by people who were sure they were evil, like their father. Sammie, on the other hand, comes from a family with moral standing.
Smoke might have hoped that if he gave Sammie what he wanted for one night, he would then go down the “right” path, or having Sammie perform at the juke at all was primarily at Stack’s insistence. But once he realizes that Sammie only wants to be a blues singer more, Smoke actually threatens him, insisting he will block him from pursuing this.
Despite the mix of good and bad symbols ᴀssociated with the juke joint and blues music in Sinners, Smoke hopes that he can set Sammie back on the straight and narrow, so he can live a simple and decent life. But despite the evil connected to music — the guitar is from the twins’ father, and it attracts Remmick — Sammie sees things in a different light.
Having Lost So Much, Sammie Chooses To Hold On To The Good Lessons From That Night
Sammie Decides That Smoke Is Wrong In The End
Smoke’s experience with music and the juke joint may be more negative, since he sees it from the perspective of what he and Stack did to buy the building. But many of the juke’s patrons are just regular people from the area, looking for a fun night out after a hard day’s work, gathering for a party in a community space.
Of course, Sinners’ best scene proves exactly what the value of this party is, as Sammie’s music connects everyone present to each other, and to the past and future of their culture. The individual stories that led people here may be dubious, but the gathering is ultimately a good thing that frees them from the rest of the world for a little while.
Smoke is a part of this experience, although he is more skeptical of the mystic, and thus thinks he is looking out for Sammie by directing him towards a more tangibly good life. At the end of it all, Smoke’s advice to Sammie to recover is to get rid of what may draw more evil to him, even if it is a source of positivity as well.
But Sammie ultimately defies Smoke, cementing the true meaning of Sinners. Sammie knows that he has experienced something profound, which is why the vampires showed up, trying to leech off something meaningful. So, Sammie chooses to hold on to the things he learned from Delta Slim (Delory Lindo) and the others, dedicating his life to the joy he created that night.
Smoke’s Outlook Is Different From Stack & Sammie’s – Which Is Why His Story Ends With Death
Smoke Couldn’t Have Been A Vampire Or Supported Sammie’s Career, So He Reunites With Annie
Smoke’s more rigid view of morality is why his story ends differently from Stack and Sammie’s. He doesn’t consider himself to be a paragon and has accepted that when he was given few other options. However, he wouldn’t have been able to make the compromises his brother perhaps was willing to.
Stack was always the more freewheeling and less morally fraught brother.
Tangentially, while there is evidence that vampires are capable of love and compᴀssion, Annie’s belief system doesn’t allow her to consider becoming one a possibility; she would rather die and find peace than be a vampire, and Smoke will ultimately follow her. In contrast, Stack was always the more freewheeling and less morally fraught brother.
This characterization shows in the ending, as Stack does become a vampire, something that is supposed to be inherently evil. However, he and Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) are devastated by Annie’s death; they then escape and seemingly go on to live a contented life together as vampires, and respect Smoke and Sammie’s wishes for their own lives.
Meanwhile, Sammie may have given up traditional family and righteousness to be a musician, but it was in service of the heritage the blues represent. He even has the guitar that Smoke told him to get rid of remade — a symbol of the different perspectives on good and evil in Sinners, and which side Sammie chooses for himself.
