Sinners Puts Horror In The Oscars Spotlight
…with most nominations
Ryan Coogler’s box office smash and culturally significant hit Sinners, has made film history, having broken the world record for most Oscar nominations for a single film.
Sinners was released in 2025, featuring Marvel actor Michael B Jordan in the dual lead role of Smoke and Stack Moore, veteran twins who return to their hometown in a segregated South. Upon arrival, the twins plan to open up a juke joint for the Black community to escape and thrive in the art of music, pulling their younger cousin Sammie, a choir boy played by newcomer Miles Caton, into the plan. The night soon takes a dark, bloody turn as a gang of vampires, led by 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple star Jack O’Connell, lurks in the dark to expand their hive mind.
The film features an ensemble cast that includes Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Hailee Steinfeld, Omar Benson Miller, Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li, Lola Kirke, and Peter Dreimanis.
Sinners was a box office hit, taking home $368.3 million worldwide from a $90–100 million budget. The film was also re-released for the Halloween season. It also saw endless critical approval; 97% of 419 critics on Rotten Tomatoes praised Coogler’s work, and it rightfully earned an 84 out of 100 score on Metacritic, thanks to 55 total critics. In addition to this, Sinners oversaw a deep cultural and political rhetoric, with countless fans heading to sites such as TikToks to provide philosophical and political analyses on the film’s narrative, characters and visual elements concerning racial history.
The film is now the most nominated film of all time, with a total of 16 nominations, having beaten Damien Chazelle’s 2016 spectacle La La Land (14 nominations), and being the first film to reach that number. It has also made history as the most Oscar nominated Horror film, or the only one to get a vast amount of Academy acknowledgement at all.
Previous horrors that have caught the Academy’s eye include William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, which was the first horror film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in 1974 at the 46th Academy Awards, as well as earning 10 other nominations, such as Best Supporting Actress (Linda Blair as Regan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (won for William Peter Blatty adapting his own 1973 book). There is also The Silence of the Lambs by Jonathon Demme, which was the third film and first horror film to sweep ‘The Big Five’ at the 64th Academy Awards in 1992, with a win for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling), Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins for Hannibal Lecter), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally adapting from Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel).
At the 97th Academy Awards in 2025, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance received five Oscar nominations, including Best Director, Best Screenplay (Coralie Fargeat), Best Actress (Demi Moore as Elizabeth Sparkle), Best Picture and Best Makeup and Hairstyling (which was won for Pierre-Olivier Persin).
Sinners has received nominations for:
- Best Picture
- Best Director for Ryan Coogler
- Best Actor for Michael B Jordan as Elijah ‘Smoke’ Moore and Elias ‘Stack’ Moore
- Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald
- Best Sound for Chris Weckler
- Best Editing for Michael P. Shawver
- Best Production Design for Hannah Beachler
- Best Original Song for I Lied To You performed by Miles Caton
- Best Casting
- Best Supporting Actor for Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim
- Best Original Screenplay for Ryan Coogler
- Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Siân Richards
- Best Supporting Actress for Wunmi Mosaku Annie
- Best Costume Design for Ruth E. Carter
- Best Visual Effects for Michael Ralla
The 98th Academy Awards are set to air on 15th March at 11:00 pm GMT.
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