Sinners' Juke Joint Scene Dominates 2025's Best Movie Moments

Ryan Coogler's latest film Sinners operates as vampire horror on the surface, but underneath the gore lies something far more profound: a passionate tribute to Black heritage and music's transformative power. The movie's standout moment arrives roughly sixty minutes in, when Miles Caton's character Sammie 'Preacher Boy' Moore grabs his guitar during the grand opening of Smoke and Stack's juke joint in 1930s Mississippi.

Musical Magic Meets Cinematic Innovation

The sequence unfolds to Raphaael Saddiq and Ludwig Goransson's Golden Globe-nominated song 'I Lied to You', creating an electrifying experience that begins with Sammie before cutting between dancing patrons and Delroy Lindo's character Delta Slim, a whiskey-loving blues master playing piano. When Sammie closes his eyes and continues performing, Coogler shifts from standard widescreen to IMAX's 1.43:1 format, pulling viewers directly into the sweaty, energetic celebration.

'I thought, Maybe we can take a risk and put the audience in a place that they recognize here, an awesome party and a crazy performance that stops space and time and gives you an out-of-the-body experience,' Coogler told the Los Angeles Times.

Time-Bending Storytelling Through Music

As the frame edges blur, Wunmi Mosaku's hoodoo practitioner Annie delivers a voiceover: 'There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, they can pierce the veil between life and death.' What follows spans four minutes of apparent single-take footage (actually three 76-second Steadicam shots seamlessly connected, according to cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw).

The camera weaves through crowds, revealing performers from different eras. Sammie's guitar harmonizes with a West African griot's ngoni, then he's suddenly alongside a flamboyant Hendrix-inspired guitarist wielding a Gibson Flying V. The sequence features an '80s DJ spinning vinyl, twerking dancers, a Zaouli performer, a Chinese Sun Wukong artist, and more, creating something both visually stunning and emotionally powerful.

Cultural Reclamation and Heritage

Beyond supernatural storytelling, this moment serves as cultural reclamation, acknowledging how generations of music, dance, and artistic expression trace back to African diaspora and Black history. Coogler openly discussed never visiting Mississippi, his maternal grandfather's birthplace before the family relocated to Oakland, California. Blues music always connected him to Southern roots.

'We brought this with us... it's sacred,' Delta Slim tells Sammie before the performance. 'It's big.' Music transcends simple entertainment, carrying deeper meaning and connection.

'Every movie should have its version of that scene, if it can hold it,' Coogler explained. 'All the choices we made had to commit to getting to it. We had to say, This is maybe the most important scene in the movie. Everything that came before and everything that comes after has to support that. Seeing it come together was one of the most rewarding moments of my career.'