One Battle After Another lost two battles to the horror hit Sinners at the 32nd Annual Actor (formerly SAG) Awards on March 1. If that’s not shocking enough, Teyana Taylor may be shaking in her designer boots since Weapons witch Amy Madigan nabbed the Female Actor in a Supporting Role prize.
But Sunday night’s biggest twist came when Sinners star Michael B. Jordan became the only performer to win Male Actor in a Leading Role for playing two parts in one film. No doubt, spooky movie fans will be on the edge of their seats to see if his vampire flick can shapeshift its Outstanding Performance by a Cast into a Best Picture victory at the Oscars on March 15.
Sinners (2025)
Written, directed, and co-produced by Ryan Coogler
Armed with the collective success of his first four features (2013’s Fruitvale Station, 2015’s Creed, 2018’s Black Panther, 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Ryan Coogler takes on his first original and most personal epic Sinners. Influenced by his African-American ancestry in the Mississippi Delta, the skilled filmmaker employs narrative beats that play like a Blues record passed down for generations.
Yet rather than leaning into sentimentality, Coogler cleverly uses vampirism as a metaphor for cultural assimilation. This disarming decision delivers a more engaging than enraging experience as the 1932-set film thematically blends Southern Gothic, horror, drama, music, and even comic elements into one hybrid genre.
The driving pace of Sinners is complemented by invisible special effects, enveloping sets, and grand IMAX 65mm imagery. Apart from the anachronistic phrase “it’s go time,” the film features powerful dialogue and fleshed-out characters brought to life by a solid ensemble including SAG/Actor winner Michael B. Jordan, AARP winner Delroy Lindo, and BAFTA winner Wunmi Mosaku — all of whom are nominated for Academy Awards.
Hailee Steinfeld and Jack O’Connell also put in fine performances as do Miles Caton and Omar Benson Miller. Add cameos by Buddy Guy and Lola Kirke, and casting director Francine Maisler is set to become the Academy’s first recipient of Best Achievement in Casting. Odds are Ludwig Göransson will take home the gold for his mashup score as will Coogler for Original Screenplay. Most significant, though often overlooked, is Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s Best Cinematography nomination. If her name is called on Oscar night, she will become the first and only woman to win in this category.
If Jordan gets the gold, he will join Lee Marvin as the only actor to receive an Oscar for playing a pair of brothers. Decades ago, Marvin was rewarded for his dual roles in Cat Ballou (1965), a film that, like Sinners, blends genres (historical fiction, musical, comedy, and Western).
Already a record-breaker for earning 16 nominations (the most in Oscar history), Sinners could follow Silence of the Lambs (1991) as only the second horror film to merit Best Picture. Of course, film purists classify the latter as a psychological thriller. Nevertheless, Sinners is killer.
Weapons (2025)
Written, directed, co-produced, and co-scored by Zach Cregger
After gaining praise for his debut flick Barbarian (2022), Zach Cregger made his sophomoric sophomore pic Weapons. Both pretentious and juvenile, the overrated gore-fest begins with a child’s narration about missing children. This goes on for six long minutes (compare that to the six-second voiceover that kickstarts Sinners). So much for the first rule of screenwriting: “show don’t tell.”
Indeed, it seems Cregger was winging his script as he described his process to The Hollywood Reporter. “I started typing; I had no idea what the story was going to be…Okay, what is the story? I don’t know.” Yeah, that’s evident since this 128-minute slog runs more on conceit than creativity.
While Cregger (along with composers Ryan and Hays Holladay) does a fine job with the film’s score, his writing and direction favor soulless style over substance. In lieu of having a voice of his own, he lifts bits from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), and Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (2013). It’s one thing to pay respectful homage to influential auteurs, another for a derivative novice to piggyback onto cinematic visionaries.
It definitely takes a certain type of chutzpah to appropriate Nick Ut’s iconic image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, a young South Vietnamese girl running naked toward the camera after a napalm strike during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). “There’s that terrible photo of that girl in Vietnam with the napalm burn. I think that image is so awful, and the way she’s holding her arms out just killed me. I think there’s something really upsetting about that posture,” Cregger told Entertainment Weekly yet felt entitled to it anyway. “There was no second-guessing that pose. I knew that [the cast] would run that way.” Sadly, the tragic image of a war atrocity has since been mimicked as a marketing aesthetic for Cregger’s trite movie. Even worse, clips of the characters running have fueled humorous memes.
This mirrors the uneven tone of Weapons which haphazardly shifts between melodrama, horror, and black comedy as it embraces camp while flirting with social relevance. The script hints at school shooting gravitas yet instead of exploring an epidemic typically driven by young men, Cregger takes the easy path by blaming communal trauma on a crazy old witch.
The only reason the film’s Hagsploitation edge doesn’t veer into misogyny is due to Amy Madigan’s joyful performance. As eccentric Aunt Gladys, the Chicago native seems to be having a lot of fun. Madigan’s Kathy Griffin-esque looks and Giallo-inspired antics help her teeter between vulnerability and villainy. In addition to showing tonal versatility, the 75-year-old did her own stunts. As such, she provides much-needed tension to this fright-free flick.
Since Madigan’s transformative portrayal paid off with SAG’s Actor as well as wins from the Critics Choice Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle and the London Film Critics’ Circle, she currently leads Oscar’s Supporting Actress race. With her only other Academy Award nomination for Twice in a Lifetime (1985), the industry veteran holds the record for having the longest gap (40 years) between nominations for any actress.
Regardless of accolades, it’s inaccurate for Vanity Fair to dub Madigan the “secret weapon” of Weapons because, well, it’s pretty obvious. In fact, her character’s cult following points to an origin story prequel. Hopefully, as Cregger takes on the new project, he’ll steer clear of real life tragedies and exchange hubris for humor.
