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Sinners · written by Ryan Coogler · 2025
Scene 32 of 110 · ≈ 3 min on screen · Act one
In 1932 Mississippi, gifted sharecropper-bluesman Sammie Moore wants to make a life in the blues beyond his preacher father's rules, but the opening night of his cousins' juke joint becomes a siege by a vampire offering the community belonging at the price of its freedom.
The legend and prologue frame Sammie's segregated Delta life under his father's church and the twins' shadow.
Sammie wants the freedom, recognition, and musical life he imagines beyond the plantation.
Smoke visits Annie's shack, mourns their dead baby at the grave, and asks Annie to join the juke.
Smoke and Annie argue over roots, blood money, and their loss before rekindling their relationship.
Stack teaches Sammie about women and music while the car passes a chain gang under armed white supervision.
This scene
Delta Slim’s smile begins to fade.
SAMMIE
You knew some of them?
DELTA SLIM
All of em.
SAMMIE
You been on a chain gang before?
DELTA SLIM
Never. But I spent a month in a
jailhouse, that was enough for me.
STACK
(with a smirk)
I heard about that.
SAMMIE
What happened?
DELTA SLIM
Me and my buddy Rice was hustlin’
back and forth up the delta. Night
after night, Juke after Juke. We’d
find a new woman in a ne w town and
sleep for the night.
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
Next day we do it all over again.
One day I get the mind to leave
this here Delta. Go on out to hill
country.
SAMMIE
By Alabama?
STACK
Naw, up by Tennessee.
DELTA SLIM
Soon as we get there we get busted
for vagrancy. White sheriffs, they
take us down to the jailhouse, and
it’s empty.
(beat)
I figure they either kill us that
night or let us go. Night goes on
and they give us our instruments
and tell us to play. We playing so
good, music coming out the windows
and people on the street was
stopping to come in.
SAMMIE
In the jailhouse?
DELTA SLIM
Oh yeah!
(beat)
Next day these sheriffs get the
bright idea they gon' take us on
the road. They cuff us, throw us
in patty wagon and take us to a
Pass around they hat and have us
play.
SAMMIE
Ya’ll was playing them ole ragtime
songs?
DELTA SLIM
Sure was. But we played a fair
amount of blues too. You see white
folks like the blues just fine,
they just don’t like the people
who make it.
(beat)
We’d go out night after night, and
then back to jail. They fed us
good, food from a hotel down the
street.
(MORE)(MORE)
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
They’d even let us bring a girl or
two through there. But it was
awful. Against our will.
SAMMIE
How long was y'all there?
DELTA SLIM
21 days.
Sammie sighs deeply.
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
I guess they had made enough money
they felt good about letting us
go. Gave us peanuts compared to
what they was getting. But these
white folks we was playing for had
real money. By the time they cut
us loose they gave us each about
$500.
Stack whistles at the sound of this.
SAMMIE
Gave ya’ll a thousand dollars?
DELTA SLIM
Turned us loose and said if they
catch us around again they kill
us.
SAMMIE
What did y'all do with the money?
DELTA SLIM
I drank it. Rice, he was
traumatized. Said he was done
Jukin’. Said he found religion in
that predicament. Says he was gon'
take that money and go up to
Little Rock, start a church.
SA MMIE
Did he?
Delta Slim grows dark.
DELTA SLIM
Dumb fool let the train conductor
see him pay cash for his ticket.
DELTA SLIMDELTA SLIM (CONT’D)(CONT’D)
Klan got a hold of him and checked
his pockets, found all that money
on him and made up a story about
him killing some white man for it.
They took his money and lynched
him right at the railroad station.
Sammie doesn’t love the end of this story.