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Sinners · written by Ryan Coogler · 2025
Scene 57 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.
He leaves the plantation with the twins, enters the wider Delta, and helps build their juke joint.
Delta Slim takes the stage and starts the night's blues performance.
Pearline arrives with another guitarist, and Sammie flirts while claiming his place among the musicians.
Cornbread recognizes Mary, now able to pass as white, and lets her enter the juke.
This scene
Sammie and Pearline continue to chat.
PEARLINE
You gon' play?
SAMMIE
What you think?
(beat)
You gon' sang?
PEARLINE
We’ll see where the night take us.
SAMMIE
Ya husband coming?
PEARLINE
Nope. He’s older. Church type.
SAMMIE
Oh yeah?
Sammie thinks for a bit.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
You hungry?
Pearline thinks while Sammie notices something.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
Shit. Hol’on.
Sammie runs off towards what he saw- Mary. Pearline looks on, curious.
Sammie approaches Mary.
SAM MIE (CONT’D)
Excuse me ma’am, I don’t think you
should be here. You see, I’m with
the Twins... and I
MARY
With the twins? Boy if you don’t
get the fuck out my face.
SAMMIE
I am with them ma’am. We met
earlier at the train station. I’m
they little cousin. You really
upset Stack, I think you should
leave before they see you.
MARY
Little cousin? Wait, you not
little Sammie?
Sammie looks confused as hell.
MARY (CONT’D)
The guitar. That’s right! Little
Sammie. You old enough to drink
now? Come on, let me buy you a
drink.
Marry takes Sammie by the arm and walks him over to the now, crowded Bar.
SAMMIE
Have we met before? I mean before
today. Cause I don’t remember.
MARY
you all the time. You the only one
besides Smoke he seemed to care
about. So yo u play that guitar
they left you? That’s good. You
making any money with that thing?
SAMMIE
Not really. Not yet at least.
MARY
I would tell you it didn’t matter,
as long as you love it, but
that’ll be horse shit advice.
SAMMIE
What are you?
MARY
What am I? I’m a human being.
Sammie feels bad.
SAMMIE
That ain't what I meant.
MARY
I know what you meant. My mama’s
daddy was half black. And he
raised her to keep my grandma’s
white family from killing her. She
was a high yellow sharecropper.
She was beautiful. Had any man she
wanted. And by the look of my
siblings all of em was jet black
except for whoever my daddy was.
SAMMIE
You didn’t know who your daddy
was?
Mary shakes her head.
MARY
She told me he was white and she
hated white people. I just figure
he ain’t do right by her. Drunken
fling, probably worse. Been
meaning to ask her again the last
few years, but now she gone.
Mary takes a swig, fighting tears.
MARY (CONT’D)
You know my momma delivered the
twins? Saved Stack life after he
got stuck in they Momma. And after
s he died, my momma nursed them
like they was her own. And they
had money to buy this whole mill
and didn’t even send flowers to
her funeral.
SMOKE (O.S.)
We gave your mama flowers...
plenty of em. All while she was
alive to smell them.
Mary and Sammie are startled to find Smoke behind them.
MARY
Hey Smoke.
SMOKE
(beat)
Go check in with Slim and see if
he need backup.
Sammie obliges. Smoke walks off to find Stack while Mary enjoys more of her drink.