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Sinners · written by Ryan Coogler · 2025
Scene 59 of 110 · ≈ 4 min on screen · Last scene of 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.
Sammie learns the blues is sacred, meets the room's people, and tries to claim a place among musicians and lovers.
Cornbread recognizes Mary, now able to pass as white, and lets her enter the juke.
Mary tells Sammie about her mixed family and accuses the twins of abandoning her mother.
Stack and Mary reopen their old love, arguing that his attempt to keep her safe also kept them apart.
This scene
Delta Slim winds down my preachin’ from the stage.
DELTA SLIM
Shit. Ya’ll starting to move out
there. I hope ya’ll getting a
chance to get some good drank in
ya. Now I been hearing about this
young man out here all day.
Supposed to be a bad blues man.
(beat)
Sammie, on the other side of the juke trying to bend Pearline’s ear, holding his guitar.
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
Preacherboy where ya at?
Sammie holds up his guitar high so Slim can see him.
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
Now we been hanging out and I seen
you noise with that thang. But I
wanna really see you cut loose.
All the patrons clap and look towards Sammie who holds his guitar with one hand high over his head, making his way to the middle of the dance floor.
He stops, surrounded by patrons and positions his guitar to play.
DELTA SLIM (CONT’D)
Tell him who you are and wher e ya
from.
SAMMIE
My name Sammie Moore, and I’m a
sharecropper from Sunflower
Plantation.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
They call me Preacherboy, on
account of my daddy being a
Pastor. I wrote this song for him.
Plays a guitar intro, bending the chords (I LIED TO YOU). The audience leans forward in anticipation. Hanging on every note.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
Somethin’ I been wantin’ to tell
you, for a very long time. It
might hurt, you might lose your
mind. See I was just a boy, about
8 years old. You threw me your
bible. On that M ississippi road.
you could do. They say the truth
hurts. So I lied to you. Yes I
lied to you. I love the Blues.
Blown away by his voice, patrons start to smile. Smoke and Stack look on at their cousin playing, Smoke with surprise, Stack with pride. Annie watches from the kitchen. Mary too.
DELTA SLIM
Goddamn Preacherboy! Ya’ll don’t
just watch, move ya feet, now!
Sam mie plays hard. The crowd begins to dance. Mary dances alone.
SAMMIE
Somebody take me, in your arms
tonight.
Annie comes around from the kitchen. She finds Smoke who is leaned up against a wall. She pushes up on him and they dance.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
Somebody take me, in your arms
tonight.
Stack watches Mary through the crowd as she dances alone.
He approaches her she leans into him and they dance.
SAMMIE (CONT’D)
Some body take me, in your arms
tonight.
Pearline joins Sammie on the dance floor and their energy is electric.
SURREAL MONTAGE STARTS- THE MUSIC SHIFTS
Sammie closes his eyes and enters into a trance playing wildly. We rotate around him to reveal a SENEGALESE XALAM PLAYER in traditional African dress who stares at Sammie while playing his instrument in unison. This is a spirit, an ancestor visible to us, the audience, but not to Sammie and the other patrons of the juke.
We rotate around to reveal a 1970s BLACK GUITARIST playing psychedelic rock.
We rotate past Pearline to show TWO SPIRITS surrounding her, one from the past, one from the present.
We push up to Delta Slim, to find him, eyes closed and playing, surrounded by two ancestors- GRIOTS one past, one future a disk jockey spinning from the 1980s.
We track back to the dance floor to find it populated with more ancestors, all of the current day patrons in a trance their eyes still closed.
We find Grace in the kitchen who takes us to the gambling room, where she pulls Bo away from the gambling tables and back onto the dance floor where A Past Ancestor, a Zaouli dancer in full dress, does a traditional dance, next to Future Ancestor who does Memphis Jooking.
A modern da ncer leads us back to Sammie, who kicks his singing up to another level, burning embers and debris fall down around him.
We tilt the camera up to reveal the source of the debris. The ceiling of the mill is ablaze, with growing gaps exposing the inky, star filled sky beyond.
We tilt back down and reveal the crowd, still dancing and the blaze has engulfed the walls.
We spin around and pull back, be yond the walls of the juke wide on the patrons as they party with their ancestors past and present, in what is now an open field with burning debris illuminating them.
The camera continues off to reveal three figures. We move towards them-