‘Sinners’ Makes Oscars History With Record-Breaking Nominations

Sinners has made Academy Awards history, emerging as the most-nominated film ever recognized by the Oscars and solidifying its place as one of the most ambitious and culturally resonant projects of the year.

Among the film’s standout achievements is the long-awaited recognition of Wunmi Mosaku, who received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Annie, a mysterious and spiritually charged figure whose presence anchors much of the film’s emotional weight. The nomination comes after Mosaku was notably overlooked by the Golden Globes, despite Sinners earning seven Globe nominations overall and winning two awards: Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Score, composed by Ludwig Göransson.

Also earning Academy recognition is Delroy Lindo, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Delta Slim, a role that blends menace, vulnerability, and historical gravitas. Lindo’s performance has been widely cited as one of the film’s most commanding, offering a layered depiction of power shaped by history, survival, and moral compromise.

Directed by Ryan Coogler, Sinners stands out not only for its awards haul but for its genre-defying approach. The film merges Southern Gothic horror, vampire mythology, and the legacy of the blues into a narrative deeply rooted in Black history and cultural memory. Coogler, recently named one of Rolling Stone’s Voices of the Year, has described the project as both a personal and political exploration of how art carries generational meaning.

“Blues was the entry point to the movie for me,” Coogler told Rolling Stone, “but if blues was the entry point, hip-hop was the car that I was driving in.” He framed the film’s musical language as a lineage rather than a stylistic choice, explaining that hip-hop functions as his creative foundation, the lens through which he understands other musical forms. “It’s my native language,” he said. “To make this movie honestly, I had to understand that blues was hip-hop’s ancestor.”

That philosophy extends beyond the soundtrack and into the film’s broader thematic concerns. Sinners examines cycles of exploitation, memory, and inherited trauma, positioning horror not as spectacle but as metaphor. “Music ain’t the only thing that echoes,” Coogler said. “Everything echoes. When people are systematically exploited, that exploitation echoes.” He connected the film’s narrative tension to real-world patterns of economic and social vulnerability, noting how history conditions communities to recognize and, sometimes, expect injustice.

The Academy’s sweeping recognition of Sinners marks a rare moment in which genre filmmaking, particularly horror rooted in Black experience, has been embraced at the highest institutional level. The film’s record-breaking nomination count reflects not just technical or artistic excellence, but a broader shift in how stories grounded in cultural specificity are valued by the industry.