Sinners’ Historic Oscar Triumphs Prove One Genre Trend Is Here To Stay
When Coogler wins, cinema wins.
At this point, it’s fair to say that the Academy Awards is no longer the exact same institution that it was 15 or 20 years ago. It certainly hasn’t avoided its fair share of out-of-touch gaffes, but you can see a demonstrable effort to recontextualize what is worthy of an Oscar – Parasite’s Best Picture win reminded the world that remarkable stories exist outside the bounds of the United States and the English language, and Everything Everywhere All At Once back in 2023 became astoundingly the first science-fiction film to ever win Best Picture (only the second if you count Guillermo del Toro’s Gothic romance The Shape of Water). And yet, the sobering reality is that the Academy still has room to grow in terms of recognizing the contributions of groups typically overlooked, as well as the importance of genres ignored by mainstream tastemakers.
The success of last year’s Sinners reached its zenith at the 98th Academy Awards, where Coogler became the second Black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay (the first being Jordan Peele for Get Out, another genre love-letter). At first glance, it feels like the historic success of the film came out of thin air, or was the result of a sudden shift in the Academy’s judgment. But the walls broken down during last night’s Oscars didn’t come out of thin air – on the contrary, they’re the culmination of a pattern that stretches back to 2015 with Coogler’s first Oscar-nominated film, a pattern of uplifting Black narratives while also honoring the rousing, intoxicating power of genre cinema and escapism.
We wouldn’t have Sinners without everything prior in Coogler’s career.
Since it was only nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Sylvester Stallone, it’s easy to forget what a critical darling and commercial success the first Creed was, especially considering that it came out the same year as another, much more contentious legacy sequel. The movie’s narrative isn’t remarkably original, and in fact resembles the original Rocky in many ways, but the intentional optics of it – an orphaned Black boy determined to force his mark on the world, to make himself unforgettable after deliberately being forgotten – give it such weight. The sports film (especially boxing) hasn’t been as overlooked as other genres like horror or science fiction, but there’s still something incredibly moving about using such a beloved cinematic framework to tell a story about Black self-determination and legacy, and it gave audiences (and the Academy) their first taste of Coogler’s artistic ethos.
With Black Panther, not only did Coogler establish himself as a filmmaker who aspires to marry populist escapism with genuine intellectual, cultural, and political weight (not unlike John Carpenter and Spielberg and Nolan all before him), but he was also able to demand major awards attention for the superhero blockbuster, something that really hadn’t happened since Heath Ledger’s Best Supporting Actor win for The Dark Knight ten years earlier. Even though the film didn’t take home the honor of Best Picture, what it did win is just as important – Best Costuming, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score speak to the work done by Coogler and his collaborators to root their vision of Wakanda in the tangible cultural specificities of Africa, using the nature of the superhero genre as a means to rewrite the malicious stereotypes associated with the continent.
It was never “just a superhero movie” for Ryan or the crew.
The sequel, Wakanda Forever, may not have been as celebrated as the original, but it arguably had a harder uphill battle to fight. The passing of lead actor Chadwick Boseman was a massive loss, not just as an actor in Marvel movies but as a friend, collaborator, and role model the world over. It’s unfathomable to imagine how Coogler was able to turn something as derided as the superhero film into a genuinely moving eulogy for a performer gone far too soon – one executed with an emotional sincerity so potent that it led Angela Bassett to her second-ever Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
The historical richness and thematic depth that Coogler was able to pack into Sinners isn’t surprising for him – it’s something he’s been doing his entire career, because he respects and appreciates the ability for genre cinema to speak to our past, present, and future through abstractions and allegory. The only surprise is that it’s taken this long for the Academy to recognize it, not just in Ryan but in the countless filmmakers who deliver astounding reflections on the world around us filtered through lenses like horror, action, or science fiction. Hopefully, the historic success of Sinners (as well as Amy Madigan’s unexpected win for her turn in Weapons) finally proves to the Academy that there is so much merit and value to be found in films that aren’t so firmly rooted in everyday reality.
