Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners Defies MAGA, Rewrites 2026 Grammys History
Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners powers from box-office juggernaut to Grammys sensation, brushing off culture-war backlash to extend its record-breaking awards-season run.
Well, Sinners is still on a heater. Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler have been racking up wins since the movie hit theaters, and now it just rolled into the Grammys like it owns the place.
The Grammys haul
At the 68th Grammy Awards, Sinners snagged five nominations, making it one of the most-nominated films at the Recording Academy this year. Not bad for a movie some folks tried to turn into a culture-war chew toy.
- I Lied to You - Best Song Written for Film/TV
- Pale, Pale Moon - Best Song Written for Film/TV
- Sinners - Best Song Written for Film/TV
- The Sinners soundtrack - Best Compilation Soundtrack for Film/TV
- Ludwig Goransson, Sinners - Best Score Soundtrack for Film/TV
Three tracks in the same song category tells you exactly how deeply the music is woven into the movie. The songs were everywhere in the story, and then they were everywhere outside it too.
So what about the Oscars?
The Grammys momentum is expected to carry over. The film is one of the highest-rated releases of the year and is heading into awards season as a genuine favorite. Two tracks, I Lied to You and Last Time (I Seen the Sun), have been submitted for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Beating whatever Wicked 2 throws into the mix could be a lift, but both songs are widely expected to at least make the shortlist.
On the broader race, Sinners could even outdo Coogler and Jordan’s Black Panther in total Oscar nominations. It will have to fend off some heavy hitters, though, including PTA’s One Battle After Another and Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet.
The box office and the noise
Yes, the movie got dragged into the usual discourse by some MAGA-aligned commentators for its blunt critique of white supremacy. No, that didn’t slow it down. The film cost around $80 million, and there were real nerves inside the studio before release. Some outlets framed the opening as soft. Then the next weekends happened, and the outlook flipped. The box office surged to $366.6 million, and the narrative about whether audiences would show up pretty much evaporated.
Coogler didn’t see this coming
Coogler has been honest about how uncertain he felt. Original films that don’t fit the modern blockbuster template rarely pop this big. He told HuffPost he wasn’t sure whether crowds would connect at all.
"We talked about, like, we would have been happy if a few thousand people saw 'Sinners'."
He went on to say he’s hearing from die-hards who know their way around motion picture photography and from people who normally don’t touch premium formats, both of whom went out of their way to see it in those formats and loved it. Translation: it hit cinephiles and casuals, which is rare air.
Bottom line
Despite the manufactured grumbling on the sidelines, Sinners keeps winning where it counts: audiences, critics, box office, and now the Grammys. The award-season run is just getting started.
Streaming in the US? Sinners is on HBO Max.