Movie Spauxe April 17, 2025 0 Comments

Sinners Post-Credits Scenes Explained

Warner Bros.

Spoilers for “Sinners” follow.

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll have savored every last drop of Ryan Coogler’s latest and unquestionably greatest work to date with “Sinners,” the horror movie that might be the director’s biggest box-office gamble to date. Sat somewhere between “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “No Country for Old Men” (which Coogler confirmed he drew from), the Michael B. Jordan spine-chiller culminates in a glorious blend of music, monsters and lost souls arriving right where they need to be, and the best part is that it isn’t even the end.

Nowadays, movies with post-credit scenes are often adorned with a Marvel logo, so it’s a refreshing change of pace to see one at the end of Coogler’s latest. Here, the “Black Panther” director sticks not one but two buttons on the end of “Sinners,” both of which hold immense value in the violent and vibrant nightmare he’s dragged us through. After Sammy (Miles Caton) has left his family behind to seek a life and future in music, we’re reunited with him in a blues bar, headlining the evening with the audience on their feet. It’s here, though, as the cast list rolls by, that Sammy is reunited with two familiar faces he thought had been lost to time, only to return from the past for one last song. It’s a wonderful rug-pulling moment from Coogler, and a treat for those who stuck around to recover from this Southern-scorched fever dream of a movie.

Stack and Mary ask to Sammy for one last song in the Sinners mid-credits scene

Warner Bros.

While time may have taken its toll on the skilled guitar player, a surprise visit from the undead Stack (Michael B. Jordan) and his love, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), prove that they have remained untouched, although now rocking a killer ’90s wardrobe. Sammy is gobsmacked at the sight, only for his cousin to explain what happened that fateful night.

In the bloody last stand against Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and after Mary fled the scene, the twin brothers were left to fight to the death — or so we thought. In their final battle, Smoke allowed his brother to go free, but not before making Stack promise to let their cousin live his life. Now, with the scent of death faintly lingering over the guitar player, Stack asks Sammy to play as he did that night, for old times’ sake.

It’s a sweet moment intertwined with scenes from that fateful day, with music allowing them to travel through time, remembering the community that came together to build what Sammy confesses led to the best night of his life before things went to hell. It once again proves that “Sinners,” for the most part, is all about people just trying to find their own form of freedom wherever it may be along with a heartfelt history that they shared together (which was inspired by Coogler’s own). What makes it all the sweeter though, is the musical legend stepping in Sammy’s older shoes for the scene.

Old Sammy is played by blues legend, Buddy Guy

Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images

While Mary and Stack may have become legends in their own right (just the kind to be feared), Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld are in the presence of a legend themselves given that the older version of Sammy is played none other than legendary blues guitarist and singer, Buddy Guy.

The eight-time Grammy Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner set a level by which some of the greatest musicians in history hoped to reach. Talents such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page all looked to Guy for inspiration and reach the mastery of the genre that he’d attained. To Coogler, he was his uncle’s favorite musician and a casting choice that was just as crucial as everyone else on the project.

In an interview with the The LA Times, Coogler recalled their first meeting: “I pitched him what the movie was and he told me his life story about being a sharecropper as a kid and going up to Chicago and trying to learn how to play. I broke down crying, because everything I had just written in the script, this dude lived, outside the supernatural stuff.” It’s a brief appearance but one that adds even more authenticity to the real-life details that work as the backbone for Coogler’s supernatural tale, all before going back to the past and showing the young Sammy with a final emotional encore.

Sammy lets his light shine in the Sinners’ post-credit scene

Sammy playing the guitar at the juke joint

Warner Bros.

After flooding the film with music so engrossing you’ve probably already added it to your playlist queue for the trip home, Ryan Coogler sends “Sinners” out on one perfect note with one last performance from its most surprising star. In his first-ever acting role, Miles Caton closes the film as young Sammy, shown sitting in his father’s church, playing us out to a stunning rendition of “This Little Light of Mine.” There’s no flair, no other supporting talent dropping in to wish the audience farewell, just the “preacher boy” left to his own devices and working wonders with the talent he has.

While it might simply be an excuse for Coogler to further highlight Caton’s unique talents, it’s one we’ll let slide for a film that has spent every second keeping us hooked. It’s also an apt song choice, given that even while the story chronicles two brothers’ dreams turn into nightmares, it really has always centered on a blooming talent that took the chance to shine on his own even after such intense trauma. It’s a personal moment that highlights the music as his release, and what a sweet one it is, too. His music, just like the monsters desperate to make it their own, is timeless and will stay ringing in your head until the very last note.

“Sinners” is now in theaters.