Even though we are about a week into the new year, we’re still at the time where movie fans are talking more about the best movies of 2025 than the 2026 movie schedule. One popular favorite from last year was Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which is earning a lot of awards season buzz following its commercial success. Recently, Oscar-winner Viola Davis shared her own thoughts about why the horror flick is so important culturally, which included comparing it to The Exorcist.
Viola Davis recently hosted a panel discussion with Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku and casting director Francine Maisler in Los Angeles, California as the movie continues to be on the awards season circuit. Check out what she had to say about the movie:
We have been immersed so often in our culture with the white gaze. Where we create narratives to fit an audience that we feel are the majority, and in the process we squelch our voice… When I saw Sinners, it woke me up.
Sinners isn’t simply one of the best horror movies of last year, there’s a deep conversation to be had about its representation – not only of Black people, but multiple other minority communities, and the ways in which its message speaks to them as well. Davis continued by comparing it to a scene in The Exorcist. In her words:
When Ellen Burnsten’s [Chris] comes home from work and her assistant ushers her in the house and says ‘You’ve got to come, you’ve got to see this, ‘Oh my god.’ It’s freezing in the house. She puts on a coat with a flashlight, she ushers her upstairs and she goes into the room. And, the room is freezing cold, and you can sort of see the mist coming out of their mouths. And she goes up to the bed that has Regan, who’s chained down to the bed because, you know, she’s possessed. And she proceeds to pull down the blanket, and pull up the nightgown and she takes the flashlight and she shines it on her daughter’s stomach. And on it, slowly are the words being scratched in blood, ‘Help me.’
Davis recalled a famous scene from the 1973 horror classic to illustrate a point about how Sinners made her feel when she watched it. As she continued:
That’s what I saw with this. It’s our ‘Help me’. It’s that part of us where I don’t feel like the themes in the movie were bigger than the beings involved in it. I think what we fight for is so much in our space as Black people, people of color is our right to be. So, often it feels like a possession, right? A chokehold of our passion, our darkness, our sexuality, our love, our art.
Davis’s experience with Sinners is hauntingly detailed through these words, shared via Smith Woods on TikTok, who shared her thoughts as well. In Sinners, there’s a really apt story that beautifully weaves in themes about holding on to culture amidst appropriation, white supremacy and colonialism preying on minority communities across American history, not unlike vampires. I know I haven't been able to get out the line: "I want your stories and I want your songs" since seeing it.
Viola Davis likened Sinners' message to the moment in The Exorcist where the words “Help Me” are written on Regan’s body while she’s possessed to describe the intense feelings the movies evoked for her. Davis’ reading of the movie reminds us why Sinners may go down in history to become one of the top movies ever. There’s so much careful filmmaking from Coogler’s part that allows one to find new depth in it every time we watch it.
Along with Davis hyping up the movie during awards season, it’s a big contender this year. Sinners just won four awards at this past weekend’s 2026 Critics Choice Awards, and among the 2026 Golden Globes nominations, the vampire flick is up for seven awards. We’re also expecting it to earn some Oscar nominations as well. You can catch the Golden Globes this Sunday on CBS.
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