In Hollywood, nobody knows anything - except me, occasionally. And I knew Ryan Coogler was special.
But even I didn't predict this. Sinners, the supernatural thriller that's been quietly building buzz since its festival run, just shattered the Academy's all-time nomination record with an unprecedented 16 Oscar nominations—surpassing the 14-nod ceiling held by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land for decades.
Let that sink in. A genre film—a horror-inflected Southern Gothic about twin brothers, no less—just beat James Cameron's maritime epic and Damien Chazelle's love letter to Los Angeles. The Academy, that notorious bastion of prestige-drama worship, just gave its biggest embrace ever to a filmmaker who cut his teeth on Fruitvale Station and made billions with Black Panther.
The nominations sweep every major category: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role), Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Visual Effects, Original Score, and Original Song.
It's the kind of comprehensive recognition usually reserved for sweeping historical dramas, not films where the supernatural intrudes on Jim Crow-era Georgia.
Coogler becomes only the second Black filmmaker nominated for producing, directing, and original screenplay in the same year—following Jordan Peele's Get Out recognition in 2017. He's the seventh Black director nominated for Best Director, joining John Singleton, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, Peele, and Spike Lee. None of them won.
That record needs breaking too.
The Sinners nominations also mark historic firsts for Coogler's collaborators. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw becomes the first Filipino woman nominated for cinematography. Costume designer Ruth E. Carter—who already has two Oscars—is now the most-nominated Black woman in Academy history with five nods in her category. And producer Zinzi Coogler (Ryan's wife) becomes the first Filipino producer nominated for Best Picture and part of the first Black married couple nominated together in the category.
Here's what Sinners proves: audiences will show up for challenging, cerebral work if you make it spectacular enough. The film reportedly cost $90 million and has already crossed $400 million worldwide—impressive for an original, R-rated genre film in an era when studios claim only IP survives.
The Academy's embrace suggests the industry might finally be catching up to what audiences already know: great filmmaking transcends genre. Horror isn't "elevated" when it's good—it's just good. Coogler didn't need to make a prestige biopic or a sweeping historical epic to earn the Academy's respect. He just needed to make something undeniable.
Whether Sinners can convert these 16 nominations into wins remains the big question. The Academy has a long history of nominating films widely and then playing it safe with awards. But after tonight, one thing's certain: Ryan Coogler just changed what's possible.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything. But sometimes—just sometimes—excellence speaks loud enough that even the Academy has to listen.
