From The Wire and Friday Night Lights to Hollywood’s biggest night, Michael B. Jordan just won the award for Best Actor for his performance in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. Or should we say “performances”? Jordan plays twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, in the film, whose dream to open a juke joint is ruined by a pesky horde of vampires.
Jordan beat out a who’s who of amazing actors to take home the trophy, including Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon, and Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent. At various points throughout awards season, Chalamet, DiCaprio, and Moura all were considered potential front-runners, but in recent weeks, Jordan pulled ahead, especially after winning the award from the Screen Actors Guild.
A few things are extra exciting about this win, though. First and foremost, Jordan is just so incredible. In Sinners, of course, but all throughout his amazing career. We already mentioned his early roles in classic shows like The Wire and Friday Night Lights, but he’s been wonderful in so many other things too, such as the Creed trilogy, Black Panther films, Fruitvale Station, Just Mercy, and Chronicle. He’s just awesome, especially when he works with Ryan Coogler.
Second is that horror films so rarely get this type of universal recognition. You have to go back to The Silence of the Lambs to find a film that even resembles horror winning major awards like this. That was 35 years ago. (Fantasy and sci-fi often fare better.) Also, films where an actor plays more than one role almost never get recognized, either. It’s almost as if the Academy looks at an actor playing two or more roles and doesn’t think it’s fair. So, we love that Jordan got the award for playing these brothers.
Sinners came into Oscar Sunday with the most nominations ever for a film, but you have to think this was one of the few that the team behind it had circled as the most important.
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