In a May 6, 2025 essay, POPSUGAR’s Breanna Chionne argues that Sinners makes its intimate scenes stand out by giving female pleasure, agency, and reciprocal encounters unusual attention. “Raised the bar” is her critical judgment, not a measurable claim that the film changed Hollywood. Her case rests on three relationships—and on how intimacy reveals character within a supernatural horror story.
What Chionne means by “raising the bar”
Sinners follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, who return to the Mississippi Delta to open a juke joint. Chionne’s essay, “Let’s Talk About the Sex in ‘Sinners’”, considers how romantic and intimate subplots fit inside that horror framework. Her central question is not simply whether the film shows sex, but whose pleasure matters, who has agency, and whether intimacy feels mutual.
Those are interpretive claims about what appears on screen. The essay is criticism, not a production interview or a neutral content analysis, and it does not establish that the filmmakers intended every meaning Chionne identifies.
Three relationships at the center of the argument
Sammie and Pearline: pleasure and communication
Chionne highlights Stack’s frank instruction to Sammie about cunnilingus, followed by Sammie’s tentative, reassuring encounter with Pearline. She reads the sequence as making room for a kind of sexual communication and attention to women’s pleasure that mainstream films often leave aside. The contrast between instruction and Sammie’s uncertain approach makes communication part of the scene’s meaning, rather than treating sex as self-explanatory.
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Chionne asks, “if more men took the time to have these conversations, would there be a greater emphasis placed on (and appreciation of) female arousal?” That is a rhetorical question posed by the writer, not a finding about audiences or men in general.
Annie and Smoke: intimacy shaped by shared history
In Annie and Smoke’s scene, Chionne emphasizes the estranged couple’s history and the conversation that comes before their intimacy. She presents Annie as self-possessed, confident, and desired. In this reading, the scene’s significance comes partly from the relationship context: it is not an isolated display of sex, but an encounter between people with a past.
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Mary and Stack: control and sexual agency
Chionne reads Mary’s position on top and her exchange with Stack as signs of her control and sexual agency. She places the encounter against the turbulence of their relationship and Mary’s transformation in the story. This is her interpretation of the scene and character, not a statement of intent by director Ryan Coogler or the performers.
What the intimacy-coordinator credit does—and does not—tell us
Chionne names Amanda Peek and Krystal Ferdinand as Sinners intimacy coordinators and describes the film’s intimacy as realistic and reciprocal. The essay does not include interviews with either coordinator or detail choreography, consent protocols, or specific production decisions. Their credits can be reported; a particular account of how they worked cannot be inferred from this source.
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How to assess the “bar” claim
There is no single objective measure for whether a film has raised the bar for sex scenes. Chionne’s argument can instead be understood through the specific criteria she brings to the scenes:
- Whose pleasure is centered: whether women’s arousal and experience receive attention.
- Agency: whether a woman appears to make choices and shape the encounter.
- Communication and reciprocity: whether intimacy is presented as mutual rather than one-sided.
- Character and relationship: whether sex reveals a relationship’s history or dynamics.
- Type of evidence: whether a claim is a critic’s reading or a documented statement from production.
On these terms, Chionne makes a case for what she finds distinctive about Sinners; she does not provide a systematic comparison of the film with other movies. Her phrasing—“When you think ‘Sinners,’ the first thought shouldn’t be sex”—also underscores that the scenes are one part of a horror film, not its defining genre or subject.
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Broader context: sex in cinema is not the same as intimacy on screen
Adrian Horton’s 2023 Guardian opinion essay discusses the decline of sex in film and reports a 2019 Black List analysis using IMDb data: sex in cinema accounted for 1.21% in the 2010s, compared with 1.79% in the 1990s. These are figures as reported by Horton about that analysis, not statistics about Sinners. The analysis uses a specific definition of “sex in cinema,” so the percentages should not be treated as a measure of every kind of intimate scene.
Where to watch or find the film
Warner Bros. Discovery announced a Sinners streaming debut on Max for July 4, 2025. That dated announcement does not establish current availability, which can vary by market and change over time. Warner Bros. home-entertainment coverage confirms July 2025 releases on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD. The film’s official site offers a disc purchase option; the 4K edition is not necessary to evaluate Chionne’s argument.
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