As many have noted in the Oscar-race discussions, it feels like Paul Thomas Anderson and One Battle After Another are coming into the Oscar season with the most momentum, like all of these races are theirs to lose. It looks like Ryan Coogler and Sinners are OBAA’s biggest competitions right now. Sinners has made all of the “best of 2025” lists and been nominated across the board for Best Picture thus far. I think it’s very likely that Sinners ends up with some big Oscar nominations – Coogler for director, Michael B. Jordan for lead actor, and the film for Best Picture. If that happens, it will be Coogler’s first-ever Oscar nomination. Bonkers. What’s also interesting about the OBAA vs. Sinners argument is that they’re both wholly original films, written and directed by two of the great American writer/directors working today. Anyway, Coogler is playing the awards-season game a bit. He agreed to a wonderful New York Times profile and let’s just say, he’s no Timothee Chalamet. I suspect getting Coogler to hype himself would be like pulling teeth. Some highlights:

He compartmentalizes to get through pinch-me Hollywood moments: “I can’t engage with it as the kid whose dreams were to come to Hollywood and make movies. I have to engage with it as a professional shepherd of the story.”

He knew Sinners had to be sexy: “We would talk about how this movie had to be the sexiest movie any of us had ever made because it was carnal,” Coogler said. He wanted “Sinners” to evoke the feeling of looking through old family photos and realizing that your relatives were once young and vibrant, too: “Like, yo, my granddad was hot — no wonder he had 10 kids!”

Sinners’ characters had to feel familiar: “They were just you in a different circumstance. If you were Black, you were sharecropping, and you get a few hours of release Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning at church. But you got the same hopes, desires, dreams, ambitions, bumping up against the realities of this place.”

Working from his own original story: “I did feel more vulnerable. I ended up talking to actors about things you don’t normally share on other movies and getting to a place where they understand, ‘Oh, my director experienced a loss that maybe he still is not at peace with yet.’”

He wants to enjoy this awards season: Whether he gets to hang out with his “Sinners” cast or reunite with old friends like the “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao, Coogler has been hitting the circuit in a grateful mood. “Anytime I get to see my friends, I’m happy,” he said.

He was invited to join the Academy in 2016, but Coogler declined the invitation. “It’s not out of animosity,” he told me, noting that he’s stretched thin with commitments to his film school and unions. “And I’m not good at judging things, bro. The act of ‘Hey, pick the best thing’ is very stressful for me, even when there’s no stakes involved.”

Filmmaking is not a glamorous job: “People see the tuxedo, they see the red carpet, but it’s real blue-collar folks making these movies happen,” Coogler said, adding that he truly fell in love with filmmaking once he understood that, at its core, it’s a job. “Most days, I’m wearing coveralls and Columbia gear, trying to find solutions that aggregate up to a story. And that enabled me not to engage with any narratives around what it is that we do.”

He approached every project expecting it to be his last: “I didn’t think I would last in this industry, looking at it pretty fatalistically,” he said. Even after the first “Black Panther” became a record-breaking, billion-dollar hit, he still felt unsure: “Then Chad died, so I was questioning everything.” It wasn’t until he was done with the “Black Panther” sequel that Coogler finally allowed himself to picture a long career. “There were points in that movie where it felt unfinishable,” he said, “so when we put it out and I was happy with the film, I felt like, ‘OK, I could do this for the rest of my life.’”

The third Black Panther: Coogler hasn’t made any firm decisions, mostly because he’s so focused on the third “Black Panther” film, which will reportedly add Denzel Washington to the cast: “I’m so fired up about that movie, bro.” He is also excited about projects he will produce with Proximity Media, including an “X-Files” revival.

[From The NY Times]

I can’t believe Coogler is under 40 and he already has the Black Panther franchise, the Creed franchise, Sinners and Fruitvale Station. And he produced Judas and the Black Messiah! And he doesn’t get even a fraction of the respect a white director would get with that kind of critical and box-office record. He’s so humble too – like, a true working-class director. I hope he gets a blank check to do whatever he wants from here.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.