Ah, it’s that time of the year. Everyone’s wrapping up the gifts purchased during Black Friday, Christmas decorations are being dusted off, and movie fans are putting together their holiday watchlists. It’s also the time of the year that sees film fans making their final selections for “best films of the year” lists. One movie that will surely be featured in many is Ryan Coogler’s outstanding vampire hit Sinners, a Warner Bros. movie that revived the flame of original horror during 2025. However, one of the first 2025 best-of lists to be published online omitted Sinners, and fans aren’t happy.
Rolling Stone recently posted an article listing their picks for the best films of the year, and Sinners is nowhere to be seen — although it is mentioned in the shout-outs. Lest you assume this happened because the editors think horror is unworthy of their list, their final selections did contain a few scary movies, including the critically praised horror gem Weapons.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama One Battle After Another took the top spot. Other picks include Netflix’s Frankenstein and Ari Aster’s COVID-19 thriller Eddington. Here’s the complete list, in descending order from #20 to #1:
Weapons (Zach Cregger)
Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson)
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni)
Orwell: 2+2=5 (Raoul Peck)
Best Wishes to All (Yûta Shimotsu)
Universal Language (Matthew Rankin)
Eddington (Ari Aster)
Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs)
Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)
Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie)
Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)
Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)
Train Dreams (Clint Bentley)
Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)
Hamnet (Chloé Zhao)
One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Rolling Stone’s ‘Sinners’ Omission Has Horror Fans Snarling
Naturally, fans of Ryan Coogler’s unique vampire film reacted on social media after Rolling Stone published the list. Sinners is the rare horror movie that earned the acclaim of audiences as well as movie critics. Today, the film has a 97% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is at 96% – a rating that’s in line with the reactions by X users commenting on the list. The majority of replies find fans (and one MCU icon) asking why Sinners isn’t among the 20, and questioning the credibility of David Fear, the editor who put together the list:
- Release Date
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April 18, 2025
- Runtime
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138 minutes
- Director
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Ryan Coogler
- Producers
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Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler