Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is thick with symbolism, legacy, and layered world-building. The surface gives you vampires, kinship, betrayal, and survival, but just beneath is a recurring pulse of something else; currency. Not just money in the literal sense, but value systems, economic control, and the quiet violence of barter in a rigged world.

It starts early, and it’s personal.

Smoke and Stack pull up to the mill with a duffle bag filled with U.S. dollars. They’re trying to secure a new asset for their financial future. The man across from them only takes a short glance at the money before asking how they got it. That line says everything. Not wonder, or just curiosity, but suspicion. Because to him, men like Smoke and Stack weren’t supposed to have access to that kind of capital. Even when they DO come up they’re still treated like intruders in a house they helped build. Coogler doesn’t waste a second. He opens the film by showing us exactly how money is used to draw lines.

We see men, women, and children working in fields from sunup, picking cotton under a new name but the same weight. Their payment for hitting quotas? Wooden nickels. Compensation issued by the plantation that can only be used at plantation stores and amongst themselves. It’s a closed loop, a fake freedom. This motif is where Coogler really lets American history speak for itself. The chains are gone, but the control is still there. This time hidden behind economics. Those nickels aren’t just fake coins and largely useless tokens. They’re stand-ins for any system that traps people by controlling what they can and can’t do with what little they’ve earned.

Later on, we get one of the film’s most tender scenes. Smoke teaches a little girl how to negotiate. He could’ve just handed her a few coins to watch the truck, but instead, he makes it a lesson. It’s a small moment that says a whole lot. About community and fatherhood. About dignity. About passing down knowledge. About seeing yourself as someone with value, even in a world that tells you otherwise.

We also meet an Asian family running multiple convenience stores that serve both Black and white customers on either side of a segregated street. Its placement in the film is highly intentional. It shows how some communities figured out how to navigate and survive between two systems, how to offer services and goods to both without fully belonging to either. It’s a quiet commentary on strategy, assimilation, and the complicated intersections of race and commerce in the post slavery South.

One of the most fascinating moments comes when we see Remmick offer up gold coins in exchange for hospitality. Ancient ones, most likely Roman. Not cash, not notes, but real metal. The kind of currency that held value any and everywhere, in every era. It’s not just a flex, it’s a whole statement. In a world full of fragile money backed by nothing substantial, he moves with something solid. Coogler’s not just highlighting the concept of immortality; he’s showing us what real, timeless value looks like and how others react to it.

At the juke joint, Stack explains they’ve had to keep two separate tills. One for dollars, one for the wooden nickels. It’s bookkeeping, but it’s also a reminder. Two currencies, two realities. When the townsfolk and sharecroppers show up, many bring only the plantation currency. That’s all they’ve ever known. That’s the world they’ve inherited. After some discussion, the juke joint doesn’t turn them away. It adapts. Because sometimes the only way to hold a community together is to honor even the broken systems they’re stuck in.

What Coogler pulled off in Sinners is special. He didn’t have to center money in the narrative. But he did, and he did it with intention. From wooden nickels to U.S. bank notes to ancient gold, every piece of currency in this film means something. It tells us who has power, who’s been denied it, and who’s trying to change the game.

And even though Sinners is set in a time some consider long past, it’s actually very recent and these themes still ring true. So many modern currencies float without being tied to anything of real value. We’re still exchanging wooden nickels just with sleeker branding.

Sinners is already aging like fine wine. Every rewatch will unlock something new. And the conversations it sparks, about wealth, value, and survival, will only get louder.

Thank you, Ryan Coogler, for this timeless story. For giving us a film where the money talks, and truly says everything.

— Ohnahji B

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is thick with symbolism, legacy, and layered world-building. The surface gives you vampires, kinship, betrayal, and survival, but just beneath is a recurring pulse of something else; currency. Not just money in the literal sense, but value systems, economic control, and the quiet violence of barter in a rigged world.

It starts early, and it’s personal.

Smoke and Stack pull up to the mill with a duffle bag filled with U.S. dollars. They’re trying to secure a new asset for their financial future. The man across from them only takes a short glance at the money before asking how they got it. That line says everything. Not wonder, or just curiosity, but suspicion. Because to him, men like Smoke and Stack weren’t supposed to have access to that kind of capital. Even when they DO come up they’re still treated like intruders in a house they helped build. Coogler doesn’t waste a second. He opens the film by showing us exactly how money is used to draw lines.

We see men, women, and children working in fields from sunup, picking cotton under a new name but the same weight. Their payment for hitting quotas? Wooden nickels. Compensation issued by the plantation that can only be used at plantation stores and amongst themselves. It’s a closed loop, a fake freedom. This motif is where Coogler really lets American history speak for itself. The chains are gone, but the control is still there. This time hidden behind economics. Those nickels aren’t just fake coins and largely useless tokens. They’re stand-ins for any system that traps people by controlling what they can and can’t do with what little they’ve earned.

Later on, we get one of the film’s most tender scenes. Smoke teaches a little girl how to negotiate. He could’ve just handed her a few coins to watch the truck, but instead, he makes it a lesson. It’s a small moment that says a whole lot. About community and fatherhood. About dignity. About passing down knowledge. About seeing yourself as someone with value, even in a world that tells you otherwise.

We also meet an Asian family running multiple convenience stores that serve both Black and white customers on either side of a segregated street. Its placement in the film is highly intentional. It shows how some communities figured out how to navigate and survive between two systems, how to offer services and goods to both without fully belonging to either. It’s a quiet commentary on strategy, assimilation, and the complicated intersections of race and commerce in the post slavery South.

One of the most fascinating moments comes when we see Remmick offer up gold coins in exchange for hospitality. Ancient ones, most likely Roman. Not cash, not notes, but real metal. The kind of currency that held value any and everywhere, in every era. It’s not just a flex, it’s a whole statement. In a world full of fragile money backed by nothing substantial, he moves with something solid. Coogler’s not just highlighting the concept of immortality; he’s showing us what real, timeless value looks like and how others react to it.

At the juke joint, Stack explains they’ve had to keep two separate tills. One for dollars, one for the wooden nickels. It’s bookkeeping, but it’s also a reminder. Two currencies, two realities. When the townsfolk and sharecroppers show up, many bring only the plantation currency. That’s all they’ve ever known. That’s the world they’ve inherited. After some discussion, the juke joint doesn’t turn them away. It adapts. Because sometimes the only way to hold a community together is to honor even the broken systems they’re stuck in.

What Coogler pulled off in Sinners is special. He didn’t have to center money in the narrative. But he did, and he did it with intention. From wooden nickels to U.S. bank notes to ancient gold, every piece of currency in this film means something. It tells us who has power, who’s been denied it, and who’s trying to change the game.

And even though Sinners is set in a time some consider long past, it’s actually very recent and these themes still ring true. So many modern currencies float without being tied to anything of real value. We’re still exchanging wooden nickels just with sleeker branding.

Sinners is already aging like fine wine. Every rewatch will unlock something new. And the conversations it sparks, about wealth, value, and survival, will only get louder.

Thank you, Ryan Coogler, for this timeless story. For giving us a film where the money talks, and truly says everything.

— Ohnahji B