Michael B. Jordan and others stare danger in the face in a still image from Ryan Coogler's 2025 film 'Sinners'

Sinners

Nashville-based critics' group the Music City Film Critics’ Association announced the winners of its eighth annual awards on Monday, honoring the best in film for the 2025 calendar year. 

After earning a record-setting 17 nominations, Ryan Coogler's action-horror blockbuster Sinners broke another record with 12 wins, shattering the previous top mark of seven set by Oppenheimer in 2024. 

The vampire epic took home the prizes for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Coogler, Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Best Young Actor for Miles Caton and Best Ensemble, among others. Ludwig Göransson also earned the Best Score honor, the composer's fourth win from the MCFCA. 

“Ryan Coogler’s mesmerizing dance of darkness delivered a theatrical experience that no other film in 2025 could rival,” Sean Atkins, president of the MCFCA, said in a news release. “For a work so deeply rooted in music, I cannot think of a more fitting recipient to now hold the record as the most awarded film in our Association’s history.”

Rose Byrne was named Best Actress for her performance in the anxiety-inducing If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Amy Madigan won Best Supporting Actress for her gonzo turn in horror hit Weapons, and Sean Penn stiff-walked his way to the honor for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. 

The association’s annual Jim Ridley Award, named after late Scene editor-in-chief and film critic Jim Ridley, went to Bi Gan's phantasmagoric sci-fi drama Resurrection, which opens at the Belcourt on Jan. 23. A group of five films was nominated by a panel of MCFCA members who knew and worked with Ridley.

“Bi Gan's Resurrection perfectly embodies everything that the late, great Jim Ridley loved about movies,” says Scene senior film critic and Jim Ridley Award jury member Jason Shawhan. “Expansive in vision, exacting in detail, full of care and chaos and a sense that when we gather together in Saint Nicole Kidman's cathedral of vision, film gives us more than we are, and casts our collective eyes beyond all this to what we just might could achieve. In addition, Bi grants us grifts and gore and majesty and machinations. It's a remarkable achievement.”

Stay tuned for the Scene's own annual Jim Ridley Film Poll, which will be published later this month.

The MCFCA includes 40 professional film critics working in or near Nashville, including myself and several other Scene critics. See the full slate of winners below.

BEST PICTURE — Sinners

BEST DIRECTOR — Ryan Coogler, Sinners

BEST ACTRESS — Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

BEST ACTOR — Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS — Amy Madigan, Weapons

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR — Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS — Sora Wong, Bring Her Back

BEST YOUNG ACTOR — Miles Caton, Sinners

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE — Sinners 

BEST ANIMATED FILM — The Day the Earth Blew Up

BEST DOCUMENTARY — John Candy: I Like Me

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM — The Secret Agent

BEST SCREENPLAY — Sinners

BEST ORIGINAL SONG — “I Lied to You” by Miles Caton, Sinners

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE — Sinners

BEST SOUND — F1: The Movie

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY — Sinners

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN — Frankenstein

BEST EDITING — Sinners

BEST STUNT WORK — Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

BEST COMEDY FILM — Friendship

BEST HORROR FILM — Sinners

BEST ACTION FILM — F1: The Movie

BEST MUSIC FILM — Sinners

THE JIM RIDLEY AWARD — Resurrection

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