In his first interview since his film Sinners broke Oscar records with 16 nominations, director Ryan Coogler returned to the Sundance Film Festival, where his career first took off, to sit down with an old friend: Film journalist Elvis Mitchell.
They spoke at the Park City venue The Cabin for what will be the final Sundance in Park City, in a cozy setup called The Elvis Mitchell Suite that is one of the highlights of Sundance 2026. It’s a place where some of the greatest filmmakers alive share memories and insights with, for our money, the best interviewer in the film world.
Mitchell introduced Coogler by noting that “in the space of less than 15 years, he has made himself America’s premier filmmaker of his generation.” Then the two recalled how they first met at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where Coogler and his star, Michael B. Jordan, broke out with Fruitville (a title later changed to Fruitville Station).
The film won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film, and set Coogler up for a career that has included Creed, Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as well as Sinners. Jordan stars in the film as twin brother Smoke and Stack as they try to open a juke joint, even as vampires lurk outside.
Mitchell drew a connection through all of Coogler’s films, noting that they are all, in a way, about someone trying to get home.
That observation led to fascinating conversation about home and filmmaking.
Ryan Coogler on the Connections Between the South and Oakland
For Coogler, home is Oakland, California, setting of Fruitvale and part of Black Panther. Coogler noted that many Black Southerners relocated there from Deep South states like Mississippi, the setting of Sinners. Coogler recounted how his maternal grandfather moved from Mississippi to Oakland as a teenager.
“I spent my whole life in his house that he built with his bare hands, with scrap wood. It took him a long time to add the second story, because he was getting the wood for free. He was doing his own labor. That was done before I was alive.
“I helped my grandma with that house,” Coogler added, “and we’ve never had to fix me that work.”
He shot Fruitvale Station partly in the same house.
Coogler noted that Oakland is filled with brightly colored houses, and used that observation to make a point about unbreakable connections through generations.
“In Oakland, you’ll find a stone-cold gangster living in a pink house,” he said.
When the audience laughed, he called into the crowd for backup from a fellow Oaklander in attendance, W. Kamau Bell.
“Am I lying, bro? In Oakland you’ll find gangster living in a pink house, huh?”
“Yes sir,” Bell replied.
Coogler explained that one day when he was working on Sinners in New Orleans, he was at the home of the film’s production designer, Hannah Beachler, and had to take a phone call. So he stepped outside.
“It was like a budget thing or something. And I start walking. I’m on the phone talking, man, it’s a heated conversation, and I’m walking and I look up and I see I house a same color as my grandma’s house.
“Bro, I look around and I see all the colors of my neighborhood, of my childhood neighborhood — it looked so familiar,” Coogler said. “And I got off the phone, and I couldn’t help but tear up, bro. They brought the South with them.”
Ryan Coogler and Elvis Mitchell Reminisce About Sundance Memories
As Sundance prepares to move to Boulder, Colorado next year, Coogler and Michell recollected not only their first meeting at Sundance, but all the other people Coogler met for the first time at the festival. They include Chloé Zhao, whom he first met in Sundance’s screenwriters lab in January 2012, and Joachim Trier, who was an adviser.
Now Coogler, Zhao and Trier three are nominated for Best Director, and their respective films — Sinners, Hamnet and Sentimental Value — are all nominated for Best Picture.
Coogler also met director Shaka King, and would later produce his 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah. He recalled a conversation with King about Michaela Coel’s HBO series I May Destroy You, and explained how it informed key scenes in Sinners.
“He was kind of breaking down to me how that it was a study in character through behavior — not character through backstory, but character through the actions that people do, and the repeated actions, the habits that they have. A lot of behavior is non verbal,” Coogler explained.
Ryan Coogler on The Sinners Cigarette Scene
Coogler explained that he used exactly that kind of non-verbal storytelling in Sinners. Though the film has many examples of it, one of the best is in a short but crucial scene in which Smoke and Stack wordlessly pass a cigarette back and forth while waiting to meet with someone.
“It was big for me to know that that these guys don’t have to talk to each other,” he explained. “And I thought, ‘Oh, man, wouldn’t it be cool if if they can hand a cigarette to each other without even looking?'”
The moment quickly establishes how strongly they’re connected.
“It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, but they’re communicating all the time,” Coogler explained. “Like Smoke is having tremors. He’s checking his watch. He’s obviously having a panic attack, because this dude is late, and you don’t know if it’s double cross,” Coogler said.
“And Stack is non verbally telling him, ‘Man, you tripping, bro — everything’s gonna be fine.'”
Ryan Coogler’s Reaction to the 16 Oscar Wins for Sinners
Coogler loves to work with the same team on his films. That includes Jordan, who has been in every one of his features, and his producing partners Zinzi Coogler (she and Coogler are married) and Sev Ohanian. All three attended USC.
Coogler also met composer Ludwig Göransson, who has worked on all five of his films, at USC. Göransson, an Oscar winner for Oppenheimer, is nominated again for Sinners. And Coogler has also worked repeatedly with costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who won Oscars for Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and is nominated again for Sinners.
That’s just the beginning of a long list of longtime collaborators and friends.
When Mitchell asked Coogler about his reaction to the 16 nominations, his thoughts turned to his collaborators.
“I worked with a lot of people I love on this movie, and I feel like I saw them do their best work,” he said.
Main image: Ryan Coogler, left, and Elvis Mitchell at The Elvis Mitchell Suite at Sundance 2026. You can read more of our Sundance 2026 coverage here,
