The “Sinners” mob is attacking yet another outlet’s top-movies-of-the-year lists.
It was less than two weeks ago that Rolling Stone published their top 20 movies of 2025, and with no “Sinners” included, online outrage ensued; social-media threads erupted with accusations that the omission was “racist,” “criminal,” or proof that the magazine “doesn’t get movies anymore.”
Now we have Variety film critics Owen Gleiberman and Peter DeBruge publishing their own lists, both with no “Sinners,” and the online hive mind has struck again. I actually find the backlash this time around much nastier. In fact, even actor Wendel Pierce is calling out Variety over the snub.
At least this time there are some critics pushing back, including The Guardian’s Jesse Hassenger and RogerEbert’s Tomris Laffly — the latter had to block her comments due to hate responses.
The bigger picture for me is what this blowback says more about the current state of film discourse than it does “Sinners” — the increasingly rigid hive-mind dominating the field. What this controversy really tells me is that we’re living in one big echo chamber: either you’re with us, or you’re against us.
These days, conformity is rewarded. Once a film is deemed essential by the online mob, any dissent — even a simple omission from a list — is treated as sacrilege. Critics who fail to align with the consensus are assumed to be wrong, or worse, have ulterior motives.
Below are some of the tweets against Variety, most of which have gone viral with at least 10k likes.
