Hi Patrick and welcome to the community.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a combination of both. The animations for characters, walking and so on are scripted using animation blueprint, then you trigger certain aspects using the sequencer. There’s no real way to automate this really. I guess you could use paths and show characters walking along them but you might want to also control camera changes to get different angles as you go along that path.
The sequencer lets you do this quite easily. You could probably do this via code as well but I imagine the code would be far more complex - entering volumes causes a change of camera.
Even in code however, you’re going to have a sequence of events and the sequencer is better suited to this than C++ or Blueprint, unless you create your own engine which plays back a file that controls the aspect of the animation.
What you need to do is find out what works for you. If you’re an animator, the sequencer style approach may suit you better, if a developer, code.
The cinematics course here covers both the cut-scene type animation and also using the sequencer to control aspects of a level such as changing camera when you pass through a specific area or to control moving platforms but it is mainly about the sequencer.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of anyone coding an animation for use of a cutscene. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done or is in common use.
I know this doesn’t exactly give you an answer but it’s a topic that I’d consider subjective - everyone has their own opinion
