I can’t tell you what a joy it is to be blessed with two (2) Steven Soderbergh films in the first quarter of 2025. He kicked off the year with his experimental horror film Presence and is already back with the best film of the year so far in Black Bag. The film follows married couple George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) who work as spies in different units of the same British espionage organization. When it’s revealed there’s a traitor in the organization forcing George to investigate Kathryn and a host of different agents, their marriage is tested just as thousands of lives are put at risk.
As he’s done so many times, Soderbergh takes what could have been a boring, familiar carbon copy genre film and makes it his own. His chameleon-like filmmaking works perfectly in the espionage space, masterfully blending a marital drama, workplace drama, and spy thriller all into one 93-minute film. Truthfully, the last part is the least interesting and important part of the movie. It’s just the setting for the rest to take place, a style for Soderbergh to play around with.
Fassbender and Blanchett are incredible together, with Fassbender building on his character from David Fincher’s The Killer (2023) with more rigidity and robotic speaking, and Blanchett is playing up her patented cold, no-nonsense powerful woman that should have won her a third Oscar for Tár (2022). George and Kathryn are seen as the gold standard for espionage couples, with other relationships proving to be much shakier than theirs. The film’s sexiness comes from their chemistry, with the love and trust every couple watching should strive for in their relationships.
Black Bag is billed on Soderbergh, Fassbender, and Blanchett, but the movie is more of an ensemble piece once it gets going. We’re introduced to the major players (two more couples that have fallen victim to workplace dating) in one of the opening scenes as George and Kathryn have invited them all to dinner: Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and Freddie (Tom Burke), with Zoe (Naomie Harris) and James (Regé-Jean Page) coming in right behind them. It’s unclear exactly what each of them does in British intelligence, but one thing is certain – they know each other almost too well.
It doesn’t take long for things to escalate and insults to get hurled. Abela and Burke steal the show at several points of the film, with Fassbender and Blanchett’s more reserved performances anchoring the cast splendidly. Oh, Pierce Brosnan also shows up. The James Bond veteran returns to the British espionage scene for a few good scenes.
At a minimum, Black Bag is a well-made, well-constructed spy drama film featuring a solid cast. But any number of journeyman directors could have made the average version of this. What makes this great is how Soderbergh makes it his own. He does well not repeating himself or the genre’s classic tropes. Lesser spy movies make the whole film about whatever device or information is being leaked and sold to unsavory characters, but Soderbergh makes this movie more about the relationships between characters. Tension builds more at a dinner party or office meeting here than in any scene from forgotten thrillers of the 21st century. The “plot” is secondary to those involved and how they react to each other as more information is revealed, letting dialogue-forward writing win the day over setpieces and flare.
It’s hard to deny that this is Soderbergh’s best film in years, and no disrespect to Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), but it’s also writer David Koepp’s best script since Panic Room (2002). The filmmaking and script are tight and precise, but not overly exact like the director’s straight-to-streaming work, including one of his other Koepp collaborations, Kimi (2022). These genre exercises are almost too buttoned-up as Black Bag feels simultaneously deliberate and free. The hardest-working man in Hollywood (10 films since 2017, more than one a year) seems to be back in the groove and having fun again.
It’s been said before, but I’m here to reiterate the need for movies like this. Mid-budget movies made for adults used to come out three times a week in the 80s and 90s, but have been cast aside in favor of blatant money laundering schemes like The Electric State (2025). Seriously, where did all that money go? There’s a place in the world for big-budget swings, independent low-budget darlings, and moderately sized films like Black Bag. For some reason, Soderbergh seems to be one of the few directors left who is trying to keep that space alive consistently.
Review Courtesy of Cameron K. Ritter
Feature Image Credit to Focus Features via The Seattle Times