Black Bag (Soderbergh, 2025)

If you had to choose between saving the world or saving your significant other, who would you choose? That’s the question. High stakes, clever craftsmanship, and pleasantly suspenseful are all ways one can describe Steven Soderbergh’s newest film Black Bag. After losing the ‘thrill’ in his most recent film Presence (2023), Soderbergh brings back the charm from his Ocean’s trilogy. Forget your typical spy-thriller blockbuster throwing out all the stops left right and center, Black Bag comes slow and steady, taking its time to reveal what need be revealed. 

George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are THE husband-and-wife duo who are able to make marriage work alongside their jobs as intelligence agents. That is until Kathryn becomes one of the agents suspected of betraying the nation and George faces his biggest test yet – loyalty to his wife or his country. As George tries to unveil the true culprit, he digs himself and his colleagues – Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), Dr. Zoe Vaughn (Naomie Harris), and Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) – deeper into this web of lies. 

Gripping you right from the start with lustrous visuals and invigorating score, Soderbergh forbodes typical action sequences and applies tension with crisp visuals to create something fresh for the genre. Soderbergh takes David Koepp’s mesmerizing script and tells the story visually using methods taken from his earlier films. Black Bag is slick and classy. Framing each character to perfection; showing emotion, but not enough to let the audience know what they’re truly thinking – just like a spy. What changes the game in Black Bag is nothing slips by, crafted intricately the audience has to follow the film to know what’s happening. If not, you may just wonder how you got to the end when it gets there. 

Soderbergh’s directing combined with Koepp’s script allows these A-list actors to do what they do best. Fassbender and Blanchett are the stars of the show with their intense chemistry and play. The two have the star power and finesse audiences expect to see in their on-screen spies. Bringing their charisma and charm to the film, their delivery of lines provides the mystery needed to keep the audience from knowing the truth, just like the characters. Black Bag thrives in that the viewer is kept on their toes and does not allow them to be ahead of the characters, as some films do. 

Secrets, espionage, and pure intelligence all wrapped up into a short 94-minutes yet everything you need to enjoy yourself is there. Simple, yet still complex that by the end you are shocked. Black Bag releases in cinemas Friday March 14th, and you definitely don’t want to miss it. Get yourself to your nearest cinema now, or the furthest one (if you’re hiding from someone).