Black Bag

There’s an exquisite pleasure in watching a spy thriller that operates like a precision machine, with every component humming in elegant harmony, the engine running as smoothly as velvet. That’s how I felt watching Black Bag, like I was sitting in a sleekly designed vehicle, and the filmmakers were taking me for a delightful ride—no bumps on the road, no unnecessary detours, just a cruise into sexy espionage territory. The second great film by Steven Soderbergh released in 2025 marks his third collaboration with screenwriter David Koepp—another puzzle-box script crafted to perfection, following their digital assistant cautionary tale KIMI (2022) and ghost’s-eye-view chiller, Presence (2025). Free of unnecessary flourishes and asides, Soderbergh and Koepp define their characters with just as much shrewd efficiency as their clever, unpredictable plotting. This is a tight, 94-minute drive through familiar territory, and regardless of the recognizable sights along the way, they hardly register next to the pleasures of the journey. 

Koepp’s affinity for stories with few characters and even fewer locations comes through, despite the global nature of spycraft. With equal parts John le Carré and Agatha Christie, and perhaps a dash of Nick and Nora Charles, Koepp concocts fascinating subjects in his central spy couple: With his knack for sniffing out liars and turncoats, the bespectacled George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) feels like a hybrid of le Carré’s George Smiley from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974 book, 1979 BBC miniseries, 2011 film), along with shades of Hercule Poirot in his neatness and fussy mannerisms and Michael Caine in his 1960s style. There’s even a trace of Fassbender’s titular character from David Fincher’s The Killer (2023) in George’s mannerisms. As for George’s wife, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), she’s a more mysterious sort with her regular field missions for London’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). But their love transcends all else. She would kill for him, she admits; he would do the same. Despite his aversion to liars, he would even lie for Kathryn. 

The first scene finds George receiving intel from a fellow agent, Meachum (Gustaf Skarsgård), about a potential rat in their office. Meachum gives George a list of five possible culprits within the NCSC, and Kathryn’s name is on the list. Although George has a reputation for using polygraphs, he resolves to host the suspects for a social dinner that doubles as a whodunit mole hunt, never sharing with Kathryn that she’s under suspicion too. The other guests include the outfit’s psychiatrist, Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris); a colonel with a chic suit, James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page); the wily agent, Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke); and the young analyst Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela). George has already sized up the group and knows their intertwined personal relationships. Still, he doesn’t know who’s behind an elaborate deception aimed at stealing a dangerous thingamajig called “Severus” that could mean the death of thousands.

Whereas spy fiction often resolves to be cold and calculated, Soderbergh and Koepp balance the subterfuge with personal motivations in Black Bag. The title refers to the standard response (a justification, cover, or excuse) when an agent has information they cannot reveal to a lover or spouse. Where were you this afternoon? “Black bag.” Where are you traveling this week? “Black bag.” Those with years of experience have relied on this strategy to maintain their secrets, not only about the NCSC but also their infidelities. Everyone seems to be sleeping with everyone else, as Clarissa notes later. Spies are a duplicitous bunch, so you either accept that cheating is part of the game, or you date outside of the intelligence community, where you’re forced to keep secrets from your partner to maintain security protocols. It’s a practical reality that leaves agents feeling lonely and uncommitted. If that’s true of so many, how can George truly trust Kathryn? 

Besides George and Kathryn’s dining room—the site of two get-togethers that bookend the film—Black Bag takes place in restaurants, offices, and boardrooms. Soderbergh’s film isn’t propelled by chases or shootouts, unlike most James Bond and Jason Bourne films or other spy-related franchises today. It’s a film of clever dialogue, often coded and layered with double meanings. When someone ends up poisoned, shot, or detonated by a drone, this action merely punctuates what tense, dialogue-driven scenes have built toward. Koepp’s work reminded me of David Mamet in that way. The screenplay also allows this incredible cast to do careful work, with everyone straddling the line between self-composed professionals and human beings compelled by personal ambitions, desires, ideological hangups, flaws, and obsessions. Fassbender and Blanchett play their roles with sophistication, whereas Abela and Burke stand out for their live-wire characters who are more susceptible to their emotions than their colleagues. 

Of course, as with many a Soderbergh film, Black Bag is exceedingly cool. Composer David Holmes, who provided the slick music for the director’s Out of Sight (1998) and Ocean’s trilogy, among others, lends his talents to the hip, propulsive sound. Visually, Soderbergh employs the hazy, modern look of his twistiest thrillers, Haywire (2011) and Side Effects (2013), hinting at the narrative’s fog of misdirection and intrigue. As ever, Soderbergh serves as cinematographer and editor under his usual pseudonyms, constructing immersive sequences from the opening oner inside a London discotheque to a breathless sequence where George and Clarissa attempt to hijack a satellite during the three-minute transfer window between linkups. The production design remains as precise and ordered as the film’s aesthetic and narrative structure, giving way to a unity between form and function. Moreover, Fassbender is ideally suited for his role, having also appeared in Haywire as a short-lived assassin. Blanchett, too, is no stranger to the director after their fascinating experiment on The Good German (2006). The rest of the cast are newcomers to his oeuvre. 

If the film’s sleek, machinelike proficiencies suggest Black Bag could feel impersonal, then its characters’ curiously endearing relationships and distinct personalities imbue the material with humanity—particularly between George and Kathryn, but also wherever Clarissa directs her energy (Abela, star of last year’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, is once again terrific). Soderbergh’s customary questioning of authority and abuses of power also resonate, with an excellent Pierce Brosnan appearing as an administrator behind a red nose, good suit, and persistent scowl, his motivations labyrinthine. By the final frames, it’s clear this director-screenwriter duo aimed for more than an absorbing thriller—though it plays that way for much of its lean runtime. Black Bag delivers a spy yarn executed to perfection, with a twisting plot, endearing and complex characters played by a talented cast, and sharp filmmaking—all remarkably satisfying for the skill and intelligence of its construction.