Black Bag (2025) Movie Review: Soderbergh Reuses and Refines His Spy Formula for His Best Film in Years

At this point, Steven Soderbergh has released so many films that we’ve likely run out of creative quips about how many films he makes. His most passionate disciples would tout this as a victory, a demonstration of his versatility as an innovative mind always on the hunt to add a new genre or technique to his toolbox; his most dedicated detractors would argue that the director’s output far favors quantity over quality, as demonstrated by a fair few (mostly recent) examples of films whose development seems to have started and ended with the questions “Can I make this? And if so, how quickly?” (Three guesses as to which camp I call home.)

“Black Bag” (2025) conversely, finds Soderbergh making the rare return to an area previously explored in his filmography (discounting, naturally, “Ocean’s” sequels); shot just four months after the premiere of “Presence” and now released less than two months after that latest stylistic misfire, the prolific filmmaker has circled back to the world of cold espionage, one he’d previously tackled in 2011’s “Haywire.” This time, however, Soderbergh continues his drive to innovate by introducing a new twist: in “Black Bag,” the director envisions a version of “Haywire” that actually comes across like a finished film.

What is a Black Bag, you may ask? In David Koepp’s script, the term is a catch-all response to any question asked by one spy to another, for which the answer is of too classified a nature to be divulged, even between seasoned operatives. Where were you last night? Black bag. What do you need these algorithms for? Black bag. What’s the Krabby Patty formula? Black bag. In a profession marked entirely by deceit and leaks, it’s a handy verbal escape-route to communicate a need-to-know basis in a world where the person asking the question may very well be the next, or current, target of inquiry.

Such is the case for George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a London operative dealing directly in this sort of secretive milieu. Happily married to Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), the couple’s union isn’t marred by a series of “True Lies”-esque excuses made day-in and day-out about their goings-on; they both work in the same field, and for the same agency. In truth, their marriage is probably better described as “mutually functional,” but in most arenas—let alone espionage—that in itself is a towering achievement worthy of admiration from all their colleagues.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the openness of what these people do retains a level of refreshing honesty between them. On the contrary, the very nature of their profession means that the word “black bag” is, on average, uttered about as often between them as “Have a safe flight” or “Text me when you get home.” Sometime or another, however, the black bag calls to be opened, which is the case when George, who specializes in detecting such lies and smoking them out, is tasked with finding a mole in the agency selling life-threatening information—on his list of suspects, and rather high up as it turns out, is Kathryn.

That Soderbergh is returning to territory previously marked by a smarmy satisfaction in its own patchy plotting and motivations would ostensibly be cause for worry, as “Haywire” demonstrated, first and foremost, that vagueness only works when there’s an underlying sense of intrigue at play (or, at the very least, a compelling subversion thereof); even if a grand conspiracy leads to a fizzle, it should at least appear as if that was the plan, rather than a hastily decided conclusion reached two days before shooting begins.

“Black Bag,” by virtue of the cunning implied by the meaning of its title, tiptoes near this same region of red herrings and false promises, but Soderbergh and Koepp manage to zero in on a specific register of nonchalance in the face of disaster that feels apt for the field being explored here. Koepp, who so far has only seemed to ever hand Soderbergh clunkers, has this time provided him (and us) with a script whose clinical compartmentalization plays into a greater sense of momentum that feels entirely earned in the greater scheme of the calamity whose only safeguard is an office full of bloodhounds in three-piece suits.

An early dinner scene between friends (and suspects), demonstrates where contrived arguments play into a greater tension regarding who might have something to hide, and which secrets are actually consequential to anything at all in a world where people mislead one another like it’s second nature.

Soderbergh, for his part, matches Koepp’s mobility with his usual sterile visuals, but in “Black Bag,” what normally works as a hindrance is instead applied here to a precise vision that matches the precise visuals. The overexposed lamp lighting, often Soderbergh’s obnoxiously giddy proclamation of “Look at me, I can shoot on iPhones too!” instead creates a sense of haze surrounding George’s efforts to sniff out the rat, made even more dizzying when the occasional point-of-view shot is enveloped in a soft-focus fuzz that expertly, if obviously, visualizes the enormous difficulty and stakes of his task.

For all the “world hangs in the balance”-ness looming across the film, “Black Bag” has nary an action scene in sight; rather than showing off his usual blunt-force choreography, Steven Soderbergh slides comfortably into the battles fought with fake smiles across a dinner table. As a result, the film’s expectedly detached view of its espionage scene proves unexpectedly tense in moments of casual conversation; they say that looks kill, but typically, it’s those looks not given that carry the highest rates of casualty.