Review: Black Bag (2025)

At some point between the frenzy over Killing Eve, Apple’s relentless PR push for Slow Horses, and Netflix’s binge-ready Treason, the British spy series infiltrated American television. That smallscreen espionage saturation has remained the go-to explanation for Steven Soderbergh’s new Brit spy thriller Black Bag’s failure to connect with audiences despite the star power of Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married National Cyber Security Centre spooks rooting out each other as potential traitors. Yet, as Hollywood’s great experimenter, Soderbergh’s take on the ubiquitous genre outshines his streaming contemporaries while making a case for the power of pure cinema. 

Reteaming with scribe David Koepp after the release of their stellar haunted house movie, Presence, in January, Soderbergh yet again aims to reinvent genre conventions via his penchant for character study–a tactic that has made his previous efforts like Erin Brokovich and the Ocean’s movies transcend their popcorn flick origins while remaining utterly entertaining. 

As he puts his own stamp on the spy procedural, Soderbergh cultivates a nuanced ode to the sanctity of the marriage bond, sidestepping seven-year-itch platitudes and easy cynicism. His spy movie is not centered around convoluted globe-trotting melodrama or politically savvy takes on international relations (though it more than excels on both fronts). It’s a carefully stylized allegory about the trust issues and small betrayals that sink many a lifetime commitment as they distract from what truly matters. 

All sleekness aside, Soderbergh doesn’t merely capture our attention so we keep asking what happens next. He provides a seamlessly executed glimpse into a couple’s life that lingers in the mind long after those of us fortunate enough to see it on the bigscreen have left the theater and begrudgingly gone back to Black Bag’s streaming content counterparts.

Black Bag is now playing in theaters and will remain at The Belcourt through next week.