Black Bag

For the 1922 film, see The Black Bag. For other uses, see Black Bag (disambiguation).

Black Bag
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Written by	David Koepp
Produced by	Casey Silver Gregory Jacobs
Starring	Cate Blanchett Michael Fassbender Marisa Abela Tom Burke Naomie Harris Regé-Jean Page Pierce Brosnan
Cinematography	Peter Andrews
Edited by	Mary Ann Bernard
Music by	David Holmes
Production company	Casey Silver Productions
Distributed by	Focus Features (United States) Universal Pictures (International)
Release dates	March 12, 2025 (2025-3-12) (France) March 14, 2025 (2025-3-14) (United States)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50–60 million
Box office	$27.5 million

Black Bag is a 2025 American spy thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. It stars Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan, and follows a British intelligence officer who is tasked with investigating a list of possible traitors, one of whom could be his wife.

Black Bag was released in France on March 12, 2025 by Universal Pictures, and two days later in the United States by Focus Features. It received critical acclaim and has grossed $27.5 million worldwide.

Plot

British intelligence officer George Woodhouse is given one week by his superior, Meacham, to investigate the leak of a top-secret software program code-named Severus. One of five suspects is his wife, Kathryn, who is also an intelligence officer. He invites the other four suspects, who are also fellow spies, over for dinner. The four suspects are satellite imagery specialist Clarissa, her boyfriend and managing agent Freddie, agency psychiatrist Zoe, and her boyfriend and managing agent James. At dinner, George drugs their food to lower their inhibitions and reveals that Freddie has been cheating on Clarissa; Clarissa angrily stabs Freddie in the hand with a steak knife.

That same evening, Meacham dies of a suspicious heart attack while drinking in his home. George becomes suspicious of Kathryn after she denies having seen a certain film, even though he found a cinema ticket in her trash. He breaks into her office and learns she will be traveling to Zurich. He persuades Clarissa to redirect a spy satellite and watches Kathryn meet with a Russian operative in Switzerland. Meanwhile, James informs George that Kathryn has access to a Zurich bank account containing ₤7 million in misdirected and unexplained funds. In a tense psychiatric session, Zoe asks if Kathryn prioritizes her career or her husband. In a subsequent session, Zoe breaks up with James. Freddie informs Kathryn that George suspects her.

It is revealed that during the few minutes George redirected the satellite to watch Kathryn's meet in Zurich, another Russian operative disappeared from a Liechtenstein safehouse with a copy of the Severus program, and he is now en route to Eastern Europe to use it to cause a nuclear meltdown. Kathryn uses Clarissa to track the Russian. She suspects that their boss, Stieglitz, deliberately allowed Severus to leak in order to cause a nuclear meltdown and destabilize the government even though it may kill thousands of innocent people. She leaks the Russian's location to a CIA contact, resulting in a drone strike killing both Russians in Poland. George puts all suspects except Kathryn through a polygraph to determine when they first learned about Severus. In bed that night, husband and wife compare notes and realize they are being set up.

They invite the other four suspects to a second dinner party. Instead of serving dinner, Kathryn places a gun on the table while George says they will play a game. He reveals several secrets; namely, that Freddie and Zoe had an affair, and that Zoe learned of the Severus program from James but attempted to stop its dissemination due to her Catholic faith. George states that there were two plots: one by Stieglitz and James to leak Severus and cause a nuclear meltdown, and another by Zoe and Freddie to use Kathryn to stop it. James grabs the gun, confesses to plotting with Stieglitz and killing Meacham, and then aims the gun at George and fires twice. However, the gun was loaded with blanks. Kathryn pulls a gun from her bag and shoots James dead, after which she firmly warns the remaining colleagues to never exploit her and George's mutual fidelity again. The remaining colleagues dump James' body in a pond and return to work. Kathryn informs Stieglitz that his plot failed and suggests he remove himself from the picture. She and George reaffirm their love for each other. They realize that the Zurich bank account containing ₤7 million is untouched and could still be theirs.

Cast

• Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse
• Cate Blanchett as Kathryn St. Jean
• Marisa Abela as Clarissa Dubose
• Tom Burke as Freddie Smalls
• Naomie Harris as Dr. Zoe Vaughan
• Regé-Jean Page as Col. James Stokes
• Pierce Brosnan as Arthur Stieglitz
• Gustaf Skarsgård as Meacham
• Kae Alexander as Anna Ko
• Ambika Mod as Angela Childs

Production

It was announced in January 2024 that Steven Soderbergh was set to direct the film with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender set to star. In March, Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, and Tom Burke were added to the cast.

Filming began in London on May 6, 2024. Production also took place at Pinewood Studios.

Release

In January 2024, Focus Features acquired distribution rights to the film in a $60 million negative pickup deal. In July, the studio set a March 14, 2025, release date.

Reception

Box office

As of March 30, 2025, Black Bag has grossed $17.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $10.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $27.5 million.

In the United States and Canada, Black Bag was released alongside Novocaine, Opus, The Last Supper, and The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, and was projected to gross $7–8 million from 2,705 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $2.7 million on its first day, including an estimated $850,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $7.6 million, finishing second behind Novocaine. In its second weekend, the film made $4.3 million (a drop of 44%), finishing second behind newcomer Snow White.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 221 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sleek in design and spiked with dry wit, Black Bag is an exemplary espionage caper that lets movie stars like Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender do what they do best—light up the screen." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 75% overall positive score, with 51% saying they would "definitely recommend" it.

Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com awarded the film with a perfect four out of four stars rating, noting: "Black Bag feels like a return to form for the triple threat filmmaker who directed, filmed, and edited together a smart, sexy spy vs. spy thriller fought mostly over dialogue. The result is absolutely delicious, a svelte piece of entertainment that feels like a vintage yarn yet very much represents our own current anxieties, questions of sustaining trust in relationships and high-stake careers."

A less positive review came from Slant Magazine's Mark Hanson, who compared the film negatively to Soderbergh's Out of Sight, while stating: "Black Bag settles into a third act of derivative reveals and exposition dumps. And by the time the film comes to the end of its brisk runtime, it feels like nothing much has actually happened, despite all the narrative convolutions."

External links

• Black Bag at IMDb