Black Bag
Focus Features | Release Date: March 14, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 53 Critic Reviews
Positive:
51
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerJustin ChangMar 14, 2025
Soderbergh and Koepp, for their part, express their own fervent belief: in the seductive glamour of espionage and the magnetism of Blanchett’s and Fassbender’s interlocking gazes—which is to say, in the enveloping artifice and power of movies. Great is their faithfulness indeed. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloMar 14, 2025
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. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienMar 14, 2025
Black Bag is a tremendous example that a film need not be making an explicit political point or obsessed with the political dimensions of its narrative to be worthwhile cinema. A work can rise to this present moment by offering us rapture. This, too, is what movies are meant to accomplish. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshMar 12, 2025
Black Bag may be rooted in the mind, but it is inextricably connected to the heart, especially in matters of love and trust, betrayal and murder. That’s what makes a Soderbergh genre exercise such a deliciously satisfying cinematic morsel: It is pure fun, but also deeply layered with larger existential themes, making for a delightful romantic spy drama that cannot be missed. Read full review
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 6, 2025
While the supporting cast are impeccable across the board, it’s really Blanchett and Fassbender’s film to command, with performances that drip with old-school star power. Read full review
91
The PlaylistCarlos AguilarMar 14, 2025
Taut yet thoroughly laced with levity, Black Bag plays like the filmic equivalent of a skillfully executed espionage mission in how tight and exact it feels. Read full review
91
Original-CinJim SlotekMar 13, 2025
There are not many films on the release schedule with good writing and plotting, wit and solid acting. That’s an exceptional combination in a quick bite of the spy movie genre. Read full review
91
The Film StageJordan RaupMar 6, 2025
Seeing how Soderbergh and Koepp can expertly stack the deck to always be one step before the viewer is an exhilarating thrill to behold. Read full review
90
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsMar 14, 2025
Holding itself to the tip-top standard that the talent involved would imply, 'Black Bag' is intelligent, entertaining, and nearly bulletproof. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithMar 14, 2025
Messrs. Soderbergh and Koepp have followed one of (Elmore) Leonard’s Laws—“Leave out the parts that people skip”—to construct an electric, fast-paced thriller that amounts to one climactic scene piled atop another. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 13, 2025
Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s outstanding new film, is sleek, cool, polished, smart, smooth — if Soderbergh were a thief, he’d leave no fingerprints. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 13, 2025
By the time Pierce Brosnan shows up, you may find yourself giggling at the whole meta deliciousness of this enterprise. You may also find yourself feverishly hoping that when it comes time to revive the Bond series, someone has the brains to call Koepp and Soderbergh. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 12, 2025
It’s a great espionage thriller, and an even better scenes-from-a-marriage drama. Ian Fleming would love this. So would Ingmar Bergman. Read full review
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 6, 2025
Highly entertaining from start to finish, the film benefits from David Koepp’s inventive screenplay and Soderbergh’s storytelling swagger. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 6, 2025
Black Bag is a reminder of just how enjoyable Soderbergh can be when he’s riffing on well-worn genre material. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 6, 2025
When it comes to sleek, stylish genre movies, Soderbergh remains a maestro at the top of his game. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenMar 17, 2025
Written by David Koepp, who also penned Soderbergh’s Kimi and Presence, Black Bag displays the twists and intrigue you’d expect from a top-rate spy flick, along with some scintillating dialogue. But it’s the movie’s intellectual provocation and formal invention that marks it among Soderbergh’s best work. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 14, 2025
Blanchett, as always, is flawless as the seductive and secretive Kathryn, but it’s Fassbender who reveals a different side of himself. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 14, 2025
Hollywood’s decision to abandon this kind of storytelling is one reason why cinema in the 2020s has fallen into the doldrums and, when something like Black Bag arrives, it’s a bittersweet reminder of the potential of the big screen experience. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 14, 2025
Black Bag may be modest, and frivolous, but it’s sharp-witted. Every performance feels right. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 14, 2025
Koepp and Soderbergh make this as much about mistrust and fidelity in a marriage as it is about spies-gone-wrong. They keep their film intimate and interrogatory, giving it an old fashioned theatrical feel. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 13, 2025
I’m not going to pretend I always knew exactly what everyone was talking about as we plunged ever deeper into the weeds of double-crossing and triple-crossing among a batch of mostly iniquitous secret agents, but it’s a zippy and darkly funny ride every step of the way. The dialogue jumps off the page, and the performances are universally brilliant. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleMar 12, 2025
Black Bag follows a run of agilely directed thrillers by Soderbergh made with screenwriter David Koepp. They are both at the height of their almost-too-easy powers; the script, especially, is peppered with delectable dialogue. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 10, 2025
Soderbergh stages these games of one-upmanship as tight, dialogue-heavy scenes of discomfort and suspense. Read full review
88
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiMar 6, 2025
Human weakness is 'Black Bag’s' greatest strength. It’s an insidiously great spy movie, mature and satisfying. Read full review
85
LooperDominic GriffinMar 12, 2025
It's a sharp, sexy, and intoxicating drama that has more in common with Patrick Marber's play "Closer" than with most spook stories. Read full review
85
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeMar 6, 2025
Black Bag is a not-quite-quotidian spy movie. The stakes are the fate of a relationship, not the fate of the world, and all the pieces come together to make human drama even more interesting than potential apocalypse. Read full review
80
The TimesTom ShoanMar 17, 2025
Fassbender’s crispness is the perfect foil for Blanchett’s immaculately dressed voluptuary: the two entwine in bed like snakes but you never doubt their devotion to one another. Even their treachery feels like a warped kind of love. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 14, 2025
It positions spycraft as a hybrid of occult ritual and parlour game – and perhaps also a grand-scale working-through of deep-seated national jitters. Happily, it’s also enormous fun with it, and has your mind whirring to keep up with David Koepp’s devious screenplay, which gives itself a head start and waits until the very end before willingly surrendering the lead. Read full review
80
The TimesKevin MaherMar 14, 2025
Soderbergh knows his spy movies and so is careful to inject the film’s more cerebral proceedings with just the right amount of lore and giddy genre hokum. Read full review
80
NMEPaul BradshawMar 14, 2025
It’s a marriage drama, corporate comedy, domestic farce and international surveillance thriller in a tight 90-minute package. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonMar 14, 2025
It’s a pleasure to enjoy something that’s both straight-faced and freewheeling, like a jazz pedagogue who also knows how to get a crowd dancing. Read full review
80
iChristina NewlandMar 14, 2025
It’s great fun to watch two actors of such calibre play these wicked games of mistrust and deception – it’s even more fun to see Soderbergh handle his story so deftly. Read full review
80
ABC NewsPeter TraversMar 14, 2025
OK, Steven Soderbergh’s sleek, sexy spy thriller is sometimes too cool for school. But oh the twisted, erotic mischief dished out by dynamos Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbinder as married spies, still hot for each other but wondering if the other is a mole for the wrong side. Read full review
80
ColliderRoss BonaimeMar 12, 2025
With a delectable cast and Soderbergh and Koepp knowing exactly how to twist this story with each new scene and reveal, Black Bag is yet another example that Soderbergh can basically make any genre his own, and thrive in it. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 12, 2025
No doubt the unrelenting archness will annoy many. But, honed to an economic 93 minutes, Black Bag beats all the current worthless streaming thrillers for wit, pace, style and commitment to the bit. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiMar 12, 2025
Black Bag is engaging and refreshing precisely because it is so personal, raising the stakes to the highest level without having to be extravagant in its set pieces. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMar 11, 2025
With this quick-witted and sexually supercharged espionage caper, Steven Soderbergh and his screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) have just remade Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the Industry generation. Read full review
80
EmpireJohn NugentMar 6, 2025
Its pleasures lie in the dialogue, the twists, the reveals. It all leads to a delightful Agatha Christie-style drawing room denouement, in which the rat is exposed, their best-laid plans laid to waste. Like the film as a whole, it’s deliciously, lip-smackingly satisfying. Read full review
80
SlashfilmJeremy MathaiMar 6, 2025
Black Bag is a perfect example of all of Soderbergh's strengths and the heights he's capable of reaching throughout this run-and-gun phase of his post-retirement career. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 6, 2025
Black Bag succeeds on its chilly wit, and on the cool, nervy appeal of its two stars. Blanchett strides through the movie with lioness grace; Fassbender makes George’s robotic use of logic seem like an aphrodisiac. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerMar 6, 2025
Without slackening its tension, Black Bag sometimes resembles a bitter comedy of manners, which are apparently also kept in the black bag for certain stretches. These are people who like to tell each other what they find irretrievably boring, especially if it’s each other, whether or not they’re even telling the truth about their disdain. Read full review
80
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaMar 6, 2025
Its story of three couples working at the same British agency turns all the right screws with impeccable timing, forcing its characters to examine the flaws in their relationships as its tale of state secrets gradually unravels. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMar 13, 2025
At a silkily dispatched hour and a half, Black Bag is perfectly portioned and entertaining as all get-out. Read full review
75
The AtlanticDavid SimsMar 26, 2025
Although Soderbergh’s approach has an artfulness to it; he’s telling a sweeping story while keeping the excitement mostly confined. The result, while self-contained, is gripping, quietly sexy, and robustly acted. Read full review
75
Washington PostTy BurrMar 12, 2025
Black Bag is a movie about pros made by a pro, and either you’re up to the challenge or you’re not. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMar 12, 2025
The cold, efficient and really British spy thriller stars a marvelous Michael Fassbender (“The Killer”), a sly Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) and an underused but most welcome Pierce Brosnan, who all help overcome a ridiculous premise. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 12, 2025
If Black Bag denies us the kind of duplicitous confrontations that other versions of this story might take pains to savor, Soderbergh’s aversion to giving audiences what they want — and the severe angularity that he tends to offer us now instead — is almost as rewarding here as it was utterly indefensible in “Magic Mike’s Last Dance.” Read full review
75
ObserverDylan RothMar 11, 2025
Black Bag is light, unpretentious entertainment for grown-ups, a solid 90 minutes of pure, mostly bloodless fun. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubMatt SchimkowitzMar 10, 2025
For better or worse, the director tucks Black Bag away so cleanly that it’s easy to forget what a good time it is. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 6, 2025
It’s witty, stylishly crafted and boasts a stellar ensemble, led by especially toothsome work from Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. It keeps you glued, even if the movie ultimately feels evanescent, a slick diversion you forget soon after the end credits have rolled. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 6, 2025
Steven Soderbergh’s downbeat, affectless tongue-in-cheek spy comedy (“caper” isn’t quite right) is in this new mode, though taking itself to the edge of self-satire, with a few 007 refugees in the cast, efficiently scripted by David Koepp. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineMark HansonMar 7, 2025
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. Read full review
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