Steven Soderbergh’s latest effort, Black Bag (2025) is something of a throwback. It’s an original story (read: not part of some comic book franchise) and though it is genre, it’s neither horror nor action.
It’s a talky spy thriller.
The phrase, “they don’t make them like this anymore” is thrown around so much that it has almost lost all meaning. However, in this scenario, there is not a collection of words more apt.
Black Bag is an oddity for our moment in cinema history. But it doesn’t have to be.
The death of the mid-budget film has been thoroughly discussed among film industry professionals for a decade now. And that discussion merits the attention of wider world.
Cinema cannot be sustained by just giant, blockbuster tentpole movies (the declining box-office performances of superhero films is proof of that) and low-budget indie darlings hardly ever get the marketing push need to make even a dent at financial or even cultural box office.
The film industry has historically needed the mid-budget adult movies to sustain itself.
Therefore, it is exciting news that Soderbergh was able spend about $60 million on this film. It is a little worrying though, that the film underperformed at the box office (even though it is likely to turn a profit on home release over time).
I don’t think that should be cause for total despair though. Many mid-budget films of the 20th century and even the 2000s underperformed at the box office. The secret was that so many of them were released each year that the overperformers made up for the underperformers on aggregate.
I don’t think that the takeaway from this should be to completely abandon the mid-budget genre film – but rather to release even more Black Bags.
It wouldn’t be proper to make a case more movies like this without offering my opinion on this one and so I will: it rocks! Black Bag focuses on a cat-and-mouse investigation involving a husband-and-wife British intelligence duo. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play the spy spouses and they are riveting. George (Fassbender) is tasked with discovering the alleged mole in the British intelligence services and his investigations lead him to suspect his wife, Kathryn (Blanchett).
The plot moves along at a slower pace than some other spy thrillers but that is largely to its benefit. Dinner scenes and interrogations alike are given room to sketch their way from comedic to tense to genuinely thrilling.
These lengthened scenes also allow the actors involved to showcase the full breadth of their understanding of the characters they play. Freddie Smalls (played by a wonderful Tom Burke) is scummy but vulnerable; Naomi Harris tempers her character Zoe’s confidence with insecurity and financial envy; and Marisa Abela’s Clarissa is purely magnetic.
This sort of craft mastery is further evidence that the mid-budget film is not only enjoyable but absolutely necessary
The film makes a case for the argument that what audiences really want to see is good actors be given the space to interact with each other under different emotional circumstances.
And what the film lacks in set pieces, it more than makes up for in production design, cinematography and Soderbergh’s virtuoso directing. Every scene is composed and lit in the best possible way. I found myself absorbed by a waist-level light fixture in George and Kathryn’s house that threw one dinner scene into hazy splendour. The sound design deserves a mention as well. Whether it was the scrape of dinner chair legs pulled across a hardwood floor, or the click of a lock being picked, the sound design was expertly employed to build the tension of proceedings wherever it could.
This sort of craft mastery is further evidence that the mid-budget film is not only enjoyable but absolutely necessary. Soderbergh cut his teeth working on films like this. And a paucity of them hinders the development of the next generation of filmmakers.
More films like Black Bag will birth more directors who are capable of making films like Black Bag, which then raises the standard of work across the industry. And that influx of better films will attract an audience longing for quality entertainment.
And when that happens, we can say with full confidence that we are so back.