Black Bag (4K UHD Review)
Director
Steven SoderberghRelease Date(s)
2025 (May 13, 2025)Studio(s)
Casey Silver Productions/Focus Features (Universal Studios Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: C
Review
George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender, X-Men: First Class) and his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) are veteran counterintelligence agents for Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre. Their work is so classified, in fact, that they’re often required to keep secrets even from each other. But that’s not a problem for their marriage, as George and Kathryn know each other implicitly and their trust in one another is unbreakable… that is until a piece of top-secret software is leaked to a dissident Russian colonel, and George learns that his wife is one of five possible suspects.
Tasked with investigating the leak by his superior, who’s subsequently killed, George trusts no one and suspects everyone. Concocting a plan to root out the traitor, he invites the suspects—coworkers all—over for dinner and doses them with a drug that lowers their inhibitions, causing chaos between them when various indiscretions are soon revealed. But when the clues begin to point toward Kathryn, George is forced to risk everything by digging deeper and questioning everything… including his own judgment.
Let me say it right up front: Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag is one of the great cinematic surprises of 2025. It’s a terrific, playfully clever, and stylish little spy thriller. And what makes this film really click is that, at its core, it’s really a character-driven marriage drama wrapped in espionage clothing—yet it absolutely clicks as a spy thriller too, simply without all the running, gunning, and explosive set pieces recently typical of the genre. Instead, this a sophisticated battle of wits and a psychological hall of mirrors that conceals its secrets carefully, but not so much as to ruin the fun. And just when you think you’ve got it all sorted out, Soderbergh reveals that he’s been a step ahead of you the whole time.
While it’s a completely original creation of Soderbergh and writer David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible), Black Bag begins with nod to the work of writer John le Carré, then goes in a completely different direction. For whereas le Carré’s George Smiley was a frumpy toad of a man, Soderbergh’s George is sophisticated, meticulous, and elegant. Every aspect of this film is draped in style, from its modern yet 1960s-tinged production design to its dapper and glamorous costuming. The leads give delightfully intense performances, while the supporting cast is superb across the board. Among them are Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), Marisa Abela (Back to Black), Naomie Harris (Skyfall), Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye), and Tom Burke (Mank), each of them playing complex, nuanced characters. Nearly everything, apart from George and Kathryn’s home (which was built in its entirety on a soundstage), was shot on location in central London to ground the film in reality. And the Jazz-infused score by composer David Holmes adds just the right measure of swagger and panache to the proceedings. Any way you slice it, Black Bag is a gem.
Black Bag was captured digitally by Soderbergh—working as his own cinematographer—in the Redcode RAW codec (at 8K resolution) using the Red V-Raptor X 8K VV camera with Hawk Class-X anamorphic lenses. It should be noted that Soderbergh makes extensive use of diffusion filters here to give the image a soft, glowing quality that some pixel-counters have found off-putting. (I am not among them.) The film was then finished as a native 4K DI at the 2.39:1 aspect ratio for theaters. For its release on Ultra HD, that 4K source has been graded for high dynamic range (HDR10 only) and encoded for release on a 66GB disc, with data rates consistently in the range of 70 Mbps.
For my money, the result is a gorgeous and velvety 4K image that offers pleasing detail where it matters, while impressing with its subtleties. Style is the point here, not sheer resolution, with this particular choice of lenses, lighting, and filters serving to enhance the overall image depth and dimensionality. The palette is cool, nuanced, and richly saturated, shadows have nice depth, and the highlights are luminous—London has seldom looked as sexy as it does here.
Primary audio on the 4K disc is offered in lossless English in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD format. This is obviously a dialogue-driven film, and that dialogue is clear and readily discernible at all times. Yet the mix also provides an abundance of subtle atmospheric cues to enhance the immersion. The opening shot is a perfect example, as George walks from the back streets of London into a club, heads downstairs to meet his superior, and then they both walk back upstairs and outside to an alleyway for a private conversation—the sound environment continues to evolve the entire time. Bass is modest but firmly sufficient. And the playful yet seductive score notches up the tension and adds just a dash of rip current energy to the interpersonal drama. Additional audio options include Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, with subtitles available in English SDH, Spanish, and French.
Universal and Focus Film’s Ultra HD package is a 2-disc set that includes the film in 4K as well as 1080p HD on Blu-ray. Both discs offer the following special features (which, in a very nice touch, are in actual 4K on the UHD disc):
- Deleted Scenes (4K – 3 scenes – 6:25 in all)
- George and Freddie Have a Chat (4K – 1:54)
- Anna Calls Katherine (4K – 3:16)
- Clarissa Meets with Dr. Vaughn (4K – 1:12)
- The Company of Talent (4K – 10:12)
- Designing Black Bag (4K – 5:28)
This is not a lot of content to be sure, but it does at least give you a good sense of the effort applied to elevate the look and style of this film, and the appreciation of all involved in its production. Most of the cast chimes in with a comment or two, and you get to see a bit of the work on set. A Movies Anywhere Digital code is also included on a paper insert.
Black Bag isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but I find it to be Soderbergh’s best work in a good long while and well worth your time—especially for fans of great writing and acting, not to mention surgically-efficient production, as well as those who appreciate the classic literary roots of the spy genre. I’ve now shown this film to a number of guests and visitors here at The Bits’ HQ, and not a single person has failed to enjoy it yet. Highly recommended.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)