Black Bag

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. In the film, British intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Fassbender) is assigned to investigate a list of suspected traitors, one of whom is his wife, Kathryn (Blanchett).

George Woodhouse, a counterintelligence officer with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), is given one week by his superior, Philip Meacham, to investigate the leak of a top-secret software program code-named Severus. One of five suspects is George"s wife, Kathryn, who is also an intelligence officer. He invites the other four suspects, also NCSC operatives, over for dinner. The four suspects are satellite imagery specialist Clarissa, her boyfriend and case officer Freddie, counterintelligence officer James, and his girlfriend Zoe, who is also the staff psychiatrist. At dinner, George drugs their food to lower their inhibitions. In an effort to learn more about his guests, George engages them in a psychological game. Among other things, it is revealed that Freddie has been cheating on Clarissa, to which Clarissa responds by stabbing Freddie in the hand with a steak knife.

That same evening, Meacham dies of a heart attack while drinking in his home. George begins to focus on Kathryn after finding a ticket to a movie theatre in her dresser waste basket, and she denies having seen the film. He tricks her into giving him access to her office, logs into her computer and learns that she will be traveling to Zurich. Later, James informs George that Kathryn has access to a Zurich bank account containing £7 million (2024) (US$8.95 million) in misdirected and unexplained funds. In a psychiatric session, Zoe asks if Kathryn prioritizes her career or her husband. In a subsequent session, Zoe breaks up with James. George uses Clarissa"s infidelity to pressure her to redirect a spy satellite and watches Kathryn meet with a Russian dissident, Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Kulikov, in Switzerland.