Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp truly excel at making the espionage movie feel brand new with their latest collaboration, Black Bag. This spy yarn concerns intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) discovering several people close to him both in life and at his employment are possible traitors. That includes his wife and fellow agent Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett). Who can George trust? Neither he nor the audience truly knows in Black Bag’s engrossing run time, which is peppered with terrific performances, delightfully fun twists, and an outstanding David Holmes score.
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It’s natural for any moviegoer to exit Black Bag so enthralled with everything they watched that they want to indulge further in the world of spy cinema. That’s an operative much easier to say than to actually execute since there are so many different spy films out there. There are technically 27 James Bond movies alone in existence, after all. However, there are three spy movies well worth automatically watching after Black Bag for a multitude of reasons, including just how excellent they are under any circumstances.
The Conversation
The recently deceased Gene Hackman left a treasure trove of outstanding movie performances behind. Among those titles was the 1974 masterpiece The Conversation. If you thought Michael Fassbender in Black Bag was a terrific spy-movie leading man, just wait until you watch Hackman as Harry R. Caul. This surveillance expert at the center of The Conversation is a master at overhearing other people, but during the course of this Francis Ford Coppola directorial effort, he begins to suspect his latest assignment may be tied up in something dangerous and life-threatening.
Hackman hauntingly portrays a man plagued not only by paranoia but also a man searching for an ever-elusive connection to another human being. Caul is technically involved in so many people’s lives, yet tender scenes like him stumbling over his words talking to Meredith (Elizabeth MacRae) evoke an aching yearning at the heart of this man. Such a compellingly complicated figure anchors a story crammed full of mesmerizing filmmaking and a bleak story turn that could’ve only existed in the trailblazing era of ’70s American cinema. The Conversation is a masterpiece not just of either the spy movie canon or Gene Hackman’s filmography, but of all cinema.
Stream The Conversation on Criterion Channel.
[RELATED: Steven Soderbergh Reveals Plans for Scrapped Logan Lucky Prequel]
Burn After Reading
Following up 2007 Best Picture Oscar winner No Country for Old Men, directors Joel and Ethan Coen returned to their silliest roots by making Burn After Reading. This was a movie all about the biggest self-absorbed idiots alive trying to engage in espionage. Gym fanatics Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) try their best to imitate the spies they’ve seen in movies once they get a hold of a CD belonging to CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich). Contained on the CD is just a draft of Cox’s memoirs, but Feldheimer and Litzke feel like they have enough to blackmail the guy for everything he’s got.
“You can be a spy, too, madam,” one character imparts in Burn After Reading, a darkly hilarious truth. Anyone can engage in espionage. Not just anyone, though, can engage in it well. Thank goodness for the incompetence of the goofballs chronicled in Burn After Reading. Their antics provide endless amusement, especially since actors like Pitt, McDormand, and George Clooney are such a riot committing to these farcical individuals. If the most humorous Black Bag moments have you itching for more darkly comical espionage stories, look no further than Burn After Reading.
Hangmen Also Die!
Part of the fun of Black Bag is that George Woodhouse isn’t just concerned over Kathry St. Jean’s moral allegiances. He’s also concerned with the trustworthiness of basically every fixture in his life, including close comrades Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and Col. James Stokes (Regรฉ-Jean Page). Anyone around him could be a traitor. For moviegoers seeking out further spy features about not knowing whom to trust, then the 1943 Fritz Lang directorial effort Hangmen Also Die! is a must-see. This feature is set in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, with the ordinary citizens of this country having to become spies just to trade whispers of rebellion against their fascist oppressors.
Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) and local brewer Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart) are just two of Hangmen Also Die’s! characters who are far more than they appear. Lang and John Wexley’s screenplay is a twisty-turny creation that fascinatingly uncovers all kinds of righteous duplicity within even the most unlikely members of the working class. When you’re living within unspeakable realities like Nazi occupation, any kind of civilian cooperation or espionage mastery is possible. Much like Black Bag, Hangmen Also Die! weaves captivating cinema out of relentless uncertainty, though this feature has plenty of distinctive virtues compared to Soderbergh’s latest feature. James Wong Howe’s cinematography, for instance, is miraculous and unlike anything else in the spy movie genre.
Stream Hangmen Also Die! on Prime Video, Peacock, and Tubi.
Black Bag is now playing in theaters.
What movies will you be watching after Black Bag? Let us know in the comments below!
