10 Awesome Recent Movies That Came Totally Out Of Nowhere
2. Black Bag
It sounds ridiculous to say that a Steven Soderbergh-directed crime thriller starring the likes of Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan could possibly come out of nowhere, but that's precisely what happened.
Black Bag's marketing presence was nearly non-existent until about two weeks before it hit cinemas, with Focus Features oddly deciding to forego a festival run for the film, while only allowing reviews to drop a few days before release.
And so, many heads were turned when Black Bag opened to rave reviews from critics, landing a storming 97% on the Tomatometer, making it the best-reviewed major release of 2025 so far.
Yet Soderbergh's film was dumped with all the disinterest that suggested it was something of an embarrassment for Focus - far from the witty, brilliantly paced, and superbly acted genre romp it actually is.
As a result, Black Bag underperformed at the box office, admittedly against a rather hefty $50 million budget, though this absolutely feels like the sort of tight genre effort that'll find itself quite the audience when it hits streaming.