Passes the Bechdel test
Black Bag
2025. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by David Koepp.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
3 / 3
Passes
-
Yes
1. At least two women
7 women characters. 5 of them speak. -
Yes
2. Who talk to each other
In 7 scenes out of 75. -
Yes
3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.
Second opinion
Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.
The film
When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband - also a legendary agent - faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.
- Released
- 14 Mar 2025
- Genres
- Drama, Mystery, Romance
- Rated
- R
- IMDb
- 6.7 / 10
- Metascore
- 85 / 100
- Awards
- 3 wins & 22 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- George 293 lines, man
- Kathryn 199 lines, woman
- Clarissa 128 lines, woman
- Freddie 121 lines, man
- Stokes 112 lines, man
- Zoe 98 lines, woman
- Stieglitz 27 lines, man
- Anna 14 lines, woman
- Meacham 14 lines, man
- Mr. Green 9 lines, man
Full cast, 19 people
- Cate Blanchett as Kathryn St. Jean
- Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse
- Tom Burke as Freddie Smalls
- Marisa Abela as Clarissa Dubose
- Regé-Jean Page as Col James Stokes
- Naomie Harris as Dr Zoe Vaughn
- Gustaf Skarsgård as Philip Meacham
- Kae Alexander as Anna Ko
- Martin Bassindale as Security Guard
- Pierce Brosnan as Arthur Stieglitz
- Megan Kimber as Zoe's Receptionist
- Paul Bailey as Kathryn's Driver
- Bruce Mackinnon as The Major
- Orli Shuka as Andrei Kulikov
- Daniel Dow as Vadim Pavlichuk
- Dane Juler as Analyst #1
- Reena Dusila as Analyst #2
- Ambika Mod as Angela Childs
- Alex Magliaro as Mr Green
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 75
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | 8 | 36 |
| 3 to 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 to 6 | 12 | 11 |
| 7 to 8 | 36 | 49 |
| 9 to 10 | 29 | 32 |
| 11 to 12 | 23 | 18 |
| 13 to 14 | 5 | 6 |
| 15 to 16 | 0 | 3 |
| 17 to 18 | 5 | 23 |
| 19 to 20 | 75 | 0 |
| 21 to 22 | 1 | 32 |
| 23 to 24 | 7 | 7 |
| 25 to 26 | 1 | 0 |
| 27 to 28 | 23 | 0 |
| 29 to 30 | 1 | 1 |
| 31 to 32 | 23 | 21 |
| 33 to 34 | 0 | 0 |
| 35 to 36 | 12 | 7 |
| 37 to 38 | 42 | 44 |
| 39 to 40 | 0 | 3 |
| 41 to 42 | 0 | 1 |
| 43 to 44 | 8 | 48 |
| 45 to 46 | 1 | 1 |
| 47 to 48 | 1 | 0 |
| 49 to 50 | 15 | 10 |
| 51 to 52 | 7 | 7 |
| 53 to 54 | 6 | 5 |
| 55 to 56 | 9 | 42 |
| 57 to 58 | 9 | 8 |
| 59 to 60 | 34 | 93 |
| 61 to 62 | 0 | 0 |
| 63 to 64 | 8 | 4 |
| 65 to 66 | 17 | 15 |
| 67 to 68 | 1 | 1 |
| 69 to 70 | 4 | 16 |
| 71 to 72 | 0 | 1 |
| 73 to 74 | 12 | 22 |
| 75 to 75 | 13 | 13 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: the passing scenes
The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
KATHRYN: Oh, give them a break, most of NCSC is twenty-five year olds. They were fucking around, trying to zero- day a central router, they didn’t kn… CLARISSA: Wait, Syria 2012? That was you? CLARISSA: That was us?
KATHRYN: I give it two weeks. ZOE: Optimist. CLARISSA: Did you get hell from oversight? KATHRYN: Nothing I couldn’t handle.
CLARISSA: You are so punk rock. ZOE: That must have been deeply traumatic. How old were you?
ZOE: You know, maybe on Monday the two of you could find a few minutes to come by my office and we could sit down and- CLARISSA: I’m not going anywhere.
CLARISSA: Hang on. Trying something else. CLARISSA: Lipreading AI. Still in beta. CLARISSA: Audio coming. KATHRYN: “ -- say you’ll make delivery, you make delivery.”
Exhibit B: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 44 are women's.
448 lines from women, 580 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who's in it
7 women and 12 men in the cast. 5 women and 6 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit D: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 27 of 1,031.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 40 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 43% of the words (3,607), men 57% (4,827). Women have 44% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit E: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
22
Two men
38
Exhibit F: behind the camera
2 of the 10 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 41% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Steven Soderbergh (man)
- Written by
- David Koepp (man)
- Produced by
- Gregory Jacobs (man), Casey Silver (man)
- Shot by
- Steven Soderbergh (man)
- Edited by
- Steven Soderbergh (man)
- Music by
- David Holmes (man)
- Production design by
- Philip Messina (man)
- Costumes by
- Ellen Mirojnick (woman)
- Cast by
- Carmen Cuba (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Art
3 women, 2 men, 14 not listed
-
Other crew
3 women, 5 men, 11 not listed
-
Production
3 women, 6 men, 9 not listed
-
Sound
2 women, 9 men, 4 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
7 women, 2 men, 4 not listed
-
Camera
1 women, 1 men, 6 not listed
-
Directing
1 women, 2 men, 2 not listed
-
Lighting
0 women, 0 men, 5 not listed
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit G: how old the stars were
Women: 43 on average. Men: 48 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Marisa Abela 28, Kae Alexander 39, Naomie Harris 48, Cate Blanchett 55
Men
Regé-Jean Page 36, Tom Burke 43, Gustaf Skarsgård 44, Michael Fassbender 47, Pierce Brosnan 71
Exhibit H: the money
It made 88% of what it cost.
- Budget
- $50 million
- Box office
- $43.9 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 75 scenes and 1,031 lines of dialogue. How the test works
