Given that many of these have managed to push the genre forward by exploring current political and social issues, the prospect of Steven Soderbergh making an old-fashioned spy thriller about identifying a mole within a powerful institution may have seemed rather antiquated.

“ Black Bag ,” an elegant, quick-witted new thriller that finds Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender playing married spies, isn’t the pair’s first time together on screen. That honor goes to 2017’s “Song to Song,” one of Terrence Malick’s most intangible and head-scratching offerings — though the two stars can barely recall that experience.