Poster © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreAction, Adventure & Sci-Fi
RatedPG-13
Runtime2 hr 14 mins
ReleasedJuly 9, 2021
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorCate Shortland
StarringScarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour
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Black Widow (2021)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Black Widow's Details | |
| Genre | Action, Adventure & Sci-Fi |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Released | 06/29/2021 (world premieres); 07/09/2021 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 14 mins |
| Budget | $288.5M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | Marvel Comics |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Black Widow's Interests | |
| General | Vests with too many pockets, Norwegian safehouses, Budapest rooftops, Ohio suburbs, Red Room training. |
| Music | Lorne Balfe, plus a slow, haunting cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit over the opening titles. |
| Movies | Captain America: Civil War (2016). How Natasha ended up on the run. |
| Television | The Americans. Another family of undercover Russian spies in the suburbs. |
| Heroes | Alexei, the Red Guardian. Still telling anyone who will listen about his glory days. |
| Black Widow's Crew | |
| Director | Cate Shortland |
| Writers | Eric Pearson, Jac Schaeffer (story), Ned Benson (story) |
| Producers | Kevin Feige |
| Cinematography | Gabriel Beristain |
| Music | Lorne Balfe |
| Edited By | Leigh Folsom Boyd, Matthew Schmidt |
| Production | Marvel Studios |
| Distributed By | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
Florence Pugh shows up in a vest with a lot of pockets and steals Natasha Romanoff’s own solo movie right out from under her. Pugh’s Yelena roasts her big sister’s superhero poses like a little sibling at a family reunion, and it’s the best stuff here. David Harbour’s Red Guardian is a walking dad joke who thinks he’s a legend. Scarlett Johansson is solid, but she ends up playing the straight man in her own story. Then the action kicks in, and it’s the same gray, weightless chaos as every other Marvel finale, things exploding in midair while everyone yells. Taskmaster could have been a great villain and gets used like a fancy mannequin. The reported $288.5 million budget is all on screen, just not where it should be. A 5.2 because the family stuff is good and the movie keeps interrupting it to blow things up. $887 says you check your next jacket for pockets before you even look at the size.
What works: Florence Pugh and David Harbour bring real comic life, and the fake-family dinner scene is the best thing in it.
What doesn’t: The action is generic Marvel noise, and Taskmaster, a villain with a great gimmick, is wasted as a silent henchman.
Who it’s for: Marvel completists, and anyone who wants to meet Yelena before she turns up in later projects.
Spoilers
Taskmaster is Dreykov’s daughter Antonia, whom Natasha believed she had killed years earlier. Natasha frees the other Widows from mind control, the Red Room comes crashing down, and an after-credits scene points Yelena at Clint Barton.
In 1995, two little girls, Natasha and Yelena, live a cozy suburban life in Ohio, until it turns out the whole family is a Russian spy operation. Twenty-one years later, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is an Avenger on the run, hiding out in Norway after her team splintered. A mysterious package pulls her back into her past, toward a grown-up Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), a masked fighter called Taskmaster, and the Red Room, the program that trained them both. Their old fake parents, Alexei (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz), are still out there too. Cate Shortland directs. One hundred thirty-four minutes, one very complicated family.
Anyone whose family argues about everything at dinner. Bring a vest with lots of pockets.
Natasha Romanoff / Black Widowphoto: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardianphoto: PelucheEn ElEstuche, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| Scarlett Johansson | Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow |
| Florence Pugh | Yelena Belova |
| David Harbour | Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian |
| O-T Fagbenle | Rick Mason |
| Olga Kurylenko | Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster |
| William Hurt | Thaddeus Ross |
| Ray Winstone | Dreykov |
| Rachel Weisz | Melina Vostokoff |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +480 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $379.8M; Domestic box office $183.7M; Opening weekend $80.4M; Profit / loss (est.) -$242.9M; Rotten Tomatoes 79%; CinemaScore A−; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 79% (463 reviews); Metacritic 68 / 100; CinemaScore A−; IMDb users 6.6 / 10 (492,197 votes); movie.guru score 6.5.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.