Movies Like Black Widow

Frequently asked about Black Widow

Common questions people search for, with answers written by us at MoviesPack.

• What is the Widows program and how does it control the Black Widows?▾

  The Widows program, run by the Red Room under General Dreykov, recruits and trains women as sleeper assassins. Dreykov controls them through a chemical pheromone trigger — when a Widow detects his scent, she is neurologically blocked from harming him. Natasha breaks this control by severing a nerve in her nose, making herself unable to smell and therefore able to attack him.

• How did Natasha and Yelena's 'family' in Ohio end up working for the Red Room?▾

  Alexei Shostakov (Red Guardian) and Melina Vostokoff were deep-cover Soviet spies assigned to pose as a family in Ohio to steal S.H.I.E.L.D. data. Natasha and Yelena were child agents placed with them as cover, not real family members. Once the mission was complete, the girls were handed over to Dreykov and the Red Room, which Yelena in particular finds deeply traumatic given how real the family had felt to her.

• What happened between Natasha and Dreykov before the events of the film?▾

  Years before the film, Natasha was given a mission by S.H.I.E.L.D. to kill Dreykov by bombing the building where he was meeting his daughter Antonia. Natasha accepted the mission knowing Antonia would likely die too, and believed both were killed. The guilt over Antonia's apparent death haunted Natasha. In truth, Dreykov survived and saved Antonia by turning her into the Taskmaster — a weaponized super-soldier with photographic combat reflexes.

• Who is Taskmaster and what is her connection to Dreykov?▾

  Taskmaster is Antonia Dreykov, the general's daughter, who survived the explosion Natasha set but was left critically injured. Dreykov rebuilt her using the same chemical mind-control technology used on the Widows, suppressing her personality entirely and turning her into an obedient weapon capable of mimicking any fighter's combat style. At the end of the film, after the Red Room is destroyed and Yelena administers the antidote aerosol, Antonia is freed from Dreykov's control.

• Why does the film end with Natasha turning herself in, and what does the post-credits scene reveal?▾

  After destroying the Red Room, Natasha allows herself to be captured by U.S. Secretary Ross as a way to draw his forces away, giving Yelena and the freed Widows time to escape. The post-credits scene jumps forward in time to after Natasha's death in Avengers: Endgame — Yelena is seen visiting Natasha's grave in Ohio, where she is approached by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who assigns her a new target: Clint Barton, setting up Yelena's role as an antagonist in the Hawkeye series.