Its ensemble cast includes Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Elliott Gould, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Principal photography started in Hong Kong in September 2010, and continued in Chicago, Atlanta, London, Dublin, Geneva, and San Francisco Bay Area until February 2011.

Scientists determine MEV-1 is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 people on Earth will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate.

Additionally, the film also stars John Hawkes as Roger, CDC custodian and acquaintance of Dr. Cheever; Anna Jacoby-Heron as Jory Emhoff, daughter of Mitch Emhoff; Josie Ho as the sister of Li Fai, who was the first to be infected with MEV-1 in Hong Kong; Sanaa Lathan as Aubrey Cheever, fiancée of Dr. Cheever; Demetri Martin as Dr. David Eisenberg, CDC colleague of Dr. Hextall; Armin Rohde as Damian Leopold, a WHO official; Enrico Colantoni as Dennis French, a Department of Homeland Security official; Larry Clarke as Dave, a Minnesota health official working with Dr. Mears; and Monique Gabriela Curnen as Lorraine Vasquez, a print journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

[7] The duo had initially planned to create a biographical film on Leni Riefenstahl, a trailblazer in German cinema during the 1930s and a figure in the rise of the Nazi Party.

And that's a pretty significant rule to adhere to in a movie in which you're trying to give a sense of something that's happening on a large scale, but we felt that all of the elements that we had issues with prior, when we see any kind of disaster film, we're centered around that idea.

[7] Soderbergh was originally hoping to also film in mainland China, though Moviefone journalist David Ehrlich believed that permission from the Chinese government was unlikely to be forthcoming.

[5] To move the equipment for the casino scenes to the on-the-water location, producers hired a number of locals to carry out the task, as they were accustomed to "using sampans like trucks".

[5][16] Production also took place at Sherman Hospital in Elgin and Central Elementary School in Wilmette, and also in Downtown Western Springs, where the grocery store scene was filmed.

[17] Principal photography then proceeded into Atlanta's central business district and Decatur,[17] before advancing to London, Geneva, and lastly San Francisco, California, in the ensuing month.

[18] In the North Beach and Potrero Hill sections of the city, production designer Howard Cummings scattered trash and discarded clothing on the ground to depict the rapid decline of civilization.

[24] The film's "hyperlink style" (often quickly moving back and forth from geographically distant places and persons) emphasizes both the historically new perils of contemporary networked globalization and timeless qualities of the human condition (recalling famous literary treatments of epidemics, such as Albert Camus's The Plague).

[25] The movie touches on a variety of themes, including the factors which drive mass panic and collapse of social order, the scientific process for characterizing and containing a novel pathogen, balancing personal motives against professional responsibilities and ethics in the face of an existential threat, the limitations and consequences of public health responses, and the pervasiveness of interpersonal connections which can serve as vectors to spread disease.

The bafflement, outrage, and helplessness associated with the lack of information, combined with new media such as blogs, allow conspiracy theorists like Krumwiede to spread disinformation and fear, which become dangerous contagions themselves.

[31] Responding to the pandemic presents a paradox, as the contagiousness and lethality of the virus instills deep distrust of others but surviving and limiting the spread of the disease also requires individuals to work together.

[32] Against this existential threat and fraying social order, the film also explores how individual characters bend or break existing rules for both selfish and selfless reasons.

[33] Dr. Hextall violates protocols by testing a potential vaccine on herself, Dr. Sussman continues experiments on a cell line despite orders to destroy his samples, Dr. Cheever notifies his fiancée to leave the city before a public quarantine is imposed, Sun Feng kidnaps Dr. Orantes to secure vaccine supplies for his village, Dr. Mears continues her containment work despite contracting the virus, and Krumwiede is paid to use his blog to peddle snake oil cures so as to drive demand and profit for investors in alternative medicine.

[32][35] The story also highlights examples of political cronyism (a plane to evacuate Dr. Mears from Minneapolis is instead diverted to evacuate a congressman), platitudes and rigid thinking (public health officials consider postponing the closing of shopping malls until after the Thanksgiving shopping season), federal responders trying to navigate 50 separate state-level public health policies, and the heroism of federal bureaucrats.

[29] Social media play a role in Krumwiede's accusations against Dr. Cheever and in Emhoff's daughter's attempts to carry on a relationship with her boyfriend through text messaging.

The website's critics consensus states, "Tense, tightly plotted, and bolstered by a stellar cast, Contagion is an exceptionally smart – and scary – disaster movie.

[60] The Guardian journalist Peter Bradshaw felt that Contagion blended well together as a film, although opined that Soderbergh was somewhat unsuccessful in channeling the fears, frights, and "the massive sense of loss" of "ordinary people".

[26] Despite applauding Soderbergh for "hopscotching" tidily "between the intimate and international", The Atlantic's Christopher Orr was disappointed with the film's detached and "clinical" disposition, which led him to conclude that Contagion should have gone with a more inflexible rationale, or a lesson "beyond 'wash your hands often and hope you're lucky'.

[62] Describing it as a "smart" and "spooky" installment, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Soderbergh doesn't milk your tears as things fall apart, but a passion that can feel like cold rage is inscribed in his images of men and women isolated in the frame, in the blurred point of view of the dying and in the insistent stillness of a visual style that seems like an exhortation to look.

"[34] Regarding the story, Salon columnist Andrew O'Hehir avouched that the "crisp" and succinct narrative matched up to the "beautifully composed" visuals of the film.

[29] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter proclaimed that Soderbergh and Burns effectively created anxiety in the "shrewd" and "unsensationalistic" film without becoming exaggerated,[63] a sentiment echoed by Jeannette Catsoulis of NPR, who insisted that the duo "weave multiple characters into a narrative that's complex without being confusing, and intelligent without being baffling".

[37] Writing for The Village Voice, Karina Longworth thought that Contagion reflected the "self-consciousness" and "experimentation" of some of Soderbergh's previous efforts, such as the Ocean's trilogy and The Girlfriend Experience (2009).

[64] As Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan summed up, "Two-time Tony-winning actress Jennifer Ehle comes close to stealing the picture with this quietly yet quirkily empathetic performance.

Contrary to Mitch's stance as the main protagonist, Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post felt that Contagion "treats him with an oddly clinical detachment".

[69] In particular Law's character, Alan Krumwiede, attracted commentary from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who wrote, "The blogger subplot doesn't interact clearly with the main story lines and functions mostly as an alarming but vague distraction.

[71] Carl Zimmer, a science writer, praised the film, stating, "It shows how reconstructing the course of an outbreak can provide crucial clues, such as how many people an infected person can give a virus to, how many of them get sick, and how many of them die."