Spielberg returns to one of his favorite subjects - - - but with a distinctly modern twist! Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor along with Colin Firth become connected to a much larger secret!
Review of Spielberg’s Disclosure Day
Steven Spielberg has spent much of his career asking what might happen when humanity encounters something beyond its understanding.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he asked what would happen if humanity encountered extraterrestrial intelligence. In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, he explored the possibility of friendship between a human child and an alien visitor. In War of the Worlds, he examined humanity's vulnerability in the face of an overwhelming extraterrestrial threat.
Now, with Disclosure Day, Spielberg returns to one of his favorite subjects—but with a distinctly modern twist.
What if the greatest extraterrestrial secret isn't whether aliens exist, but whether someone has been hiding the truth from us?
Released in June 2026, Disclosure Day stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo. Spielberg directed the film from a screenplay by David Koepp, a longtime collaborator whose previous Spielberg credits include Jurassic Park, The Lost World, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Rotten Tomatoes)
The result is an ambitious science-fiction thriller that combines UFO mythology, government secrecy, conspiracy, political tension, action, and—perhaps most importantly—Spielberg's enduring belief that humanity is capable of something better.
A Very Spielberg Premise
At the center of the story is Margaret Fairchild, played by Emily Blunt, a meteorologist whose life becomes entangled with a mystery involving extraterrestrial contact.
Josh O'Connor plays Dr. Daniel Kellner, while Colin Firth portrays Noah Scanlon, a powerful government figure. Together, the characters become connected to a much larger secret involving decades of alleged encounters between humanity and extraterrestrial visitors.
That premise immediately puts Disclosure Day in familiar Spielberg territory.
There are mysterious objects.
There are government secrets.
There are frightened witnesses.
There are people who know more than they are willing to reveal.
And there is the fundamental question that drives the entire movie:
What if the truth about extraterrestrial life has already been discovered?
Spielberg doesn't approach that question as a straightforward alien-invasion story. Instead, he builds a conspiracy thriller around the possibility that humanity has encountered extraterrestrials—and that governments have responded in ways the public was never supposed to know about.
Emily Blunt Carries the Film
The movie's greatest strength is Emily Blunt.
Margaret could easily have become a conventional science-fiction heroine—the ordinary person who discovers something extraordinary and gets caught up in events beyond her control.
Blunt gives the character considerably more personality.
She is funny, confused, frightened, determined, and sometimes overwhelmed. She doesn't behave like someone who suddenly knows all the answers.
That makes her believable.
Critics have been particularly enthusiastic about Blunt's performance. Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus specifically identifies her work as one of the film's major strengths, while RogerEbert.com's Brian Tallerico describes the movie as being driven by both its ensemble and Blunt's performance. (Roger Ebert)
There is also an interesting quality to Blunt's performance: she doesn't play Margaret as a superhero.
She plays her as a person.
And that is important because Spielberg's best science fiction has almost always been about ordinary human beings confronted by extraordinary circumstances.
Spielberg Returns to Wonder
For longtime science-fiction fans, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Disclosure Day is simply seeing Spielberg return to this territory.
The director is now approaching eighty, yet his ability to stage large-scale spectacle remains impressive.
The movie contains car chases, trains, mysterious phenomena, government facilities, frightening encounters, and moments of genuine visual spectacle.
There are sequences that unmistakably remind viewers of earlier Spielberg films.
That is both a strength and a weakness.
The New Yorker's Justin Chang argues that the film revisits familiar territory from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Minority Report, and even The Post, suggesting that Spielberg's return to some of his classic themes can sometimes feel repetitive. (The New Yorker)
That criticism is fair.
But there is another way to look at it.
Perhaps Spielberg isn't trying to reinvent himself.
Perhaps he is revisiting the questions that have fascinated him for most of his career.
The Government Conspiracy
One of the movie's most interesting ideas involves secrecy.
For decades, UFO stories have revolved around a simple question:
What does the government know?
Disclosure Day takes that familiar idea and turns it into the foundation of its story.
There is something particularly appropriate about Spielberg making this movie now.
We live in an era in which conspiracy theories spread instantly through social media. Government institutions are often distrusted. Video can be manipulated. Artificial intelligence can generate convincing images and voices. Millions of people can simultaneously believe completely contradictory explanations of the same event.
In that environment, the idea of "disclosure" has become more complicated.
If the government announced tomorrow that extraterrestrial intelligence had been confirmed, would everyone believe it?
Probably not.
Some people would demand evidence.
Others would accuse the government of lying.
Still others would claim the announcement itself was part of a conspiracy.
Disclosure Day understands that modern problem.
The difficulty isn't simply discovering the truth.
It is getting people to agree on what the truth is.
Where the Movie Stumbles
The film is not perfect.
One of the most common criticisms is that the screenplay attempts to do too much.
There are political elements, alien mythology, personal trauma, government conspiracies, action sequences, philosophical ideas, and emotional themes.
Sometimes these elements work beautifully together.
Sometimes they compete with one another.
RogerEbert.com's review notes that the screenplay occasionally "trips over itself" while trying to explain everything happening in the story. (Roger Ebert)
Ars Technica takes a more direct approach, describing the film as entertaining but arguing that there is not much genuinely new in its ideas. (Ars Technica)
That may be the film's biggest weakness.
Disclosure Day sometimes feels like several excellent science-fiction movies trying to occupy the same 146 minutes.
Is It Really Original?
This is probably the most important question for science-fiction fans.
The answer is: yes and no.
The basic ingredients are familiar.
Government UFO conspiracies have been a part of popular culture for decades. Alien encounters have been explored in countless movies. Secret government facilities are a staple of science fiction. The possibility of extraterrestrial contact has been central to the genre since before Spielberg was making movies.
But originality isn't always about inventing an entirely new premise.
Sometimes it is about asking an old question in a new way.
And Spielberg's question here is particularly interesting:
What would happen if humanity discovered that the extraterrestrials were not necessarily our greatest threat—but that our response to them might be?
That idea gives Disclosure Day considerably more substance than a simple alien thriller.
Spielberg's Optimism
Perhaps the most revealing thing about Disclosure Day is its optimism.
There is darkness in the story.
There is violence.
There is fear.
There is political manipulation.
There are people who have suffered because of government actions.
Yet Spielberg ultimately seems more interested in communication than destruction.
That makes the film different from many contemporary science-fiction blockbusters.
Hollywood has spent decades showing aliens invading Earth.
Spielberg seems more interested in asking what happens when we finally have an opportunity to listen.
That theme is consistent with the director's earlier extraterrestrial films.
Close Encounters was ultimately about communication.
E.T. was about empathy.
Disclosure Day combines those ideas with a contemporary distrust of institutions and information.
The message is surprisingly hopeful.
The Ending
Without getting too deeply into spoilers, the film's ending is deliberately more philosophical than conventional.
Rather than simply providing a gigantic explosion or a traditional victory over an alien enemy, Spielberg leaves viewers with an invitation to think about what humanity does with extraordinary knowledge.
The final word—"Listen"—is especially significant.
The ending has divided audiences. Some viewers have found it moving and optimistic. Others have considered it too sentimental or simplistic. Contemporary discussion has particularly focused on whether Spielberg's hopeful approach works in the context of such a complicated story. (Decider)
Personally, I think the ambiguity works.
Science fiction doesn't always have to provide an answer.
Sometimes the best science fiction leaves us with a question.
How Does It Compare With Spielberg's Classics?
That is an unavoidable question.
Is Disclosure Day another Close Encounters?
No.
Is it another E.T.?
Definitely not.
Is it another War of the Worlds?
Not even close.
But it doesn't have to be.
Those movies were products of different eras and different stages of Spielberg's career.
Disclosure Day feels like the work of a filmmaker who has spent decades thinking about the relationship between humanity and the unknown.
It is less about aliens themselves than about what aliens reveal about us.
And that may be the film's greatest strength.
The Final Verdict
Disclosure Day is not a perfect science-fiction movie.
Its screenplay occasionally becomes overloaded. Some of its ideas are familiar. Certain story elements will remind longtime science-fiction fans of movies and television programs they have seen before.
But there is something enormously appealing about watching Steven Spielberg make this kind of movie again.
He still understands how to create wonder.
He still understands how to make the mysterious feel enormous.
And he still understands that the best science fiction isn't really about spaceships, aliens, or advanced technology.
It is about human beings confronted with the unknown.
The critical response has generally been positive. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists the film at roughly 80 percent from critics and 70 percent from verified audience ratings, while Metacritic has placed it in the generally favorable range. (Rotten Tomatoes)
For Sci Fi Junction, that makes Disclosure Day especially interesting.
It gives us an opportunity to discuss not only whether Spielberg made a good alien movie, but whether he has something to say about the possibility of real first contact.
And that may be the most fascinating question the movie leaves behind.
If humanity really discovered tomorrow that we were not alone, would we panic?
Would governments hide the truth?
Would religions change?
Would nations cooperate?
Would people believe the evidence?
Or would we simply continue arguing with one another about what we had seen?
Maybe Spielberg's answer is simpler than all of those possibilities.
Maybe the first thing humanity would need to do is exactly what Disclosure Day ultimately asks us to do.
Listen.