PG-13 | 2h 25m | Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Thriller | 2026
“Disclosure Day” sees celebrated director Steven Spielberg returning to his “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Super 8” well. Unfortunately, nearly 50 years after “Encounters,” the well has gone dry.
Unlike his previous tales of aliens, “Disclosure Day” feels overly literal, as if Spielberg desperately wants to impart a message but has a controlling need to hold the audience’s hand throughout to make sure we get it. Which puts a bit of a damper on the fun.
The film spends a whopping 40-plus minutes before revealing the film’s subject matter, although it’s entirely guessable from the start (and from the trailer).
Two Leads and a MacGuffin
The film opens with the rather un-Spielbergian image of a professional wrestler’s boot stomping an opponent’s face. The metaphor and message? Human violence! Blood lust! The human race’s need for more empathy!
The boot-sole shot shifts to one Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a Wardex cybersecurity expert, being apprehended by armed personnel and instructed to surrender his backpack. Noncompliance will result in the harming of his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson).
Daniel doesn’t know why yet, but he’s been aware his whole life that he’s got unique mathematical abilities. And when extraterrestrials speak in their weird language of clicks, pops, and glottal stops—he hears audible math. Which translates to English, in his mind.
That’s why he’s just betrayed his employers and stolen the highly sensitive data he was hired to protect—a set of hard drives containing footage of alien encounters, as well as a mysterious object that has a variety of space-magic capabilities. In other words, a movie MacGuffin.
Daniel and Jane have been apprehended because Wardex boss Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) has been hot on their heels as they fled by car. He’s using another of these small, coffin-shaped, metallic MacGuffins for remote vision to detect them, read minds, switch dimensions, and teleport. Is this mini-coffin-thingie perhaps an alien artifact of extraterrestrial origin?
Meanwhile, Daniel and Jane are guided by enigmatic former colleague Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo). He steers them toward safety. And also toward Margaret.
Who’s Margaret? That would be Wichita, Kansas, weatherwoman Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). Margaret doesn’t know why yet, but she’s spent her entire life drifting and unable to find a permanent home. She’s suddenly started experiencing strange, disorienting episodes, which include fluently speaking foreign languages.
Will The Chosen—Daniel and Emily—meet and join forces? Will they gain control of the MacGuffin? Will the heretofore alien footage hidden by the dark and dastardly military industrial complex finally be released to the public??
‘Disclosure Day’
“Disclosure Day” basically wonders if humankind would continue as usual after enlightening to the existence of space aliens. If shown irrefutable proof, would societies suddenly collapse, or could we all get along?
It wonders if the event of a global information dump about the existence of little bug-eyed homunculi would be such a unifying moment that we’d all just stare open-mouthed at our phones and forget about things like “North Korean ballistic missiles.”
Well, that’s probably exactly what would happen. But does that also mean revelations about extraterrestrial life wouldn’t kick off seismic cultural and societal upheavals? What would happen if humans and aliens came together? Would we stomp their faces?
Conclusion
“Disclosure Day” will most likely appeal to Spielberg fans since it utilizes his signature Spielbergian Crock-Pot of cinematic tastiness: psychological thrills, a couple of action scenes featuring harrowing stunts, unlikely underdogs winning and/or escaping against all odds, some brief creepiness that comes down more on the side of awe than horror, and childlike wonderment to balance the cynical adults.
However, it’s Spielberg-lite, and the storytelling is mundane at best. It’s never something unusual, original, or properly mind-blowing. It desperately wants to be profound, but we’ve seen him do this many times before, and there are no new surprises.
‘Disclosure Day’
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Josh O’Connor, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Release Date: June 12, 2026
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
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