Disclosure Day preview screening provided by Universal Pictures
“Standby in 10” someone signals, the state of anticipation already at its most heightened. This Kansas City news station is about to cut to Margaret (Emily Blunt) as she prepares to tell the world the truth, and World War 3 can take a back seat. It’s in these moments that Steven Spielberg has you in the palm of his hands; you know what’s coming, but like the other 8 billion people of this fictional world, it doesn’t quite feel real yet. Until it is.
Aliens have been done to death throughout cinema history, yet Spielberg understands them better than anyone. If E T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) gave a little boy a friend in a dark world, and War of the Worlds (2005) darkened the world even more and threw friends into large meat grinders, then Disclosure Day (2026) gives you the impression that aliens both unite us and divide us and that they’re closer to home than ever, waiting for the right vessel to bring them out.
Spielberg’s film asks the question: how would the pillars of a society built on divinity, a higher power, react if humanity’s entire worldview of those pillars was brought into question. If an even higher power existed. Is humanity really ready —or ever ready— to face the prospect that a belief system exists purely to keep our collective minds clear and in order in a world that is increasingly unclear and out of order.
They’re existential, larger than life questions and he uses meteorologist and weather reporter, Margaret, and runaway cyber security professional with secret government files, Daniel (Josh O’Connor), to start to ask them. The duo are united through a shared connection to the extraterrestrial, something that Margaret first becomes aware of after a cardinal flys into her home and she starts randomly speaking Russian. For Daniel, his realisation comes after he’s shown a clip that later surfaces of Margaret speaking an alien language live on air that only he understands. Through this shared bond, they work to connect with the help of Hugo (Colman Domingo) while government agent Noah (Colin Firth) hunts them down.
On the surface, this has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory fantasy flick: aliens and secret government files. But it’s anything but, especially when compared to something like Bugonia (2025). At a basic, fundamental level, this is a film about understanding that we’re more interconnected than we believe, that not everything has to be experienced in a silo, and that there’s at least one person out there who is going through the exact same thing as you. Spielberg gets this point across in spite of this being a blockbuster that throws some aliens in there to get you your popcorny fix. Spielberg has always been interested in communicating that which we struggle to wrap our heads around; he’s a problem solver at heart, if The Fabelmans (2023) was any indication — that scene where he figures out how to create explosions as a child still pops up every now and then in my mind.
In fact, this might be the most level-headed film about aliens since Arrival (2016), the only difference being it’s also the most Indiana Jones-esque an alien film has ever been. From last minute evasions on train lines to cars smashing through buildings and flying off of cliffs right through to Chekhov’s gun being employed, Spielberg embellishes the film with his signature action, reaching a flow state that seamlessly transitions from moment to moment, act to act. No word of dialogue feels misplaced, the editing is crisp, and John Williams’ score is transportative with its 80s feel. You feel like you’re in safe hands right from the outset, with the first sequence opening in media res, a classic Spielberg touch.
What would the world look like if everything we thought we knew was flipped on its head? What would the world be without Steven Spielberg there to make us ask that question in the first place. While the first question is up in the air, what is known is that Spielberg can’t escape aliens; it’s almost as if he’s the vessel through which they communicate with us, and the world is a better place because of it.
Disclosure Day opens nationally from today
Rating Frames 