Disclosure Day (2026)

Score: 4 / 5

My favorite moments to experience Spielberg's genius are not necessarily his inventive, culture-shifting ones, but rather those quiet ones when he gently reminds us that he's one of the best filmmakers out there for a reason. The final scenes of this film did that for me.

Helped, I might add, by an amazing actor who commands our attention (and the world's) in the film's climax. I don't know who she is, but she crushes this moment to shine.

In a somewhat climactic opening moment, we're dropped in medias res as Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) attempts to hand over a bogus bag to agents of Wardex, a secretive corporation operating as a US government contractor. Its head, Noah (Colin Firth), will stop at nothing to reclaim, it seems, something Daniel stole from them during his employment. Their efforts now include kidnapping, evidenced by the presence of a cuffed Jane, Daniel's girlfriend (Eve Hewson), and masquerading as FBI agents. It's the sort of opening that thrills even as we're not quite sure what's happening. While we get some cues in their interactions, it takes a few scenes afterward to fully grasp the plot, which feels a risk in something marketed as a blockbuster, but a welcome one. Any film that resists constant rehashing of the plot like too much media these days is already a leg up in my book.

It's not until over half an hour in that the veil starts to lift and we learn -- along with Jane -- that the government has covered up Wardex's experimentations on aliens and their technology. It feels like a spiritual successor to The X-Files, and often visually recalls that sort of grimy bluish-green hue millennials might recall from '90s television viewings. Daniel is carrying, functionally, the truth that is out there: he's working with a team of Wardex defectors to whistleblow and leak videos of alien experimentations to the world. This plan, what they are calling an impending "Disclosure Day," will be the coordinated result of their team, led by Hugo (Colman Domingo), and they're just waiting for a sign. 

Speaking of which: Daniel and Jane's journey -- fleeing Wardex thugs and following unclear instincts and insights to random places -- is told parallel to Margaret Fairchild's journey. Margaret (Emily Blunt), a Kansas City meteorologist sees a cardinal one day that seems to speak to her, unlocking a psychic ability for her to speak other languages like Russian and Korean without noticing it and understanding people's thoughts by looking them in the eyes. On air that day, she starts clicking and making meaningless sounds before fainting. Apparently only Daniel was able to understand her. Together, they must continue to evade Wardex and Noah -- the latter of whom uses an alien device to attempt mind control on others, specifically Jane -- as they make their way to find Hugo.

I'm still not sure I followed all the plot (it's not my strong suit), and another watch would behoove me. But this is the kind of film that rewards repeat viewings. Veteran writer David Koepp is firing on all cylinders here, piling on ideas and characters and references until it all feels perhaps too much; talk of religion, philosophy, civilization, individualism, and more make for a cerebral chase of it all. Because, narratively, it's just an extended series of chases between people running after their own MacGuffins. Yet even that isn't usual action or crime thriller fare: lensed by master of the craft Janusz Kaminski (and regular Spielberg collaborator), the story moves along as slickly as its camera, which is almost always in fluid motion, keeping us locked in even when things occasionally slow down.

This won't have the staying power of some of Spielberg's other alien- or monster-related films because its main characters are not "everymen," or at least not experts who rise to the occasion to help in a larger-than-life situation. The ultimate reveal of this plot is that Daniel and Margaret were quite literally chosen for this moment of cosmic revelation to humanity. We learn later in the film that they had both been abducted by aliens as children and apparently given their newfound psychic powers as almost biblical witnesses to the truth. Even when they seem a bit too unrealistic, O'Connor and Blunt clearly have fun enlivening their characters with quirks and a certain energy of constantly thinking, "what the heck is happening to me?" Blunt, especially, has to do a lot by merely gazing into someone else's eyes, and she does so with shades of empathy we rarely see on screen, all in lightning-fast shifts in microexpressions that left me often distracted, but blissfully so. She's a powerhouse.

I was also distracted, less blissfully, by the occasionally forced bits of action and spectacle in this film. As the aliens can apparently control and/or masquerade as animals, there are several animals that interact with the characters. All rendered in CGI, it just feels like a disappointingly cheap choice from a team of such craftsmen. The focus on cars feels catering at best, and not just in terms of product placement; though there is a particularly tense moment with some train tracks, it quickly devolves into a ridiculous drag-and-climb stunt piece that completely took me out of the movie. 

Other moments, however, brought me right back in. Revelations that Jane was a novitiate lead to conversations with her Mother Superior (Elizabeth Marvel) that give us really nice insight into the metaphysics of this world. What would we do, after all, with our churches, if we did discover another race of "supreme beings"? More importantly, the film's emotional climax comes when the two leads find Hugo, which basically uses immersive psychology and architecture to provoke Margaret to psychically respond. That feels especially authentic to Spielberg, especially considering that his last film, The Fabelmans, is all about film as a vehicle for nostalgia and, thus, healing. And the lead-up to this film's climax, which is its final scenes, had me squirming on the edge of my seat. I wept, and can't quite explain why. I gasped, but more out of my spirit than out of my nerves. I cheered (quietly) as our heroes race to make their announcement. And then the film ends with a single word that rings like a clarion call.

Some people will be annoyed at the lack of resolution in Disclosure Day, but those are plot people. I'm annoyed by the overabundance of unnecessary actions and spectacle in this film, and would have preferred less chasing and more talking and strategizing. It's a bleak film until the end, and then its hope is almost intoxicating.