What a day! (CREDIT: Universal Pictures)
Starring: Josh O’Connor, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, Elizabeth Marvel
Director: Steven Spielberg
Running Time: 145 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Disturbing Otherworldly Images and Somewhat Frightening Action Sequences
Release Date: June 12, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: For nearly a century, secretive government agencies have been hiding the truth about extraterrestrial visitors on Earth. Or at least that’s just the position of plenty of real world conspiracy theorists. But on the silver screen, conspiracies can be the truth if you want them to be! And so it goes in Disclosure Day, in which a fellow named Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is on the lam with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) after stealing highly sensitive information and technology from the corporation he works for that could reshape the entire world order with its trove of hidden truths. That corporation would be Wardex, headed up by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who would really, really prefer that all of these secrets remain a secret. Daniel’s journey is inexplicably linked with that of Kansas City meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who shares with him an uncanny ability to understand the out-of-this-world communiqués. They’re being guided along their path with the sage help of Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), a Wardex apostate who has converted to becoming a prophet for the cause of Disclosure.
What Made an Impression?: This Changes Everything: Look up to the skies. And now look all around you. Look within as well. Disclosure Day is a deeply spiritual movie, and it will absolutely compel you to evaluate your relationship with a creator, or whatever originating force is behind the universe. If there is a god, is that god the same god for us and any interplanetary visitors? This conflict is most clearly present in the case of Jane, who was a novitiate in a convent before she started dating Daniel. But it’s a matter that every character has to grapple with, and furthermore I suspect that Spielberg is excitedly rubbing his hands to discover how his audience will resolve this question for themselves.
Action!: Occasionally I found Disclosure Day to be a little too cornball and overwrought. But I couldn’t help but surrender to its highly effective set pieces, particularly a car chase that of course concludes on the edge of a cliff, as well as a death-defying railway encounter. Seriously, I’ll be wondering for ages how O’Connor and Blunt managed to survive jumping onto a freight train off a screeching car pinned against that train. And Spielberg still has a knack for slapstick in these moments, with Scanlon’s lackeys at one point turning into the Keystone Kops in the face of alien technology magic tricks.
Empathy: When full disclosure is finally achieved, it’s stunningly overwhelming. As the eyes of the world did their best to make sense of everything being revealed, a hush came over the theater, as we were all connected by something beautiful. This is the best case scenario for moments like this that flip society on its head. And Spielberg genuinely hopes beyond all hope that the human race can still pull it off. I am so grateful that this cinematic statement exists right now, though I wish the final reveal had more room to breathe. Disclosure Day ends with an ellipsis instead of a firm epilogue, and I suppose we must fill in that blank ourselves. This movie is thoroughly old-fashioned, sometimes confusingly so. But the more I sit with it, the more I’m comforted by the conclusion that it said what needed to be said.
Disclosure Day is Recommended If You Like: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The X-Files
Grade: 4 out of 5 Cardinals
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