Disclosure Day

Disclosure Day, out June 12, 2026, is Steven Spielberg’s latest: how would the world learn that aliens exist, with that reveal branded Disclosure Day. The concept is more satisfying than the movie. Spielberg has made an arguably bad one.

It opens with Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) caught stealing classified material by the company CEO (Colin Firth) and a team of agents. They have kidnapped his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), and will free her if he returns the documents. Daniel pulls a strange alien object. The agents stand down, afraid of what it might do, and Daniel and Jane escape. The haul is classified footage of aliens, proof they exist and that the government is holding them. Daniel is working with Hugo (Colman Domingo), a fellow ex-employee, to get the proof public while dodging capture long enough to deliver it.

In Kansas City, Margaret (Emily Blunt), a weather reporter, has a strange encounter with a bird and can suddenly read minds. On air she speaks a language nobody understands, then passes out. With the new psychic hit, she realizes agents are after her too, and she feels pulled to find Daniel and help the aliens.

Walking out of the theater, I said this movie was made by people who like smelling their farts, and this was them crapping the bed.

The acting is not great. Most scenes feel like characters monologuing at each other. Performances tip into stagey overacting. A lot of staring longingly as a thin stab at profundity. Colin Firth probably gives the best work in the cast. Dialogue is disjointed and awkward, which feeds the pretentious vibe. There is a beat where Daniel is captured and Margaret comes to save him; anyone who tries to stop her sees a close loved one instead, and she says something only that person would know. It is staged as profound and moving: agents hold others back, John Williams swelling underneath. In practice it sucks. No emotional payoff. She walks up to people. They fold.

The story works at a glance. Ask questions and it gets convoluted fast. The aliens supposedly have “suicidal empathy,” which is exactly what an invader would claim. Why does everyone buy it so freely? Why upload Daniel and Margaret as children, then have both call it traumatic and repressed while the movie frames the act as good? Are we sure these aliens are the good guys? What are the obelisks, tools or plot props? Daniel holds one up early and Noah stands everyone down over how dangerous it could be, but we never really see it used as a weapon. What would have happened if he tried? How does Jane know to pass an obelisk to Margaret at the end when they have never met? Why doesn’t it break when Firth’s character uses it? If it can mind-control people toward murder, is that not another red flag on the aliens? If they are truly empathetic, why wouldn’t the government work with them in secret the same way it hid them for years? The film says Daniel is the only one who understands Margaret’s alien speech, so how does Domingo’s Hugo orchestrate everything if he cannot talk to them? How does he know her childhood house? Why didn’t Colin take over Domingo’s body?

At 145 minutes, it is way too long. You feel every minute. Scenes drag. By the end of act two, you are wishing it were over. Cut and retool about 35 minutes and you might have a better film. There are flashes that feel like Spielberg, and unfortunately that is mostly Williams on the score. Skippable. Three out of 10.