Disclosure Day (2026)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
A cybersecurity expert becomes a whistleblower after uncovering secrets about aliens, putting him on the run from a corporation. Meanwhile, a meteorologist experiencing strange phenomena joins forces with him to prove there's life beyond our understanding.
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93 films that influenced Disclosure Day
What critics say influenced Disclosure Day
2005’s War of the Worlds…
While this does feel (on many levels) like Spielberg in conversation with himself (particularly the isolation and paranoia of “War of the Worlds”)…
The film feels trapped in a post-9/11, X-Files, or War of the Worlds era of paranoia.
…channels the sense of paranoia found in War of the Worlds…
With the notable (okay, extremely notable) exception of War of the Worlds, Spielberg has been a radical optimist…
Like Close Encounters, E.T., and War of the Worlds (2005), as well as other, non-UFO related Spielberg projects, the characters are the story.
Roger Ebert dubbed Minority Report a “triumph”…
…the new film kept taking me back to the moral and philosophical questions posed by 2002’s brilliant Minority Report.
Then one scene mirrors the sickly green cinematography of Minority Report.
…operates with a pedal-to-the-metal urgency that feels closer to Spielberg’s two Tom Cruise movies, Minority Report and War of the Worlds…
…though frankly not quite as evocative of his particular feel as Spielberg’s own Minority Report…
…reminiscent of Close Encounters by way of Minority Report (2002)…
…easily draws comparisons to his other films (such as 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and 2022’s The Fabelmans)…
Disclosure Day finds Spielberg back on the alien beat, after Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Shyamalan has certainly never made anything as cold as Temple of Doom, The Lost World, Munich, or A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) on the enticements and terrors of the titular technology…
Disclosure Day is more in conversation with films like Minority Report and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, with a surprising splash of the Indiana Jones franchise thrown in for good measure.
The movie will no doubt conjure comparisons to Spielberg’s Minority Report and A.I. Artificial Intelligence as they absolutely share some of the same design DNA.
It’s been more than 30 years since Jurassic Park was released, and the dinosaurs in that film look way more realistic than the deer in this one.
…and "Jurassic Park," so whenever he decides to make a return to it…
Do the thrills reach the level of, say, Jurassic Park? No. Few do.
Williams' "Disclosure Day" score isn't loaded with hum-worthy melodies like his work on Spielberg's "Jaws," the "Indiana Jones" films, or "Jurassic Park,"…
In terms of grand-scale event movies that imagined new frontiers, Jurassic Park might sneak into that core group.
It’s hard not to mythologize the man who made Jaws (1975), who brought Indiana Jones to life, who made dinosaurs walk the earth again, whose films inspire generation after generation.
Watching this scene, one might be reminded of The Fabelmans and how it depicted young Sammy Fabelman (a stand-in for Spielberg in that semi-autobiographical tale) trying to recreate the massive (and, to him, petrifying) train crash from The Greatest Show on Earth as a way of asserting his power over something that terrified him.
…easily draws comparisons to his other films (such as 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and 2022’s The Fabelmans)…
Spielberg’s long-suppressed action/sci-fi muscles seem to have demanded a workout after his most recent film, The Fabelmans (2022), an incandescent family portrait of his childhood…
…both reflecting the joys and terrors of Spielberg’s family life, which he eventually dramatized directly in The Fabelmans…
Where else would the autobiographical recountings of The Fabelmans have emerged from, or his musical return to tragic sociopolitical polemic with his West Side Story remake?
…two achingly personal passion projects like West Side Story (2022) and The Fablemans (2023)…
From the duplicitous civic leaders of “Jaws” to the haunted statecraft of “Munich” to the institutional heroism of “The Post,”…
…this film has the overall feel of Jaws, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, etc., that only Spielberg can create…
…he is also to blame for me hearing the Jaws theme any time I am swimming…
…his work on Spielberg's "Jaws,"…
He reinvented the summer blockbuster with Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark…
…foundational Spielberg usually means Jaws for terror…
It is very much in conversation not only with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but with Lincoln and The Post as well.
Long gone are the days of the journalistic bravado Spielberg once dramatised in The Post.
…we’re talking about a guy who made an earnest drama about the publication of the Pentagon Papers (The Post).
Meanwhile, Daniel evokes a link to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who was played by Matthew Rhys in Spielberg’s 2017 drama The Post.
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘The Post‘ directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks]…
…or The Post (2017, £194m)…
The title character of E.T. is just a stranded explorer, and the alien in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just wanted to get the hell off Earth.
But hey, this is at least eons better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Between Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg’s visions of how humanity might interact with interstellar visitors have become so beloved…
Spielberg receives a story credit, while the screenplay is by frequent collaborator David Koepp (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Crystal Skull).
At his worst, he gave us Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the reviled 2017 Mummy reboot, and Jurassic World: Rebirth…
Mr. Koepp, who previously scripted Mr. Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” “The Lost World,” “War of the Worlds,” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,”…
There is a train sequence in Disclosure Day as tense as anything in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)…
Religion plays a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Color Purple, but not to this extent.
He reinvented the summer blockbuster with Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark…
Williams' "Disclosure Day" score isn't loaded with hum-worthy melodies like his work on Spielberg's "Jaws," the "Indiana Jones" films, or "Jurassic Park,"…
Raiders of the Lost Ark for retro-styled adventure…
I grew up on Steven Spielberg’s films: Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.
You can see traces of everything from Duel to Minority Report show up, to the point where this almost doubles as a career retrospective in miniature.
The sequence involving Blunt, O’Connor and their car being pushed into a moving train is terrifying and masterfully put together – having, I think, more than a passing nod to a similar scene in the director’s first movie, Duel (1971).
He upends some old tropes during a climactic confrontation, and we even get a Duel callback.
DISCLOSURE DAY has its share of nail-biting car chases, especially the train collision scene, something Spielberg has wanted to include in one of his films since DUEL (1971), his first studio feature.
Spielberg, the director of chase movies such as "Duel,"…
…especially the train collision scene, something Spielberg has wanted to include in one of his films since DUEL (1971), his first studio feature.
…this film has the overall feel of Jaws, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, etc., that only Spielberg can create…
…made harrowing historical dramas such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan…
Saving Private Ryan (1998)…
Gary Rydstrom’s (Saving Private Ryan) sound design…
…the Saving Private Ryan and Jaws director is not a stranger to the exhilarating action shot…
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
But Disclosure Day’s opening act is arguably closer to Munich, with its lengthy discourses on the philosophical and religious ramifications of a life-changing decision.
Shyamalan has certainly never made anything as cold as Temple of Doom, The Lost World, Munich, or A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Disclosure Day is the most thrilling Spielberg film since Munich.
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
…the conspiracy-minded side of Spielberg’s filmmaking—from Amity’s duplicitous city fathers in Jaws to the cloak-and-dagger tropes of Munich and Bridge of Spies—exists in the shadow of Watergate…
From the duplicitous civic leaders of “Jaws” to the haunted statecraft of “Munich” to the institutional heroism of “The Post,”…
Where else would the autobiographical recountings of The Fabelmans have emerged from, or his musical return to tragic sociopolitical polemic with his West Side Story remake?
…after two achingly personal passion projects like West Side Story (2022) and The Fablemans (2023)…
Despite the global love for Spielberg, West Side Story was a box office bomb and The Fabelmans didn’t fair much better…
His recent projects before Disclosure Day speak to this; The Fabelmans being an exploration of his own origins as a filmmaker, and remaking West Side Story was a dream he had for himself.
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘West Side Story‘ directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Rachel Zegler]…
Look at his WAR OF THE WORLDS where the aliens have been underground for centuries just because, or READY PLAYER ONE (pick a moment)nothing feels genuine or if things would happen that way, the Indiana Jones films where things happen for effect, MINORITY REPORT which has plot problems, WEST SIDE STORY where some of his tweaks don't feel as if people, even those in a musical, would do that and others.
Spielberg himself touched on similar themes in the enervating but underestimated Ready Player One, which took place in its own version of the Backrooms.
…both films were critically acclaimed and vastly better than the $600-million-grossing Ready Player One…
The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One(2018) were big adventures made between historical dramas…
Disclosure Day is not only a return to Spielberg’s UFO fixation, but also his first action blockbuster since Ready Player One (2018).
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘Ready Player One‘ directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tye Sheridan]…
Look at his WAR OF THE WORLDS where the aliens have been underground for centuries just because, or READY PLAYER ONE (pick a moment)nothing feels genuine or if things would happen that way, the Indiana Jones films where things happen for effect, MINORITY REPORT which has plot problems, WEST SIDE STORY where some of his tweaks don't feel as if people, even those in a musical, would do that and others.
…lays bare the egalitarian ideals that power much of Spielberg’s output including the likes of The Post (2017) and Bridge Of Spies (2015)…
It finds Spielberg blending elements of some of his more recent work, such as Bridge of Spies, with the spectacle of Close Encounters and Minority Report…
…adds in a theological perspective through his Bridge of Spies star Eve Hewson…
After years of moving between the historical past in top-shelf classical Dad Films like “Lincoln,” “Bridge of Spies,” and “The Post,”…
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
…he hasn’t necessarily won new adherents by making sturdy, classical pictures like Bridge of Spies or West Side Story…
Harkening back to his first studio feature – the non-stop on the road chase of The Sugarland Express (1974)…
…it’s interesting that his mom, Goldie Hawn, starred in Spielberg’s debut feature, The Sugarland Express, back in 1974.
It’s fun to see this director scattering police cars around the highway as per his The Sugarland Express…
"The Sugarland Express,"…
After The Sugarland Express, Close Encounters, A.I. and The Fabelmans, Disclosure Day is the fifth film Spielberg has both directed and taken a writing credit on.
…the hugely influential Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)…
…a clean return to the emotional clarity of E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind…
The immediate mental leap that fires off is to try and drive home comparisons to Close Encounters, though that instinct detracts from the unique balancing act on display.
It is very much in conversation not only with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but with Lincoln and The Post as well.
Disclosure Day will instantly draw comparisons to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, more than E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial or A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.
…there are times in the film when it taps into the heart of Close Encounters of the Third Kind…
For what it’s worth, mine are A.I., Empire of the Sun (1987), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and The Fabelmans…
…and "Catch Me If You Can," knows a thing or two about.
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
…our picks would include Catch Me If You Can, The Adventures of Tintin, Lincoln, The Fabelmans, West Side Story…
Religion plays a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Color Purple, but not to this extent.
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
Whether it's human empathy for an extraterrestrial or for a war horse or for World War 2 victims…
*1941, Always, and War Horse notwithstanding.
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
…or between humans and animals in War Horse…
It is very much in conversation not only with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but with Lincoln and The Post as well.
…pivoting toward other subjects usually related to history (e.g., 1941, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post and even The Fabelmans)…
…our picks would include Catch Me If You Can, The Adventures of Tintin, Lincoln, The Fabelmans, West Side Story…
After years of moving between the historical past in top-shelf classical Dad Films like “Lincoln,” “Bridge of Spies,” and “The Post,”…
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)…
…a clean return to the emotional clarity of E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind…
Disclosure Day finds Spielberg back on the alien beat, after Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
His newest film, Disclosure Day, arrives more than four decades after ET, and can oddly be considered its liturgical continuation.
For Close Encounters, he used the renowned ufologist J. Allen Hynek as a consultant, and E.T. was inspired partly by research into a notorious alleged alien encounter in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1955.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. for the sheer sense of wonder evoked by a universe that radically expands our world…
In The Last Crusade specifically, Indy literally takes a ‘leap of faith,’ and his dad tells him that believing is the key to unlocking God’s powers.
Earlier Spielberg films veered closer to the headlines, sometimes to an uncanny degree—The Terminal (2004) touched on anti-immigration policies…
…another (no less thrilling) homage to Spielberg’s beloved train wreck sequence from Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth…
…that film found the anxious young protagonist being led by his parents to his first movie, DeMille’s traumatic (for him) The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)…
…the large freight-train set piece is the film’s most impressive spectacle, echoing the childhood terror and wonder of “The Greatest Show on Earth” that Spielberg already mythologized in “The Fabelmans.”
…even at its most kinetic—as in a train-crash sequence that, like The Fabelmans, betrays a love for The Greatest Show on Earth…
…the same image that so transfixed Sammy Fabelman in The Greatest Show on Earth that it sparked his lifelong fascination with cinema…
Watching this scene, one might be reminded of The Fabelmans and how it depicted young Sammy Fabelman (a stand-in for Spielberg in that semi-autobiographical tale) trying to recreate the massive (and, to him, petrifying) train crash from The Greatest Show on Earth as a way of asserting his power over something that terrified him.
Director
M. Night Shyamalan
Critics invoke Shyamalan by name, and compare Disclosure Day to 2 of Shyamalan’s films.
Visuals
On Shyamalan, rather than any one film
It reminded me, in ways I did not expect, of M. Night Shyamalan at his best: sincere, strange, spiritually direct, and willing to risk corniness in pursuit of catharsis.
Given Spielberg cribs some imagery directly from Signs…
While the obvious parallel here is Signs, Shyamalan’s wildly popular alien invasion thriller, to me Disclosure Day feels more akin to The Happening.
Say what you will about Signs, but when it swings away, it connects (and its deus ex machina nod to War of the Worlds is clever too).
In The Happening, the world is faced with an unprecedented crisis, ultimately finding strength in love and community. So too do the characters in Disclosure Day; facing WWIII, the revelation that aliens are real and we are not alone in the universe suddenly has the power to change our destructive course.
From Project Hail Mary to Masters of the Universe, recapturing the feel of childhood dreams and specifically that Spielbergian sense of awe in the 80’s has been a big theme in 2026…
You could say it follows James Gunn’s recent Superman or Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Maryin espousing what the chronically online dub as hopecore…
…could struggle to match the year’s other big sci-fi, Project Hail Mary ($680m to date)…
It will likely provoke some divisive reactions and surely won’t be as much of a crowd-pleaser as the other alien blockbuster released this year, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary.
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Much like Arrival, this is an alien film that is ultimately about communication, understanding, and empathy.
Seeing this really makes me appreciate Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival even more. It skillfully pivots from the typical alien story clichés to present a sophisticated, nuanced, deeply emotional, and character-focused narrative.
The handful of truly great alien films we’ve witnessed in the last 15 years, notably Arrival, Nope (also Universal!), Under the Skin and Super 8 (which Spielberg produced), only serve to underline how unfortunate this feels.
This latest effort bears a striking resemblance to Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which is not a bad thing at all.
…it’s in the sort of way that’s very reminiscent of what happens to humans in Vince Gilligan’s (who, fittingly, did write his fair share of episodes for The X-Files)…
When at its best, it plays like an extended conspiracy episode of “The X-Files”.
Alongside this X-Files-style scenario, Kansas City TV weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) begins speaking in a strange, unknown language during a live broadcast.
The film feels trapped in a post-9/11, X-Files, or War of the Worlds era of paranoia.
"The X-Files" may have told us the truth is out there, but "Disclosure Day" asks, "Can we even handle the truth if we knew it?"
Disclosure Day, coming decades after the entire subject matter was palpably redefined by Chris Carter’s The X Files, does not have anything new or progressive to say. It apes that show’s paranoia…
It taps into the conjoined yearning for escape and sanctuary that audiences have been chasing since Judy Garland sang about going somewhere over the rainbow in The Wizard of Oz.
Margaret metaphorically serves as a stand-in for the millennial “princess” generation; a byproduct of The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Little Mermaid (1989).
The movie adopts the language of ’70s conspiracy thrillers like “Three Days of the Condor” and “All the President’s Men,”…
…it's a breakneck conspiracy thriller that plays like Spielberg riffing on movies like "Three Days of the Condor."
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Not dissimilarly to peer Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 gonzo mess of Megalopolis, there’s something wholly touching about an elder statesman of the industry…
Like his pal Francis Ford Coppola in the neo-Roman folly of Megalopolis, Spielberg is asking us to lend him our ears.
What’s interesting is that “Disclosure Day” often feels less like an alien movie and more like a 1970s paranoia thriller in the vein of “The Parallax View” or “The Manchurian Candidate.”