Disclosure Day (2026)

Disclosure Day is really good for a while. It’s mysterious and a little quirky, and Emily Blunt is stellar. Then the movie takes a really dumb turn toward religion, “empathy”, and saccharine Spielberg nonsense. This starts during Jane and Daniel’s discussion about whether people will stop believing in gods if they know there are aliens (pro tip: lots of people already don’t believe in gods), it continues with Jane’s unsubtle stigmata and her asinine call to her nun-friend, and it's truly brought home with an absurd monologue Colman Domingo is forced to deliver about how empathy is the solution to WWIII, an idea that Spielberg apparently actually believes. 

It’s a shame this went south, because I was having a good time for a while. In many ways, I think this is a more personal film for Spielberg than The Fabelmans. Disclosure Day actually explores the big questions that Spielberg has been asking in his films since the late 1970s. To wit: 

• How would knowing about alien life affect how we see one another? 
• Could it stop violence on earth or would it exacerbate it? 
• Would it take the place of a belief in a higher power? 
• Is believing in aliens the same thing as believing in a god? 
• How do we reconcile feelings of faith, certainty we know in our bodies, with the skepticism of those around us? 

These are deeply personal questions for Spielberg, and so I think he’s made quite a personal movie. I wish those questions were of more interest to me… If they were, I might have enjoyed where his movie went a bit more than I did. 

Side note: An actress named Courtney Grace plays a New York NBC anchor in the film’s final act who tells the world about what she’s seeing in the footage, and she gives an incredible performance. Cast her in everything, please.