The question of extraterrestrial life has haunted the collective imagination for nearly all of the past century. Contemporary American pop culture is rife with legends of UFOs, classified activities carried out by the Department of Defense, the mysterious Area 51 and plenty of alien films like Independence Day and E.T. The latter, of course, was directed by Steven Spielberg, and the filmmaker is back with his first extraterrestrial project since War of Worlds in 2005. Disclosure Day, out June 12, stars Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor as two extraordinary humans locked in a propulsive race against a shady government contractor, whose efforts to obfuscate and bury shocking secrets risks changing all of human history.
Steven Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day' Is a Propulsive Alien Thriller with a Wildly Unexpected Ending
Don't worry, no spoilers here
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Published Jun 11, 2026
© Universal Studios
© Universal Studios
O'Connor and Blunt star as Daniel and Margaret. The former is a mathematical genius, recruited into the shadowy government contract Wardex doing cyber security after a stint in federal prison. The latter is a local meteorologist in Kansas City yearning for more important work than shimmying along to the weather forecast in a slew of bandage dresses.
Daniel is on the run after stealing classified information that could change the course of human history, and his and Margaret's paths collide when she suffers a mysterious seizure live on air. Soon, they're navigating the memories of a shared past neither can quiet remember and a cryptic handler, Hugo (Colman Domingo), guiding them with a rather unsettling omniscience.
© Universal Studios
As someone who leans towards literary fiction and cinematic auteurs where the plot is usually subservient to a character's inner dialogue (do not get me started on Wes Anderson), I found Disclosure Day to be the complete opposite. It is propulsive in jet proportions. I was physically stressed watching this movie—had I been wearing a blood pressure monitor, I'm pretty sure it would have been going haywire. This is possibly the "edge of your seat" feeling. You can't catch a break; in every frame something is about to explode (literally or figuratively). In short, it's impossible to be bored. One moment the characters are being held at gunpoint, the next they're careening down a railroad track head-on with a train, at another they're wielding supernatural forces. I'm confident that even my dad, who loves a snooze in front of the television, would find a nap out of the question.
© Universal Studios
Something I was not expecting—but appreciated—was the character development and the larger questions Spielberg's film attempted to wrestle with amid all the action. While the plot was still front and center, the director used several characters, including Daniel, Hugo and Daniel's girlfriend, Jane (played by Eve Hewson), to address big life conundrums. Faced with the responsibility of holding information that could change humanity, Daniel and Hugo are used to challenge the idea of who gets to decide what is best for the collective majority. Is free will really to be prized above all else, even if it comes at the cost of chaos? Jane, a former novitiate, asks us to question humanity's place in the universe—and what it would mean if we truly weren't alone. Do we need to know the secrets of the universe? Who deserves to know?
© Universal Studios
The biggest question the characters must wrestle with is humanity's capacity for empathy. Most of the questioning is done through Jane, and thus I found it unfortunate that her arc felt a bit incomplete. Disclosure Day starts the conversation on a lot of questions, but does it ultimately answer any of them? Given the unexpected ending, maybe that's the whole point. That the biggest mysteries of the universe can't be solved—and all we can do is hold onto each other.
Disclosure Day is in theaters July 12.
