Vague Visages’ Disclosure Day review contains minor spoilers. Steven Spielberg’s 2026 movie features Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Colin Firth. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Discovery and altruism are the underlying themes in Disclosure Day (2026), Steven Spielberg’s latest feature and perhaps his most ambitious venture in recent years. Rather than producing yet another popcorn-muncher, the legendary American filmmaker challenges his audience to a cerebral experience, one that’s never too far away from the Spielbergian tropes that fans have come to know and love.

In Disclosure Day, a privately owned shadow network called the Wardex Corporation has been safeguarding and suppressing the history of earthly interactions with extraterrestrials dating back to the 1950s. As the sole proprietor of alien telepathic hardware, the company believes that it’s in the public’s best interest to conceal these truths so as not to upset world order and threaten the superiority of humankind. However, a subset of Wardex defectors want to disclose what they know. Skip to the present when Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) finds himself in the most intense wrestling event of his life, but it turns out the event is a ruse. And so the protagonist (a Wardex cybersecurity expert) finds himself negotiating for the release of his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Ewe Hewson), in exchange for “out of this world” materials that Wardex desperately wants to retrieve. Before long, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) — the Wardex “evil” mastermind — keeps the potential whistleblowers in his crosshairs. Meanwhile, meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) finds herself caught up in an “extensional storm” after learning that she has the ability to speak foreign languages. At the center of it all is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) — an altruistic benefactor, the antithesis to Scanlon’s toxic reticence and the key to Margaret’s arrival of self -discovery. Disclosure Day has its moments in the sun, but even Spielberg’s inner child energy is limited.

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Spielberg’s casting serves as Disclosure Day’s north star. Blunt aptly conveys the co-existence of Margaret’s confidence and confusion, pulling deep from within for moments of extreme angst. Her contributions, while far from a “peak performance,” fulfill the believable fish-out-of-water scenario. That said, even Blunt can’t cast a wide enough net, as 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). She lives in Kansas, goes on an odyssey and befriends a bunch of misfits.

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Countering Blunt’s matter-of-fact nature, Hewson’s Jane Blankenship captures the right amount of vulnerability, her facial expressions always in tune with the ever-changing tone of the scenario, while Spielberg’s lighting gives the character a rough edge. As for Domingo and Firth, they work well as effective foils, with the latter actor functioning as eye candy. O’Connor fares no better than he does in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) by once again conveying a Ned Flanders-style inferiority complex.

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In terms of narrative, motifs and overall structure, the cold, analytical tone of screenwriter David Koepp doesn’t gel with Spielberg’s attempt to please Gen Z, even though he does indeed have quite the resume with Jurassic Park (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996) and even Secret Window (2004). It could be that Koepp just isn’t comfortable handling surreal concepts, which leads to forced exposition. A nostalgic twist surfaces during the climax, one that’s supposed to be hiding under the audience’s nose the entire time. Spielberg attempts to cover up some clunky dialogue with a visual trick, but he’s too heavy-handed with the handling of his various motifs. Elsewhere, composer John Williams evokes the mood of mistrust and otherworldly espionage through occasional jolts of optimism.

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Disclosure Day isn’t quite avant-garde cinema, but it’s also not a film designed to earn Oscar gold. Spielberg seemingly wanted to blow up the big screen, while Sarah Broshar’s editing feels more like a hybrid of video games and television than a feature film. For better or worse, the movie theater is Spielberg’s hill to die on.

Peter Bell (@PeterGBell25) is a 2016 Master of Arts – Film Studies graduate of Columbia University School of Arts in New York City. His interests include film history, film theory and film criticism. Ever since watching TCM as a child, Peter has had a passion for film, always trying to add greater context to film for others. His favorite films include Chinatown, Blade Runner, Lawrence of Arabia, A Shot in the Dark and Inception. Peter believes movie theaters are still the optimal forum for film viewing, discussion and discovering fresh perspectives on culture.

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