Disclosure Day (2026)

A spiritual sequel to Close Encounters, minus the manic divorced dad energy.

Spielberg’s fourth alien movie. Fifth if you count Crystal Skull. He clearly believes they’re real. Honestly, I’m with him - I do think there’s life out there. TBD if it’s being covered up by the US government or not.

Disclosure Day is Spielberg playing with a ton of ideas he’s clearly fascinated by - religion, public reaction to disclosure, how this news would affect global politics. He barely scratches the surface on most of them, which I wish he’d gone deeper into. But the main theme is empathy, and Spielberg’s thesis is clear: our lack of empathy, our greed, our selfishness is the sole thing keeping us from sharing and receiving this truth. He’s probably right. If that information is out there, that’s for sure what’s happening.

Funny side note though - is Spielberg trying to tell us it’s cosmically ordained that men are good at math and women are good at empathy? I have questions.

I think this movie might be perceived as corny or out of touch. Themes of empathy and connectedness aren’t exactly in vogue right now. But distrust in the government is at an all time high - at least it is for me personally - and this film is touching on something real. Frankly, it worked for me.

This might be a career best performance from Emily Blunt. My other favorite of hers is Edge of Tomorrow, but this is completely different. Her voice work is incredible. Josh O’Connor I love so fucking much, and he’s incredible here. Coleman Domingo is a standout even though he’s not in it a whole lot - surprised by how little screen time he gets, but he makes every second count. The eye acting from everyone is incredible. Colin Firth’s terrible contacts really freaked me out, and he wins my award for most seated performance of the year. I’m enjoying his late career turn toward these disintegrating, bloated, menacing roles. It’s a good look for him.

It’s fun to see Spielberg play with themes from his whole career. I got touches of Minority Report with the hand touch modules in the corporate headquarters and the eye switching. The harrowing train sequence reminded me of his first filmmaking experience - working through his fears by filming that model train crash over and over, as depicted in The Fabelmans. This movie also has an actual real car being driven off the edge of a quarry. Can you name a single film in the last twenty years that’s done that? I literally can’t. I clapped and cheered in the theater to the great annoyance of the people sitting near me.

This film feels like a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind - people being psychically drawn together to pursue unknown ends orchestrated by an alien entity. Except with way less manic divorce dad energy from Richard Dreyfuss.

John Williams did the score. It’s not his most memorable, but I love his work. Any gift that man gives, I will accept gladly.

This isn’t my favorite Spielberg film, but it’s a return to form - Spielberg at his peak powers once again. Classic Spielberg. The look-in-awe moments. The lighting. The direction. I loved all of it.

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