Quick Review: Disclosure Day (2026)

Steven Spielberg is a director that needs no introduction. He’s created some of the most iconic films of all time and is my personal favorite director. He’s one of the directors that made me interested in film as an art form and it’s something I’ll never forget. So when I heard a new Spielberg movie was being made, I’ll knew instantly I was going to be there. Going into this film, I tried staying away from most of the marketing and just had the idea that this would be an alien type of movie which Spielberg has tapped into before. After watching it though, while I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite Spielberg film and there’s problems I have with it. Disclosure Day does some of the riskiest things I’ve seen from Spielberg in a while and I fell into the side of liking what most of the film decides to do.

I found myself to really enjoy the story and themes that the film decides to delve into. Now at times it does get pretty messy and that could be because the script went through so many rewrites and it feels like ideas are present from each of those drafts the make it a bit of a mess. This is the most apparent during the first two acts as there’s so much going on in the movie. While I still liked what the film was trying to do during that time, I can’t deny I do have have problems with what it decides to focus on and not everything comes together completely. However by the time it does get to the third act, I felt myself fully immersed in this story and was fully on board with what it decided to do. Especially the last 15 minutes, I was just enthralled with everything happening at that moment. While the movie does have the aliens part of it, I really like the way the movie incorporates its themes which have to do with empathy and trauma and having this one thing bring us all together. I found it to really work for me with its execution. Maybe not everything fully works in the story, but I still found myself compelled with it by the end.

While the acting is good across the board, there’s two performances here that I would say are just on a whole other level compared to everyone else. One of those performances is with Emily Blunt. I think this is the strongest performance I’ve seen from her. She is giving it her all here and I found myself fully interested when she was given the focus of the story. She has a complexity to her where she’s doing these crazy things that make her so compelling to follow. She is amazing in this and deserves her flowers. The other performance that is fantastic is technically in the last 10 minutes and is a spoiler. But they give a super effective performance that blew my mind with how good it was. It works especially for the emotional climax and they make a scene that could’ve easily not worked work so damn well here. Everyone else is good, but I do wish they were given a bit more to play around with. The performances from Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, and Eve Hewson are all good, but it at times feels like they aren’t given as much to work with and I wish they had a little more to work with. Luckily the performance and character from Emily Blunt Is almost more than enough to satisfy me and it does work for the most part with her as a lead and when the story focuses on her.

If there’s anything that this movie is going to remind you of, it’s that Spielberg is a hell of a director and even when things aren’t completely working, there’s moments to take away from the film where you can appreciate the art and craft going into everything. I really liked a lot of the sequences that this movie has. Even though the movie has a lot of talking in it and exposition, it seems like the film is always moving in a pace and is engaging to watch. For the most part, the technical aspects are all great across the front here. The cinematography, set design, score and more are all things I like and loved seeing the work that went into them. This is especially true for John Williams score in this which I really loved. I’ll admit the past couple scores that he has done haven’t been the most memorable, but the score for this film really surprised me with how much I loved it and it definitely does a great job at elevating certain scenes in this. It’s something that has felt missing for a while from his scores and I’m glad it worked for this movie. This is the type of blockbuster that I love to see and when those aspects are working, it makes things feel that much grander in scale.

I can understand why this is getting such a mixed reaction and why it’s doesn’t work for everyone. At times it even doesn’t work for me, but for the first time for what has felt like a while, it’s nice to watch a Spielberg film where it does feel like it’s trying new things that Spielberg hasn’t attempted in his work. When the film works, it really works for me and does outweigh the weaker stuff of the film. Walking out of the theater, I could feel this mixed reaction the theater was having toward the film and sometimes it's so much more interesting to see a film get a reaction like that. As for me, I stand on the side of liking most of what it did.

Disclosure Day is a film that doesn’t work all the time and I can understand the mixed reaction that its been getting, but for the most part, I really enjoyed my time with it and I think it’s a film that I will grow to like the more I think about it. I’m just grateful that I get to watch new movie from a director I deeply admire and whatever he decides to do next, I’ll be there.