Steven Spielberg’s latest alien blockbuster, “Disclosure Day,” follows a whistleblower-style hunt for evidence that extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth since at least 1947. The film arrives in theaters Friday, June 12, with Colin Firth, Josh O’Connor, C
Steven Spielberg’s universe has always been a place where the cosmos bleeds into everyday life. In “Disclosure Day,” that collision starts with something mundane—eight workers at a shadowy extragovernmental agency failing to show up for work—and spirals fast into a sprint for alien proof.
The agency is WARDEX, short for Waived Reporting, Development, and Extraction. Its secret mission is not just about what’s out there, but about what the public is allowed to know. On the brink of World War III. the missing employees become a spark in a wider scramble. while hoarding supplies for nuclear winter and an effort to “betray the agency’s secret purpose” hang over the story like a locked door that won’t open.
At the center is WARDEX leader Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth. Noah is inclined to believe the workers have unionized to turn against the agency’s real goal: safeguarding hard evidence that aliens have been visiting Earth since at least 1947.
That evidence is no longer safe. Cybersecurity whiz Daniel Kellner. played by Josh O’Connor. has made off with top-secret data drives and a mysterious alien device—known only as “The Device. ” which everyone treats like an unstable bomb. Daniel insists he’s determined to get the goods to his former WARDEX colleague Hugo Wakefield, played by Colman Domingo.
But Hugo isn’t offering easy answers. He refuses to reveal his exact location and spends much of the movie telling Daniel to “lie low. ” “get off the road. ” and promising that “we’ll contact you when the time comes.” In the background. Hugo is building a mid-century home inside a giant warehouse—an odd detail that the film clearly wants you to feel as part of the mystery. even as the chase keeps surging forward.
The tension splits again when meteorologist Margaret Fairchild. played by Emily Blunt. becomes the story’s most fragile. most public focal point. Margaret is trying to move from Kansas City to a bigger market after dreaming of getting behind the anchor desk. Her musician boyfriend Jackson. played by Wyatt Russell. seems content in their giant loft. while Margaret’s own life is laced with unsettling surprises.
Her questions pile up as quickly as the plot. Margaret can suddenly read people’s most intimate thoughts just by looking at them and can speak every language on Earth. The film also ties her enthusiasm—her unbridled passion for Gwen Stefani’s “The Sweet Escape”—to the possibility of extraterrestrial interference. without resolving that thread outright.
The race detonates during a live weather report. Margaret suffers a strange. extremely public episode on air: she makes a series of unnatural but mathematically precise clicking sounds before collapsing to the floor. Noah and Hugo both interpret it as the starting gun in their own race to reach her first.
If WARDEX gets hold of Margaret, the secrets of alien life stay top-secret. If Hugo wins and successfully introduces her to Daniel, the meteorologist and the number-cruncher are positioned to form a “magical dyad” capable of translating E.T.’s message to the masses.
The movie’s engine is familiar enough to feel like Spielberg—fast. earnest. and driven by the idea that proof can change people even when institutions refuse to. David Koepp’s screenplay was cobbled together from an outline that Spielberg tapped out on his Notes app. Spielberg’s direction, in turn, keeps the film moving even when the story’s logic feels uneven. The script is described as clumsy at points. even before Firth starts using unstable alien technology to hack Eve Hewson’s brain like Cerebro. Hewson plays Jane. Daniel’s girlfriend and a former novitiate who becomes a current liability. with the story using her most to question the movie’s faith in people.
“Disclosure Day” is also framed as a direct emotional conversation with Spielberg’s more recent films. including “Ready Player One. ” which allowed Spielberg to interrogate the merits of the modern blockbuster. and “The Fabelmans. ” which saw him unpack how a single divorce shaped a half-century of American imagination. The film is additionally positioned as revisiting Spielberg’s own iconographic story material. insisting that people may not be as far apart as they think—while still wrestling with the burden of maintaining collective belief.
A character scoffs. “I will not be anyone’s religion. ” at a key moment. but the movie suggests someone has to uphold the world’s self-belief when the people in power are determined to snuff it out. The story’s optimism is also tethered to Spielberg’s long-standing interest in institutional distrust and the decades of skepticism that have accumulated across his work.
The film leans into the same thematic heartbeat through performance. O’Connor’s Daniel is described as boxed in. but he’s credited with scaling from “I’m just a math nerd!” to “I could stare down Jason Bourne. ” matching what the movie needs from him. Blunt. by contrast. gets more room. and the portrayal is built around the idea that Margaret is both confused and convinced: she connects with everyone she meets through her newly unlocked ability. and Blunt roots the character’s performance in an unwavering belief that leaving strangers with a “Spielberg Face” could be enough to save the world.
In a sequence that riffs on the Hawthorne Plaza Mall scene from “Minority Report. ” Margaret goes full Pre-Cog mode. using her psychic gifts to disarm people in her path. The performance is presented as less mystical oracle and more translator—where what she learns from each person teaches her something about herself. Daniel insists. “People have the right to know the truth. ” and the film’s argument counters by insisting that each person is “an infinite universe unto ourselves. teeming with unexplored secrets.”.
Even as the movie’s ideas are described as far-fetched. it’s also framed as keeping its focus on the notion that looking outward means looking within. and that a director still searching for new ways to enrapture a jaded audience remains the film’s real engine. The climax carries the feeling of a blockbuster moonshot. with an ending that’s compared to “Close Encounters” in both scale and how clearly it’s been telegraphed.
Spielberg’s joy for spectacle is everywhere—down to specific action beats. including a setpiece that starts with a car getting shoved into an oncoming freight train. and a score by John Williams that drops out when the action spikes. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński is credited with revisiting the muted palette that colored the millennial chapter of Spielberg collaborations. fueled by his well-documented fetish for halation re-energized by a movie that sees every iPhone as a potential source of lens flare.
“Disclosure Day” is set to open in theaters on Friday, June 12.
Grade: B+
Steven Spielberg Disclosure Day alien blockbuster Colin Firth Josh O’Connor Colman Domingo Emily Blunt WARDEX Daniel Kellner Noah Scanlon Margaret Fairchild universal pictures June 12 release
So it’s about aliens but also like… unions??
I read “1947” and immediately thought of Roswell or whatever, so this movie is basically history class but with vibes. Eight workers not showing up is gonna be the whole plot? Sounds kinda slow tbh.
WARDEX sounds like a real government thing to me, not gonna lie. Like if they have a name that close to “WARP” or whatever, they’re hiding something. Also “nuclear winter” in a Spielberg alien movie is a little much, like was it supposed to be funny or scary??
June 12 is early, I guess they wanna beat the summer blockbusters or something. Colin Firth playing the leader makes sense, he always looks like he’s about to explain a conspiracy on TV. If the aliens been here since 1947 then why would it take like a bunch of “missing workers” to start the proof hunt… unless the workers are the aliens? Idk.