Historically, there has been a fascinating connection between major societal events and Steven Spielberg’s return to the genre that helped define him early in his career: science fiction. His first venture into the genre came in 1964 with “Firelight,” a homemade short film about aliens that he had created years before making his professional debut.
After breaking through with “Jaws” in 1975, Spielberg quickly returned to science fiction, using the creative freedom earned from that blockbuster success to make 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The filmmaker has long acknowledged that the film was partly inspired by the aftermath of Watergate, a scandal that intensified his existing anxieties about government secrecy and cover-ups.
Nearly three decades later, Spielberg revisited the alien-invasion genre with 2005’s “War of the Worlds,” a film heavily influenced by the fears and uncertainty that followed 9/11.
Now, in 2026, Spielberg has returned to science fiction once again with his latest film, “Disclosure Day.” This time, the source of anxiety isn’t a single event but rather a collection of modern concerns: political division, societal instability, artificial intelligence, and an increasingly uncertain future. The result is a thoughtful and remarkably timely blockbuster that delivers the suspense and spectacle audiences expect from Spielberg while also offering some of his most direct, insightful, and emotionally resonant commentary in years.
TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “DISCLOSURE DAY”
5. A Taut, Tight Script
David Koepp has long been one of Steven Spielberg’s most trusted collaborators, having penned the screenplays for films such as Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and the director’s 2005 adaptation of War of the Worlds. Beyond his work with Spielberg, Koepp has built a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most prolific screenwriters. In 2025 alone, he wrote the scripts for three released feature films: Presence, Black Bag, and Jurassic World Rebirth.
Of course, that level of output comes with a caveat. While Koepp is undeniably talented, even the best writers can’t produce masterpieces every time. When your résumé is as extensive as his, inconsistency is almost inevitable.
Fortunately, Disclosure Day ranks among Koepp’s stronger efforts. Working from a story treatment developed by Spielberg himself, he crafts a screenplay that feels both kinetic and contemplative, balancing large-scale spectacle with thoughtful introspection. The script moves with purpose while still making room for the bigger ideas at the heart of the story.
It’s an intelligent, sharply written piece of work that understands exactly what kind of film it wants to be and, more importantly, succeeds in being it.
4. John Williams’ Score
John Williams is, quite simply, one of the greatest film composers of all time. His decades-long creative partnership with Steven Spielberg has been extensively documented. Aside from Ready Player One, which Williams didn’t score because he was busy working on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he has composed the music for every Spielberg feature film.
What’s perhaps discussed less often, however, is how Williams continues to evolve creatively despite having already accomplished more than most composers could ever dream of. Rather than resting on his legacy, he has spent recent years challenging himself and exploring new artistic territory.
Over the last decade alone, scores for films such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Fabelmans have demonstrated that the composer remains eager to experiment, refine his craft, and find fresh ways to elevate storytelling through music. Even at this stage of his career, Williams continues to produce work that feels ambitious, inspired, and emotionally resonant.
Disclosure Day is another impressive addition to that legacy. Williams delivers a score powerful enough to stand on its own while perfectly complementing Spielberg’s visuals. The music enhances the film’s sense of wonder, tension, and emotional weight, creating the kind of seamless harmony between sound and image that has long been a hallmark of their collaborations.
Simply put, it’s outstanding work from a composer who continues to operate at an extraordinarily high level.
3. The Remarkable Performances
Great directors get great performances, and Spielberg is practically the standard against which the effectiveness of other directors is measured in this regard. The director has collaborated to craft some of the most effective and affecting performances of the past fifty years, and Disclosure Day is no exception.
Josh O’Connor is wonderful, Emily Blunt is doing some of the best and most eclectic work of her career, Colman Domingo is chewing the ever-loving shit out of the scenery in the best possible way, and Colin Firth is an immediate all-time Spielberg antagonist. The film is also stuffed to the brim with stellar character-actor moments, chief among them Courtney Grace, who pops up in a pivotal role during the final stretch and nearly steals the entire movie.
2. Spielberg’s Immaculate Visual Language
No one shoots a motherfucking motion picture quite like Steven Spielberg. His visual language has always been so elegant, concentrated, and powerful because of it. Here, working with longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiski, Spielberg delivers an absolute masterclass in modern blockbuster filmmaking. His camera is driven by character, story, and theme, yet remains technically complex and masterful. Paired with the sublime editing of Sarah Broshar, the result is something genuinely jaw-dropping.
To give a more concrete example, I was less than five minutes into the movie before some of the shots were literally taking my breath away with their ingenuity and fluidity. The way Spielberg visually introduces Colin Firth’s character, connects him to Josh O’Connor’s character, and does it all against a windshield covered in raindrops that resemble stars in soft focus? That’s a motherfucking master filmmaker at work, encapsulating the entire film in a single image.
You’re not going to see another film with visual language this confident and precise this year, so soak it up on the biggest screen possible while you can.
1. The Finale
Roger Ebert once wrote, “Movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” I’m not sure there has ever been a filmmaker whose work better embodies that statement than Steven Spielberg’s. This is a man whose entire career has been rooted in a deep and enduring empathy for the sum total of the human race, and on Disclosure Day, he makes that both quite apparent and quite literal.
So much of the film is thematically rooted in empathy and the ways emotion can cut through the perceived borders humans impose on themselves, culminating in the film’s climax. Spielberg’s cinematic empathy often takes the form of his reaction shots, which have become iconic in their own right. These are shots in which actors react to something offscreen, often just before the film shows what they’re actually reacting to. This imbues the subsequent reveal with heft while also bringing the audience that much closer to the character in the shot.
Disclosure Day’s finale is a twenty-minute sequence made up almost entirely of reaction shots. At a moment when it feels as if the movie might be rearing up to go all-in on spectacle and grandeur, it instead digs even deeper into the bones of these characters and brings the film’s larger metatext into full-blown text. It is a beautiful, transcendent moment of cinema that has to be one of the defining moments of Spielberg’s entire career.
RGM GRADE
(A)
I adore Disclosure Day. In the same way that Close Encounters and War of the Worlds saw Spielberg grappling with the anxieties of their respective eras, Disclosure Day finds him clearly reeling from the chaos of the modern world. The film is his attempt to make sense of it all and to leave audiences with a hopeful message for the future amid all this bleakness.
Disclosure Day is a film that literally opens with someone kicking the audience in the face and ends with a quiet, tender plea for people to care about one another again. It’s a brilliant, articulate, and deeply affecting film.
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