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Tripwire Reviews Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day

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2 months ago

June 10, 2026

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Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind

Disclosure Day
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell

A new Steven Spielberg film is always an event, even though the bearded filmmaker celebrates his 80^th birthday this December. He isn’t as prolific a director as he used to be but Disclosure Day, his 60^th feature at the helm, has come with a great deal of expectations. His last film, The Fabelmans, a more low-key affair, was his semi-autobiographical drama which was released in 2022.

All of the advance publicity for this film seemed to point to the fact that the director was returning to familiar territory in terms of its subject matter. But they were careful not to reveal too much in the slightly opaque teasers and trailers that hit, something that was refreshing after many years of cinemagoers knowing far too much about the latest summer blockbuster release thanks to scores of trailers and TV spots that revealed their best bits.

Spielberg as a director has often effortlessly jumped from mainstream crowd pleaser to more cerebral fare more effortlessly than any of his other contemporaries. Who else could include summer blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Raiders Of The Lost Ark in a CV that also features harrowing Holocaust biopic Schindler’s List, his adaptation of JG Ballard’s Empire Of The Sun and the story of iconic US president in Lincoln? Spielberg is a director who has always understood that cinema can and needs to offer a wide range of productions to suit many tastes and audiences.

Disclosure Day, on first glance, appears to offer a return to the themes that the director has explored in previous work like ET (1981), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) and War Of The Worlds (2005). Emily Blunt plays Kansas City TV weather woman Margaret Fairchild, who suddenly finds herself with strange abilities that appear to have come literally from nowhere. Firth is Noah, a millionaire at the centre of an enigmatic web of 1970s style conspiracy intrigue while O’Connor plays Dr Daniel Kellner who with girlfriend Jane (Hewson) is a man who also is in possession of odd powers. The currently ubiquitous Domingo is the lynchpin of the tale Hugo Wakefield, a man who seems determined to help Fairchild and Kellner unravel their past and solve their respective conundrums and offer them peace and resolution in their lives.

Disclosure Day is a slightly strange film: it begins as a 1970s style conspiracy thriller but as it opens up, it becomes more the kind of traditional Spielberg tale that we are familiar with. It asks big questions like whether we are alone in the galaxy and probes (forgive the deliberate pun here) the veracity of events like the Roswell incident and Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway and whether there is a shadowy government conspiracy hiding the truth from us all.

In terms of its cast, Blunt as the main focus here offers us a woman with a secret that threatens to throw her life out of balance and she is very good giving us a mix of vulnerability and determination. Firth’s character is a slightly puzzling one as he starts his onscreen life portraying a sinister criminal mastermind but by DD’s end, he has a Damascene moment where he switches to a more benevolent figure without any real explanation of his newfound motivation. He is good here mostly though as he offers a thrilling counterpoint to Blunt’s conflicted character.

Disclosure Day is definitely an ensemble piece as it takes the entire cast to keep the parts moving here. Spielberg has always been a craftsman as a director and mostly it works here.

It is impressive that a director with six decades under his belt helming some of the most significant films of the modern era still has the passion and the enthusiasm to make a movie which ,while it doesn’t quite hit all of its marks, still pushes the envelope for what a summer blockbuster could be. It’s appropriate that as the man who arguably launched the idea of a summer movie with Jaws back in 1975 offers his own take on what constitutes one over fifty years later in 2026 with Disclosure Day.

It isn’t perfect with its tonal shifts but it’s still a film with heart and an emotional core, two things that have marked Spielberg out as one of the finest filmmakers of his generation. Disclosure Day is a good addition to his body of work and a film that reinforces his unique reputation.

Disclosure Day is in UK cinemas from today and in the US from Friday 12^th June 2026. Here’s the film’s trailer