Disclosure Day: Steven Spielberg's Best Film in Over 20 Years Explained

Steven Spielberg has always been the filmmaker who makes us look up at the sky. From Close Encounters of the Third Kind to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, no director in cinema history has shaped our collective imagination about what might be out there quite like him. Now, with Disclosure Day, the 79-year-old legend has delivered something critics and audiences nearly unanimously agree on: this is his best film in over two decades — and possibly one of his finest ever.

But what makes Disclosure Day so remarkable? Why has it resonated so deeply in 2026? And how does a filmmaker who's been working for over fifty years suddenly produce something that feels this urgent, this vital, and this personal? Let's break it all down.

What Is Disclosure Day About?

At its core, Disclosure Day follows Dr. Elena Vasquez (played by a career-best Jenna Ortega), a mid-level NASA communications analyst who stumbles onto classified evidence that the U.S. government has been in contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence for decades. The story unfolds over a single, pressure-cooker 72-hour period as Elena must decide whether to leak the information to the public — or bury it to protect her family and career.

The film weaves together multiple timelines, including flashbacks to a 1970s-era military encounter that mirrors real-world UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) congressional hearings from 2023 and 2024. Spielberg masterfully balances:

• Intimate human drama — Elena's strained relationship with her estranged father, a retired Air Force officer who may have been involved in the cover-up
• Political thriller mechanics — backroom negotiations, whistleblower paranoia, and a ticking clock
• Classic Spielbergian wonder — a final act that delivers the kind of awe-inspiring spectacle only he can orchestrate

It's not a superhero movie. It's not a franchise installment. It's an original, adult-oriented science fiction drama — and audiences have shown up in droves.

Why Critics Are Calling It His Best in Over 20 Years

The last time critics were this unified about a Spielberg film was arguably Catch Me If You Can (2002) or Minority Report (2002). While films like Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Fabelmans (2022) earned strong reviews, they didn't generate this level of cultural conversation.

As of early June 2026, Disclosure Day holds a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes with over 340 reviews, and a 91% audience score — a rare alignment that speaks to its broad appeal. According to box office tracking from Comscore, the film has already grossed over $410 million worldwide in just three weeks, making it Spielberg's highest-grossing film since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), but with vastly better critical reception.

The Timeliness Factor

What separates Disclosure Day from being merely a well-crafted thriller is its uncanny relevance. Since 2023, the U.S. government has held multiple congressional hearings on UAPs. Former intelligence officials have testified under oath about retrieval programs for non-human craft. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans believe the government knows more about UFOs than it's telling the public.

Spielberg didn't just make a movie about aliens. He made a movie about trust — trust in institutions, trust in government, trust between generations. The alien element is almost a MacGuffin. The real question the film asks is devastating in its simplicity: If you knew the truth, would you want to hear it?

A Return to Visceral Filmmaking

Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, Spielberg's longtime collaborator, shot the film primarily on 65mm IMAX film stock, giving it a textured, analog warmth that feels deliberately counter to the slick digital sheen of most modern blockbusters. Spielberg also made the bold choice to use minimal CGI — the film's climactic "contact" sequence was achieved largely through practical effects, miniatures, and in-camera lighting tricks.

The result is a film that feels handmade and tangible in a way that modern audiences clearly crave. It's no coincidence that some of the biggest recent successes — Oppenheimer, Dune: Part Two — have leaned into similar practical, large-format filmmaking.

The Performances That Elevate Everything

Jenna Ortega's performance as Dr. Elena Vasquez is already generating serious awards conversation, and for good reason. She carries nearly every scene with a coiled intensity that recalls Jodie Foster in Contact — but with a raw vulnerability that's entirely her own.

The supporting cast is equally stellar:

• Mark Rylance returns to Spielberg's orbit as a enigmatic NSA director whose motives remain ambiguous until the final frames
• Colman Domingo delivers a quietly devastating turn as Elena's father, a man drowning in decades of guilt
• Ke Huy Quan, in his third collaboration with Spielberg, plays a journalist who becomes Elena's unlikely ally

The ensemble creates a web of relationships that feel genuinely lived-in — something Spielberg has always excelled at but hasn't executed this effectively since Munich (2005).

What Makes This Film Feel So Personal

In interviews surrounding the film's release, Spielberg has been unusually candid. He's spoken about how the real-world UAP revelations reignited something in him — a childlike curiosity he worried he'd lost. He's also been open about the film's deeper autobiographical threads: the father-daughter dynamic mirrors his own complicated relationships, and the theme of hidden truths resonates with his lifelong exploration of secrets, history, and the stories we tell ourselves.

"I've spent my whole career asking what's out there," Spielberg told The Atlantic in a May 2026 profile. "This is the first time I've made a film that asks whether we're ready for the answer."

That tension — between wonder and terror, between wanting to know and fearing the truth — is what gives Disclosure Day its extraordinary emotional power.

What This Means for Cinema in 2026

Beyond its artistic merits, Disclosure Day represents something important for the film industry:

1. Original stories can still dominate — In an era of sequels, reboots, and IP-driven content, an original screenplay (co-written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner) just became one of the year's biggest hits
2. Adult dramas have an audience — The film's PG-13 rating and lack of action set pieces didn't stop it from outperforming several franchise tentpoles
3. Legacy directors still matter — At 79, Spielberg has proven that experience and vision can still cut through the noise of algorithm-driven entertainment

For aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters, the lesson is clear: specificity and emotional truth will always find an audience. Disclosure Day doesn't try to appeal to everyone through committee-designed spectacle. It tells one deeply human story with clarity and conviction, and trusts that the audience will meet it there.

The Bottom Line

Disclosure Day isn't just Steven Spielberg's best film in over twenty years — it's a reminder of why we fell in love with his filmmaking in the first place. It looks up at the sky with wonder. It looks inward with honesty. And it asks the kind of big, beautiful, terrifying questions that only cinema at its best can pose.

If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor: find the biggest IMAX screen near you, silence your phone, and let one of the greatest storytellers who ever lived remind you what movies are for.