Disclosure Day is a 2026 American science fiction thriller film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, based on a story by Spielberg. The film stars an ensemble cast, including Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo. In the film, a television meteorologist (Blunt) and a cybersecurity analyst (O'Connor) go on a mission to disclose the existence of extraterrestrial life to the world, while trying to evade the trail of a government contractor (Firth), who tries to prevent them from getting the secret out.
In April 2024, it was reported that Spielberg's next project would be a UFO film, with Koepp writing the screenplay. Within the next few months, Universal Pictures was announced as distributor and Blunt was cast in the lead role. Filming took place from February to May 2025 in New York and New Jersey. John Williams composed the film's score, marking his thirtieth collaboration with Spielberg.
Disclosure Day premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris on June 2, 2026, and was released theatrically in the United States on June 12. It received positive reviews and has grossed $241 million worldwide on a $115 million budget.
Plot
As the planet is on the brink of a nuclear war, cybersecurity specialist Dr. Daniel Kellner has stolen material from his employer, a secretive U.S. government contractor known as the Wardex Corporation (Waived Reporting, Development, and Extraction). Daniel's theft includes an artifact of extraterrestrial technology and "The Archive": decades of documents and hard drives containing footage of extraterrestrial encounters dating to the Roswell incident. When cornered by Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon, Daniel threatens him with the extraterrestrial device and escapes with his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship; they hide at her former convent.
In Kansas City, NBC meteorologist Margaret Fairchild is preparing for work when a cardinal flies into her home. The incident stimulates a psychic ability in Margaret to intuit people's thoughts and speak in languages she has never learned. During a live weather broadcast, Margaret unexpectedly begins speaking in an unknown language. Footage of the broadcast goes viral and draws the attention of Wardex, which identifies the language as extraterrestrial. After being examined at a hospital, Margaret flees Wardex agents who are posing as the FBI.
Daniel explains to Jane that Wardex has been experimenting on extraterrestrial captives and reverse engineering their technology; he is part of a plot to reveal the truth using the Archive. Seeing the clip of Margaret speaking the extraterrestrial language, he understands what she said as if she was speaking English. Scanlon uses one of the extraterrestrial devices to telepathically force Jane to attack Daniel and later track them to a motel. Before Daniel is captured, he helps Jane escape with the extraterrestrial device.
Margaret's psychic ability allows her to locate Daniel at a black site. The two escape with the Archive when Margaret empathically convinces their captors to let them go. One of Scanlon's unaffected men, Boyd, rams their car into the side of a passing freight train; Daniel pulls Margaret out in time for them to climb onto the train and escape.
Margaret and Daniel finally connect with Hugo Wakefield, who leads a team of former Wardex employees intent on disclosing evidence of extraterrestrials to the world. They have reconstructed Margaret's childhood home in order to recover suppressed memories. When they were ten, she and Daniel were simultaneously abducted by extraterrestrials and given complementary powers; the extraterrestrials disguise themselves as harmless animals in order to anonymously observe humanity and eventually awaken their powers.
Hugo's team, along with Margaret and Daniel, enter Margaret's television station to broadcast the truth. Scanlon's team turns off the power, but Jane arrives and gives her device to Margaret, who uses it to restore the power. Defeated, Scanlon and his team stand down, to Boyd's dismay, and watch as Margaret announces "Disclosure Day" to the world.
Daniel uploads the Archive to a satellite feed as the station crew broadcast the footage around the world, with a blindsided national anchorwoman attempting to narrate it. The stunned world stops to watch evidence of extraterrestrial life and the impending war seems to halt. Hugo brings an elderly extraterrestrial he secretly freed from Wardex into the studio. The extraterrestrial whispers to Daniel, who relays the message to Margaret. She returns to the camera and prepares to repeat the message, beginning by saying "Listen."
Cast
Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, a Kansas City TV meteorologist and former journalist Delaney Cuthbert as young Margaret Josh O'Connor as Dr. Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity specialist and whistleblower Tyler Renaud as young Daniel Colin Firth as Noah Scanlon, the head of the Wardex Corporation Eve Hewson as Jane Blankenship, a former religious novice and Daniel's girlfriend Colman Domingo as Hugo Wakefield, the Wardex Director of Biological Assets turned defector and advocate for disclosure Wyatt Russell as Jackson, Margaret's boyfriend Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Casper Boyd, Scanlon's head-of-security at Wardex Elizabeth Marvel as Sister Maura, the Abbess of the Monastery of St. Clare of the Dawn Hettienne Park as Serena, a senior Wardex agent Tommy Martinez as Dave Santiago, a Wardex defector and associate of Wakefield Gabby Beans as Angela Childs, a Wardex analyst Jeremy Shamos as Claypool, a Kansas City TV employee and Margaret's boss Brandon Wilson as Nathan Twinning, a Wardex defector and associate of Wakefield. The name is an homage to Nathan Twining of the 1947 memo on flying discs. Priyanka Kedia as Grace Zhao, a Wardex defector and Wakefield's associate Elliot Villar as Diaz, a Wardex agent Noah Robbins as Munsey, a Wardex agent Michael Gaston as General Dobbs, the Wardex military liaison
Additionally, Brian Cage, Lance Hoyt, and Chavo Guerrero Jr. cameo as the blue wrestler, the red wrestler, and the wrestling referee, respectively. Today veteran stage manager David Auerbach plays a Rock Center news producer in the final act of the film. Elizabeth Stanley plays a KCXE anchor in the film. Courtney Grace plays the NBC anchorwoman who delivers the breaking news report at the end of the film. Patricia Conolly appears uncredited in the role of Ruth Scanlon, Noah's deceased mother.
Production
Development In the summer of 2023, Steven Spielberg spent two months writing a 50–60 page story outline that would serve as the basis of Disclosure Day. Spielberg was inspired by the 2017 article "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program", published in The New York Times, which he described as having rekindled his interest in the subject. In April 2024, it was publicly announced that Spielberg's next directing project would be a UFO film based on his own original idea, with David Koepp, who had previously collaborated with Spielberg on multiple films, writing the screenplay from Spielberg's original story.
After receiving the initial treatment from Spielberg, via email, Koepp would develop forty-two drafts for the film's screenplay, the most of his career. On collaborating with Spielberg, Koepp went on to say: "It's something he had carried around in his head for decades [...] I felt a particular obligation to not fuck it up [...] you're always trying to be deferential to where the idea comes from. With Jurassic Park, I'm trying to respect the book as much as possible; War of the Worlds, same thing; Indiana Jones? Talk about deferential [...] But in this, I'm helping this guy tell his story, even as it grew into my story too." Koepp avoided the word "alien" in the script to prevent political distractions, saying, Aliens' also has a second meaning in terms of immigration. And we didn't want anyone to be able to dismiss anything or be distracted. So we use 'extraterrestrial', we use 'biological life forms', 'non-human biologics'. There's a number of other terms that we use instead."
In May 2024, Universal Pictures was announced as the film's distributor. The following month, Emily Blunt was cast in the lead role. From August to December, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Josh O'Connor, and Wyatt Russell joined the cast. This project marks the third film Spielberg had cast Domingo in (including an unrealized George Gershwin film) and the second film he had cast Hewson and Elizabeth Marvel in. In addition to Domingo, Hewson and Marvel, many of the core cast (including Blunt, Firth, O'Connor, and Henry Lloyd-Hughes) were offered their roles without having to audition. Hewson revealed that for her audition process, Spielberg met with her, via Zoom, telling her that he has "a script I want you to read; your character's Jane." After being hand-delivered the script by someone from Spielberg's team, the pair took one more Zoom meeting, during which Hewson pitched Spielberg some ideas for the character, and was offered the role by the end of the week.
In May 2025, Paul Tazewell revealed that he would serve as costume designer, marking his second collaboration with Spielberg following West Side Story (2021).
Filming Principal photography (under the title Non-View) began on February 26, 2025, in Montville, New Jersey and New York City. A casting call for Long Island–based background actors to play "wrestling fans" for a scene to be shot on March 4, 2025, was issued on January 16, 2025. The wrestling match scene was shot in the Paramount Theater in Huntington in Long Island, New York. Subsequent casting calls in March 2025 sought background talent in the Hudson Valley area of New York state and the Middlesex County area of New Jersey. The Middlesex County casting call exclusively requested participants who could drive their own vehicles in the film, while the Hudson Valley casting call additionally requested actors to play diner patrons and hotel guests. Additional casting calls sought actors to portray North Korean soldiers.
Exteriors of the freight train sequence were filmed on the Cape May Seashore Lines railroad in Tuckahoe, New Jersey and Woodbine, New Jersey in March 2025. Lloyd-Hughes revealed that a real train was used for the sequence with a real car crashing into it, and that he drove the car into the train tracks himself. Spielberg spent three weeks, alongside his cast and crew, to shoot the set piece with a few days dedicated to filming Lloyd-Hughes crashing into the car carrying Blunt and O'Connor. In early April, filming took place in the McGinley Square neighborhood of Jersey City.
The New Jersey Innovation Institute at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey was used as the KCXE television studio. Scenes set in the NBC control room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza were filmed on location there, with real newsroom employees acting in the film in supporting roles. The West Virginia safe house where Daniel and Jane hide was a set built at Fosterfields in Morris Township, New Jersey. The convent exterior was the Community of St John Baptist in Mendham Township, New Jersey. The quarry car chase was filmed at Dibbles Quarry in Elka Park, New York. Republic Airport in East Farmingdale, New York was used for two scenes. Margaret's rescue of Daniel from the Wardex black site was filmed at the American Airpower Museum at the airport,https://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/aircraft-and-facility-rentals/photo-film-tv-work/ and the classified footage of Richard Nixon showing Jackie Gleason the extraterrestrial bodies was also filmed at the airport.https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/disclosure-day-steven-spielberg-emr8sf65 The classified footage of extraterrestrial encounters was filmed at an industrial site with abandoned LNG tanks in Rossville, Staten Island.