Spoilers from Disclosure Day ahead! If you haven’t seen the movie yet, it just arrived on the 2026 movie schedule.
Disclosure Day is more than two hours long – nearly two and a half hours, in fact — and I’m not going to lie, I did look at my watch a few times during the movie. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thrilled by the action or intrigued by the layers of the plot. Steven Spielberg‘s new film has everything we could hope for from one of the iconic director’s alien movies — great characters, exciting moments, an impactful score and a meaningful plot. I was undoubtedly entertained, and yet, I was also waiting. By the time the climax hit, and I felt tears in my eyes and goosebumps on my arms, I felt like I was being rewarded for my patience.
This Movie Requires Patience
I’m still processing my thoughts about Disclosure Day — I just caught a screening of it on Thursday night — but I can say with certainty that the ending left me emotional and a bit shaken. I went into it knowing that this was not so much a movie about aliens, as it was a story about exposing the truth about aliens — the marketing was clear enough about that. Still, as the story got going, it felt like we were being given breadcrumbs of information about what was happening — what was being hidden, the information in the stolen drives, the strange hand-held device being used to “dive” into people.
Every time I felt like we were getting close to an answer, some twist or turn took us in a new direction. And I admit, the thought “I really hope the ending is worth this build-up” crossed my mind more than once.
Was it worth it? Yes, honestly. Let’s talk about that ending. The question of whether or not it’s for the best that mankind knows we’re not alone in the universe, and that alien beings have literally been on this planet for decades or longer, is posed throughout the film, from various characters.
The Set Up For The Ending
- Eve (Jane Blankenship) fears what the knowledge might do to people’s ability to believe in a higher power.
- Noah (Colin Firth) wants to keep the information within his control, and the confines of his business, while his former colleague, Hugo (Colman Domingo), is determined to bring the truth to light.
- Margaret (Emily Blunt), with her new empathic abilities, and Daniel (Josh O’Connor), with his not-so-new mathematical ability to understand the alien’s language, are seeking their own personal truths, while serving as the vessels creating the necessary connection between the aliens and mankind.
- Jackson (Wyatt Russell) just wants to stay in Kansas City and play songs with his band.
By the time everyone (minus Jackson) makes it to the news station, any doubt I might’ve had that it’s for the best for mankind to know the truth is gone. It’s clear throughout the film that the world is not in a good place, and humanity is already on the brink of implosion. Eve has come around to putting her faith in mankind and delivers Margaret the device to get the lights turned back on so she can resume the broadcast.
And it’s here that the ending really happens. Spielberg has made us wait, and it feels like we’ve earned our way to this point in the movie — but we’re not quite there yet.
The Payoff
I don’t know that I thought about it as it was playing out, but looking back, had the big reveal focused entirely on Margaret telling viewers everything and showing the footage, I think it might’ve been less impactful. After Margaret gets the story rolling, the TV station reaches out to their affiliate in New York. We also see the decision to push the feed out to everyone — not just NBC affiliates, but everyone. Watching this process play out gives us a chance to reset our perspective and see the hugeness of what’s going on, beyond what Margaret and Daniel have been through.
Our attention is shifted to a major news anchor who’s trying to process the footage Daniel has uploaded and is streaming through the feed as she’s seeing it for the first time with everyone else. This part feels very important to the emotional punch. Up until now, we’ve been following Margaret through this whole story. Her and Daniel’s perspectives have been integral, as has their journey toward the truth from their childhood experiences. They’ve reached their resolution by this point, now it’s our turn.
By switching the perspective to this new news anchor, we’re watching what feels like a truly genuine reaction from someone who is just learning this information. All of her emotions are coming through — her voice, her facial expressions, her eyes — as she’s trying to navigate what’s being shown and also make space in her own mind for this new reality, all the while also trying to relay information to viewers.
This is what Disclosure Day was all about, and it feels real. The disclosure scene gave me chills, and at the same time, had me welling up with emotion. Maybe a part of that is because I’ve experienced this before — the feeling of the world changing right under my feet in real-time — and know how big what’s happening would be if it were real. We see people paused everywhere, watching the footage of the aliens and seeing bits of what’s been done to them. All I could think was that the words coming out of this woman’s report would echo in their memories for years to come.
It Was Always About The Truth
Spielberg captures the intense historic significance in a way that’s both grand and simple. In the end, the truth coming out was always what Disclosure Day was about. The movie takes its time to get there, but I think one of the lessons is that truth takes patience, determination and perseverance. It also takes faith, if not in a higher power, then in humanity. As a cynical person, I need to chew on Eve’s part of this story some more, because I think what she went through might have hit the hardest for me.
The movie leaves us with a big cliffhanger. After the footage is revealed to the world, the living being Hugo helped escape years ago arrives at the Kansas City news station and speaks words into Daniel’s ear, which he relays to Margaret. The only thing we get before the screen cuts to black is Margaret saying “Listen” into the camera. Is there more to say? I’m assuming so, but whatever the alien has to share with mankind isn’t for this story. What happens next is for us to consider and imagine if we want, but the story Disclosure Day meant to tell is finished. What matters here is the truth being known. The world will now have to reckon with the information they’ve been given and the things they’ve been shown.
I don’t have a personal star rating locked in for this movie, and I can see why some people love it and why it might not be for everyone (critics or audiences). I do know that I definitely want to see it again, because I think there’s more that I didn’t catch or haven’t quite put together yet. I’m still pondering over Noah’s choice at the end, and want to revisit the conversation that he had with Hugo to better understand where both of their characters are coming from. In the meantime, my biggest takeaway from this movie was that this was a film that required patience, but it packs an emotional punch that left me with chills. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.