Is Disclosure Day Hiding a Spielberg Sequel? The Essential Movies to Watch Before the 2026 Sci-Fi Epic
With Disclosure Day looming, Steven Spielberg’s UFO canon is back in the crosshairs. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, War of the Worlds, and the series Taken are being reexamined for uncanny overlaps with the narratives officials are finally poised to reveal.
Spielberg is back in UFO mode. His new movie 'Disclosure Day' leans straight into first-contact jitters and asks the big question: what happens to us when the world is told aliens might actually be real?
Is this secretly tied to 'Close Encounters'? Short answer: no
Despite early chatter that 'Disclosure Day' might hook into one of Spielberg's older alien stories, the actual footage says otherwise. There is no official, narrative connection to his previous films. What you are seeing, though, are plenty of familiar Spielberg fingerprints that are making fans think of 1977 's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' — glowing craft, unnerving human run-ins, and a government arm poking around where the weirdness is happening.
So, no whiteboard required to track a shared universe here. It just looks like Spielberg mining his own sweet spot again: wonder, dread, and the fallout when the unknown shows up on our doorstep.
What the trailer puts on the table
The final trailer dropped on May 27, 2026 and tees up the core premise: the world is told extraterrestrial life might be real, and society has to deal with that disclosure in real time. The movie hits theaters on June 12.
Why 'Close Encounters' is the homework that actually helps
If you want a quick crash course on how Spielberg handles big, cosmic ideas through very human stories, rewatch 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.' He wrote and directed it, and it tracks three threads that slowly braid together: an everyday guy whose life blows up after a UFO sighting, a mother chasing down her missing kid, and a scientist following unexplainable phenomena around the globe. Different people, same pull toward something they can't name yet — classic Spielberg. It's also just a great warm-up for 'Disclosure Day.'
'The western is to John Ford what science fiction is to Steven Spielberg and his latest film in the genre, DISCLOSURE DAY, comes to theaters this Friday. Tomorrow Spielberg joins Ben Mankiewicz for a night of his films beginning with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND at 8pm ET.'
That note was from TCM on June 9, 2026; they were flagging a June 10 lineup hosted with Ben Mankiewicz, kicking off with 'Close Encounters' at 8pm ET — a neat little pregame if you caught it live.
Three smart watches before you head in
- 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982) — the kid-and-alien friendship that basically defined movie empathy; it still lands, and it shows how Spielberg wrings emotion out of the fantastic. You can rent it on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
- 'The Fabelmans' — not sci-fi, but loosely based on Spielberg's own life and early days making movies. It gives you a sense of the obsessions and craft he brings to anything with a lens flare. Also rentable on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
- 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' — not tied to 'Disclosure Day' storywise, but thematically adjacent in how it pokes at humanity, technology, and what we call 'real.' If you like your awe with an existential chaser, this is the one.
A little filmmaker-nerd tidbit
Spielberg has said he wrote 'Disclosure Day' in the Notes app on his iPad. Not exactly a vintage Moviola, but it tracks with how personal this genre still is for him — it's always been about the idea first, the toys second.
The bottom line
'Disclosure Day' is not a stealth sequel. It just wears its lineage proudly — the light, the noise, the goosebumps, and the what-do-we-do-now panic. If the trailer is any indication, we are getting classic Spielberg tensions dialed for 2026: mystery and discovery crashing straight into everyday life.
Seeing it opening weekend? Tell me what hit you hardest — the spectacle or the fallout.