Disclosure Day: Steven Spielberg’s legendary alien films
The great director Steven Spielberg has long been fascinated by UFOs. His alien films include E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the new Disclosure Day.
Image: Steven Spielberg | Universal Pictures UK
Is there something the government isn’t telling us? When it comes to extraterrestrial life, quite a lot, Brits seem to think. In a Sky HISTORY poll, 54% of respondents opined that UK politicians are keeping mum about the existence of aliens.
However, if there is life out there, would the public be able to handle hearing the truth about it? National security experts might not be sure. Sky HISTORY’s Ancient Aliens has explored the claim that the CIA foiled Hillary Clinton’s US presidential election campaign after she apparently angled for ‘full disclosure’.
If anyone could break the real news about aliens to us sufficiently gently, though, it would surely be Steven Spielberg. The Hollywood veteran has directed many of the best-known alien films, but what inspired him to make them? We at Sky HISTORY decided to find out as his latest, Disclosure Day, hits cinemas.
Steven Spielberg’s first feature film, Firelight (1964)
Even the best film directors had to start somewhere. Spielberg started making films as a child, and was still a teenager when he finished his first feature-length effort, Firelight.
Firelight cost $500 to make and was screened only once – at a cinema near the young Steven’s home. The original footage has largely been misplaced since then, so there’s no way to watch more than a few minutes of it today.
We do know the gist of its plot, which revolved around scientists’ investigations of UFO sightings in Arizona. Spielberg would build on Firelight’s themes with what became one of his most iconic alien films…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Now almost 50 years old, Close Encounters of the Third Kind has had a massive influence on science-fiction films through the following decades.
The plot follows Indiana truck driver Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) and single mother Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon). After both experience their own close encounters with the same UFO, Roy and Jillian find themselves mysteriously drawn to Devil’s Tower, Wyoming.
In a 1977 interview, Spielberg insisted that the story was not autobiographical, but instead inspired by other people’s alleged UFO experiences.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
E.T. has to be the most famous fictional alien (admittedly, we don’t personally know of any real-life ones) in history. He is also very much a product of Steven Spielberg’s childhood.
When his parents divorced, the young Steven coped by creating an imaginary friend who could provide him with the companionship he desperately needed. The adult Steven mined these bittersweet memories when directing the science fantasy E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.
Henry Thomas stars as the 10-year-old Elliott Taylor, who is shocked to come across an alien accidentally left behind on earth after a spaceship landing. Elliott forms a close bond with the creature and becomes determined to help him return home.
War of the Worlds (2005)
H. G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds has been adapted for the screen many times – not always successfully. The Victorian-era tale of earth coming under attack from large-scale alien invasion was transplanted to 21st-century America for the critically panned 2025 film version.
However, Steven Spielberg actually did that same trick a lot better two decades earlier. His take stars Tom Cruise as crane operator Ray Ferrier and a young Dakota Fanning as Ray’s daughter Rachel.
In sharp contrast to E.T., Spielberg’s later sci-fi efforts took on a much darker, even political tone. In his War of the Worlds, the crowd’s panic evoked the real-life public’s reaction to the September 11 attacks, still fresh in mid-Noughties cinemagoers’ minds.
Disclosure Day (2026)
Is this really the first Spielberg-directed alien film in more than two decades? Yes, unless you count 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which did use interdimensional (rather than intergalactic) extraterrestrials as a plot device.
Either way, Disclosure Day couldn’t be more timely. The Pentagon recently released ‘never-before-seen’ UFO files – and while they weren’t particularly revelatory, how would people have reacted if they were? Disclosure Day might just provide something of an insight.
This chase thriller stars Emily Blunt as a TV meteorologist who involuntarily starts speaking in an alien language during a live broadcast. Meanwhile, Josh O’Connor (famous for portraying the young Charles III in The Crown) plays a man determined to expose the truth about extraterrestrial life to the world.
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