‘Disclosure Day’ and 5 Other Steven Spielberg Alien Movies
Steven Spielberg has always had a fascination with aliens. Throughout his 50 years as a director, Spielberg has toyed with the notion that we aren’t alone in the universe and that aliens exist. Sometimes they’re kind and benevolent creatures; other times they’re extraterrestrial conquerors. No matter what, there’s always an air of mystery to them, which helps give a Spielberg alien movie a unique mood all of its own.
With Spielberg returning to sci-fi alien dramas with the release of Disclosure Day (2026), there’s an excitement that this may bring back the summer sci-fi blockbuster that helped make films like Independence Day (1996) cultural milestones. There’s a good chance that’ll happen since every time Spielberg has released an alien film, they go on to become one of the biggest movies of their release year. With many of these films now available on streaming services like Paramount+ and Prime Video, check out these five other films if you want to enjoy each of Spielberg’s alien movies after watching Disclosure Day.
For as long as there have been aliens, there have been conspiracy theorists who have said that the government has intentionally been hiding their existence from the public. Disclosure Day plays with that premise and says that, yes, the cover-up is real, and it’s far deeper than you think.
That makes Disclosure Day a different type of alien movie for Spielberg, one that feels more grounded but maintains the director’s sense of optimism that defined a lot of his earlier work. In many ways, it feels like a fusion between Spielberg’s ideologies with the wonder of Project: Hail Mary (2026) and the nuance of Arrival (2016).
Disclosure Day is a big movie with big ideas, and thanks to Emily Blunt’s magnificent performance that grounds the film, most of those themes come across masterfully. Even after all these years, Spielberg’s still got it, and Disclosure Day is a reminder that sci-fi epics can still succeed as summer blockbusters.
Spielberg’s first alien movie has a sense of grandeur and majesty to it that’s impossible to describe. There’s a lot of build-up to the reveal of the UFO, build-up that lasts for almost all of the film’s 135-minute runtime. However, when we finally see it, it’s magical.
It’s not hard to see why Close Encounters of the Third Kind became an iconic part of many millennials’ and Gen Xers’ upbringings. There can be some disturbing imagery here and there, but what pervades the film is just how hopeful the possibility of extraterrestrial life is. Here, the aliens aren’t out to conquer, but to establish peaceful interactions with humanity. In a world filled with so much cynicism and mistrust, the optimism of Close Encounters of the Third Kind is so appreciated.
By all accounts, this is one of the greatest alien movies of all time, right up there with Alien (1979), and thanks to the painstaking amount of detail that went into crafting the climax, it still stands up nearly 50 years later.
To say that E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a phenomenon would be an understatement. Even if you haven’t seen the film, you know about E.T. It’s one of those films that has become synonymous with movies in general, and it’s all thanks to E.T. himself.
He may look dumpy and dopey upon first glance, but his journey to get back home instantly won over audiences. Even with his limited dialogue, you feel for the little guy, as he interacts with everyday objects and pins to get back to his kind. It’s because of that that the climax works as well as it does. We, like Elliot and his siblings, grow attached to E.T.
After all of his struggles, we’re sad to see him go. We don’t want him to leave, but we know that he has to. It’s one of those perfect little childhood moments of growing up that helps make ’80s childhood classics work like The Goonies (1985) and The NeverEnding Story (1986), and it’s all through the lens of a little alien with a glowing finger and a love of Reeses.
Not all of Steven Spielberg’s alien movies will make you feel warm and fuzzy. Some will absolutely scare you to death with panic and fear, and that’s exactly what makes War of the Worlds so good.
Other adaptations of H.G. Well’s original novel all tried to sell what an alien invasion would look like if it actually happened, but Spielberg’s interpretation of the novel was arguably the most brutal. The devastation on display is grim and paints an apocalyptic picture of the end of the world. People are vaporized, crushed, and harvested by invaders that most certainly do not come in peace, and moments in its nearly two-hour runtime can be positively brutal.
It’s a somewhat unique departure for Spielberg, who usually likes to present aliens in a more positive light, instead of feeling like a sci-fi take on his own war epic, Saving Private Ryan (1998). It’s bleak, and certainly not as inviting as E.T., but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.
Everybody tends to forget that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has aliens in it. I know I did when making this list, but it just goes to show that this film really wasn’t afraid to experiment and be the weirdest entry in the series, for better or worse.
That’s not to say the presence of aliens isn’t totally out of left field. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and every entry in the series, for that matter, are all based on pulp adventure comic strips, which would occasionally feature some prominent sci-fi themes. But for a then trilogy of films that delved more into fantasy than sci-fi, basing an entire Indiana Jones movie around an alien mummy and concluding with a transdimensional alien being was a bit much for audiences.
For the longest time, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the textbook definition of a film franchise that jumped the shark. Some people can enjoy it in the same way as movies like National Treasure (2004), but it’s the one Spielberg alien movie that didn’t really need to be about aliens.
Did Steven Spielberg direct any of the Men in Black films? No, but he served as an executive producer for every entry in the franchise, oversaw the script writing process for the first film, and directly helped in early casting. In my book, that makes it his brainchild just as much as Barry Sonnenfeld’s.
Men in Black is the textbook definition of a feel-good summer movie. There’s plenty of silly action set pieces, Will Smith quipping like there’s no tomorrow, fun celebrity cameos (including one from Spielberg himself as an alien!), and a short and breezy 98-minute runtime, which makes it perfect for easy family viewing. Aliens are secretly living amongst us, and while some can be gross and frightening, others are quirky and friendly.
Men in Black is fun in its purest and simplest form. The later films tend to be a bit more serious and lose some of that self-awareness the original exuded with ease. However, all four of the Men in Black movies still manage to mix sci-fi and action together into a package that will surely please anyone.
