Disclosure Day, the new alien blockbuster from Steven Spielberg, has answered a question that movie fans have quietly worried about for years: does the father of the modern blockbuster still have a masterpiece left in him? The answer, happily, is a resounding yes. This is the best film Spielberg has made in nearly a quarter century.

The Question Hanging Over Spielberg

It started as a simple debate: what was the last truly great Spielberg movie? Not just a competent one, since he can deliver those in his sleep, but an all-timer worthy of standing beside “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.,” and “Schindler’s List.”

When a director has made not one but several of the greatest films ever, audiences come to expect greatness every time out. By that towering standard, many would argue Spielberg hadn’t truly reached the summit since “Catch Me If You Can,” his pitch-perfect caper from 2002. The uncomfortable follow-up question soon emerged: had Spielberg lost his touch?

With “Disclosure Day,” the worry can finally be put to rest. Spielberg is still very much Spielberg. Whether the film ages into an enduring classic is something only time can decide, but as a piece of filmmaking, it’s a genuine triumph.

Familiar Territory, Master at Work

The premise can be summed up in a single line: Spielberg has made another movie about extraterrestrials. And that’s really all you need to know.

This is the director operating squarely in his comfort zone. Alien stories play perfectly to his instincts, the wonder of the unknown, the comforting idea that we aren’t alone, and the recurring theme of kids wrestling with absent or complicated fathers. As long as you’re not watching “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” an alien tale is in safe hands with Spielberg.

The Story and Its Cast

At the center is Daniel Kellner, played by rising star Josh O’Connor, a low-level employee at a shadowy defense corporation. The film opens with him having stolen a precious object, and quite a bit more, from his menacing boss Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth at peak smarmy form. Scanlon wants his prize back and dispatches a fleet of black cars and underlings to retrieve it, blowing plenty of things up along the way.

Elsewhere, the story introduces a memorable ensemble:

• Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, a Kansas City weather presenter who, after a red cardinal flies into her apartment, suddenly reads minds, speaks fluent Korean, and blurts out alien sounds on live television.
• Colman Domingo as the one trustworthy figure Kellner can turn to, hiding out on a Midwest soundstage.
• Even a lapsed nun, played by Bono’s daughter, factors into the sprawling cast.

Blunt’s character begins having visions of Kellner and feels an irresistible pull to find him, despite having no idea where he is, while Kellner races to deliver his stolen extraterrestrial artifact to safety.

The Big Idea Behind the Chase

So where are the aliens in all this? It turns out Firth’s villain has been overseeing a government conspiracy, not only burying evidence of alien contact but also concealing footage of the U.S. government committing terrible acts against these beings and exploiting their resources for murky ends.

Kellner’s goal is twofold: make the government answer for its crimes and “disclose” every secret to the world on a single, dramatic day.

This is where Spielberg elevates the material. Plenty of films could stage a two-and-a-half-hour chase for some alien evidence, but Spielberg, credited with the screen story, uses the idea of a disclosure day to probe deeper questions:

• Can humanity handle such knowledge?
• Would people even believe it in an age of deepfakes?
• If the aliens are a superior life-form, might humans abandon their old religions and embrace them as a new god?

He keeps returning to these unanswerable questions throughout, while still finding room for lighter touches, including a brilliant comic bit about how surprisingly hard it is to run over your own cellphone with a car. That blend of weighty ideas and human detail gives the action far higher stakes than the average tentpole.

Action That Actually Lands

And the action delivers. A standout train crash sequence cleverly echoes the toy-train moment from Spielberg’s autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” a wink that rewards longtime fans.

More importantly, the film earns its tension. Many summer blockbusters claim the fate of humanity hangs in the balance; this one truly makes you feel it. By the time the climax arrives, viewers are as gripped by what’s unfolding as the characters themselves.

Not Quite Flawless

“Disclosure Day” isn’t perfect. For most of its runtime, Spielberg restrains his sentimental instincts, but eventually he gives in to a few of them.

Firth’s villain mourns his late wife. O’Connor and Blunt both ache for lost childhoods. A child actor wanders among friendly CGI creatures, ones a young viewer might mistake for AI, before stepping into a blindingly bright light. These flourishes are pure Spielberg. After all, “Jaws” was arguably his last truly unsentimental film, and that was fifty years ago.

The Verdict

Even with its softer moments, “Disclosure Day” stands tall. Spielberg reins in his cornier impulses about as well as he ever has and delivers not just one of the best movies of the summer, but his finest work in decades.

The old man, it turns out, still has it, and audiences are lucky to have him.