Steven Spielberg is a believer. His article of faith: We are not alone in the universe. His films about humanity encountering extraterrestrial life all have a distinctly spiritual flavor: “E.T.” (1982) is full of wonder and miracles; “War of the Worlds” (2005) is rife with religious terror; and in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008) the lines between aliens and gods blur. His first film on the subject, and still his most powerful statement, was “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), which reinterprets St. Paul on the road to Damascus as a family man who has a stunning, inexplicable encounter with a U.F.O.

Spielberg’s new film, “Disclosure Day,” is his ultimate testimony. Written by his frequent collaborator David Koepp based on a story by Spielberg, “Disclosure Day” is most interested in the existential shockwaves that the revelation of alien life would have on humanity’s sense of meaning. How would that revelation shake our sense of ourselves and our place in the natural order? What ripples would it send through religious faith? As the film ponders these questions, it also takes on the decline in American empathy and trust in our institutions. If our society’s foundational beliefs are challenged, will it all fall apart? Or will it open the way to something new?

This is the dilemma facing Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a cybersecurity technician for Wardex, a shady corporation with close ties to the defense industry. When he finds evidence that Wardex has covered up proof of aliens—and, even worse, has imprisoned and experimented on them—he steals decades of incriminating footage and goes on the run. Pursued by the cold-blooded Scanlon (Colin Firth) and guided by Hugo (Colman Domingo), another Wardex defector, he needs to keep the evidence safe until it can be released to the public on a planned Disclosure Day.

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Meanwhile, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a TV weather reporter, suddenly discovers that she can speak a multitude of languages and, seemingly, read people’s minds. She and Daniel share a mysterious connection, including a strange gap in their childhood memories. They must find each other and uncover their buried pasts before Disclosure Day arrives.

Personally, I believe there is no better time to be a movie lover than when Spielberg has a new summer release. The onetime industry-shaking “movie brat” has long since become Hollywood’s elder statesman, but time has not dulled his talents. Few filmmakers understand the camera as a storytelling device like Spielberg does; combined with his preternatural talent for blocking (a lost art in most modern blockbusters), each shot tells a story and delivers an emotional wallop. 

In an age of flat, confusing C.G.I. action scenes, Spielberg’s are thrilling master classes in mood and visual clarity. He knows how to bring you right to the edge of your seat, whether in a raucous chase involving a car stuck to a speeding train or a quiet, gripping sequence in which Scanlon uses alien technology to invade another character’s mind. Some of the sci-fi mechanics and narrative shortcuts are a little hard to believe, especially as the film races to a frantic finale, but for the most part Spielberg balances bravura filmmaking with the story’s weightier concerns.

And how weighty they are. “Disclosure Day” reckons with two things sorely lacking in American society: institutional trust and empathy. The former, the film says, needs repair; the latter is our only way forward as a species. As Margaret’s psychic powers develop, she finds that she can reach the hearts of others, so often buried behind fear, anger or prejudice. Blunt’s performance is the lynchpin of the film, a dizzying balance of humor, vulnerability and verbal acrobatics. She becomes, somewhat unwillingly, the prophet of a new age of understanding.

Daniel, meanwhile, is a prophet of truth. (I suspect his name is a nod to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971—and whose story Spielberg dramatized in the 2017 film “The Post.”) His storyline also contains the film’s greatest tension: Is it always right to share the truth? The film plays out against the backdrop of looming war between America and North Korea; Daniel’s revelations threaten to make that situation even more precarious. How do you balance the good of the truth with its ability to cause harm?

In particular, the film wrestles with the impact Disclosure Day will have on religion. This perspective is embodied by Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), who goes from bystander to pivotal player in the conflict. Early on we (and Daniel) learn that she was once a novice nun at the Monastery of St. Clare of the Dawn (who, we learn, bilocated when she was too sick to attend Mass—similar to stories about the real St. Clare of Assisi). Jane lost her vocation but not her faith: She says that while she is no longer certain that God is “divine,” she still believes that God is “essential.” That statement is a little difficult to parse theologically (how could God not be divine but still be God?) but it expresses the heart of her argument: Human beings need to believe in something.

Jane fears that Disclosure Day will tear apart human systems of belief, leaving people without hope or moral guidance. “People have been raised to believe in a supreme being, and now you want to show us actual supreme beings?” she says. “The world can’t handle both.”

It is a compelling conflict on paper, although as a Catholic, I found it a little overblown. As many Catholics have observed—including Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J., former president of the Vatican Observatory—belief in extraterrestrial life can coincide quite easily with belief in God. During a U.F.O. news flurry a few years ago, Charles Camosy wrote for America: “Far from being a kind of backbreaker for religious faith, our becoming aware of the existence of other rational creatures in the cosmos would likely reinvigorate theological inquiry quite dramatically, and the church’s intellectual tradition on these questions would be brought to bear in exciting and important ways.” 

In the film, Jane’s former superior, Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel), expresses a similar sentiment. If anything, she says, it would almost be a waste to think that God created such a vast universe with only one spark of life. The idea of other lives, other civilizations out among the stars only increases our understanding of God’s grandeur.

“Disclosure Day,” clearly, is a film with a lot on its mind. While Koepp’s screenplay often sings (like Spielberg, he’s one of the steadiest hands in the business), it is also too often declarative and obvious, overexplaining where brevity would be more powerful. But it’s refreshing to see a big, action-packed summer movie with anything on its mind, particularly when its goals are so noble. 

Ultimately, “Disclosure Day” is asking a more fundamental question than whether or not aliens exist, a question that strikes at the meaning of life itself. In a time of doubt and despair, isolation and polarization, Spielberg answers with the confidence of a true believer: We are not alone.