Cape May County Has a Starring Role in Spielberg’s New Film

The movie that the Hollywood press is talking about: Disclosure Day, the film that director Stephen Spielberg shot scenes for in Cape May County in March 2025, will finally hit theaters on Friday, June 12th.

Disclosure Day (PG-13), being teased by reviewers as "the kind of motion picture you just have to experience on its own terms and let unfold", is Stephen Spielberg's first sci-fi flick in eight years, and what one critic is calling his best film in 20 years.

The movie has a 91% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes.

Disclosure Day has a star-studded cast that includes Emily Blunt, whom Gizmodo, a science fiction website, praises, saying, "Blunt gives the performance of her career," as she plays a local Kansas City TV weather forecaster who experiences sudden, inexplicable neurological issues during the weather forecast.

Actor Josh O'Connor plays a brilliant cybersecurity expert who steals a massive trove of classified evidence proving extraterrestrial contact.

Somehow, the weather forecaster's mysterious neurological episodes and alien vocabulary perfectly align with Daniel's data, driving both across the country to collide.

Disclosure Day also stars Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Eve Hewson (Flora and Son), and Philadelphia native Colman Domingo (Sing Sing).

The dotplot for Disclosure Day teases,

“If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to 7 billion people. We are coming close to … Disclosure Day.”

Several reviews warn about disclosing too much about Disclosure Day ---  so I won't — and can't — because I haven't seen the movie yet.

But let's talk about Cape May County's role in the movie.

Cape May County Stars in Disclosure Day

In May 2024, when scenes for the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet, were shot in South Jersey, Cape May was used as a stand-in for Newport, Rhode Island, in scenes depicting the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Then, in early 2025, Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, who grew up in New Jersey and based his recent movie The Fabelmans in the state, brought his latest project to Cape May County.

Speilberg shot scenes in Upper Township, along the tracks where the Cape May Seashore Lines railroad passes Tuckahoe Train Station.

According to the film blog World of Reel, viewers said Blunt's character is involved in a "dramatic car-train crash escape", and that sounds like a match for Tuckahoe.

Locals were recruited to work as extras and drive their cars in the Cape May scenes. The movie created quite a buzz and economic boost, with local hotels housing the film crew, and actress Emily Blunt making a scene in Cape May City, eating dinner at Mia.

You go, Cape May!

Watch the movie's final trailer, below...