Age of Disclosure includes interviews with former and present United States elected, military, and intelligence officials, along with ufologists, government associates, and fringe scientists who claim, in some cases for decades, that the U.S. government has been aware of alien life and retrieving their technology since 1947 if not before. Variety reported that according to director Farah, the "disclosure" concept in the films title refers to a hypothetical future time when governments would reveal to the public withheld information about aliens and UFOs, a pillar of some UFO conspiracy theories.[7]
Retired U.S. Army colonel and Northrop Grumman executive Karl Nell, along with members of the UAPTF, Travis S. Taylor and Mike Gold, describe experiences they say happened to them in the 2010s.[22][18]Garry Nolan, an academic who takes an interest in ufology, and Mike Flaherty, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer, discuss their allegations of biological effects linked to UFOs.[23][15][24] Former Air Force Lieutenant Robert Jacobs describes witnessing what he believed to be a UFO disabling a missile in 1964.[25] Retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas recalled an incident in 1967 where a missile system malfunction allegedly coincided with a UFO report.[26][25]
According to Farah, the film was produced in "secrecy", with minimal publicity, over three years.[7]
Release
The film was showcased at SXSW on March 9, 2025.[29] It released on November 21, 2025, on Amazon Prime[30] and had a limited, Oscar-qualifying release at theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.[31]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 30% of 10 critics' reviews are positive.[32] The audience "popcorn meter" rating is 93%, based on more than 500 user ratings.[33]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 45 out of 100, based on five critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[9]
Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg called the film a "sensationalistic wolf in understated sheep's clothing" and opined that "almost nothing in The Age of Disclosure is 'new,' per se" but that the quality of its production values set it apart from similar films of the genre and that "some viewers will happily celebrate the fantasy, when it looks this legitimate". Fienberg dismissed it as "a basic cable exploitation doc done up with a fancy gloss", in which "nothing is proven, and thus nothing can be refuted".[1] On Collider, Nate Richard wrote that "as we get further into the movie, the more ridiculous it gets", that it was "executed in the most bland way possible", and that "the pacing makes the movie feel like you're watching a college PowerPoint presentation". Richard's conclusion was that: "...the movie felt like it was made to be an echo chamber for those who already believe in UFOs. If the job of The Age of Disclosure was to convert skeptics, it failed."[34] According to The Guardian reviewer Adrian Horton, the film, while being "serious and sourced", "has drawn gasps and criticism" with claims both "provocative and controversial".[6] Writing for The New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg concluded of the film that "anyone who sits through its nearly two hours of unprovable claims is a chump".[35]
Responses
Participants
In a December 2, 2025 episode of Hannity, host Sean Hannity opened his interview [36] with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio with what he said was a "fun question", asking him about The Age of Disclosure. Rubio, who appeared in the film, said he was concerned that "some adversary, another country for example, has developed some asymmetric capability for surveillance or the like for which we are not prepared" citing examples of drones or hot air balloons. Regarding how closely information was held, Rubio said:
You had people that came forward to us – some of these people were navy pilots, admirals, generals, whatever, that would come forward and say that there were programs in the U.S. Government that not even presidents were made aware of.
Addressing the film's other interview subjects, Rubio said,[37]
We have people with very high jobs in the U.S. government that are either, A: liars, B: crazy, or C: telling the truth. And two of those three options are not good. I don't have the answers. I don't want to call them liars. I just don't have any independent way to verify the things they've said.
Jason Colavito, a researcher who has documented the connection between pseudoarchaeology and UFO beliefs, wrote that the film was like "an episode of Ancient Aliens with better production values... By the time the film is over, the viewer has seen no evidence that is new, no stories that had not been told many times before".[38]
In Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer criticized the film's reliance on anecdotes. Shermer compared the anecdotes featured in the film to claims about Bigfoot, saying, "If all you had were stories about what you saw, and maybe a couple of out-of-focus videos and grainy photographs, no one would believe you...and for good reason!".[11]
12Kurtz, Jefferey. "Another look at UFOs". CT Insider. Hearst Media Services Connecticut, LLC. Retrieved July 12, 2025. What sounds like a conspiracy fever dream is from a documentary, "The Age of Disclosure," which recently debuted at the SXSW Film Festival, in Austin, Texas
123Morfoot, Addie (November 24, 2025). "8 Reasons Aliens Exist and Have Visited Earth, According to 'The Age of Disclosure' Documentary". Variety. Archived from the original on December 9, 2025. 'I think it's only a matter of time before the release of this film is followed by a sitting president stepping to the podium and telling the world, 'We're not alone in the universe,' the director told Entertainment Weekly. 'It's the most significant moment a leader could possibly have.'
123Carey, Matthew (December 8, 2025). "Oscar-Contending Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Doc 'The Age Of Disclosure' Becomes VOD Phenomenon, Outperforming 'One Battle After Another' & More". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on December 9, 2025. The Age of Disclosure, Dan Farah's explosive documentary that makes a potent case for the existence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena and the U.S. government's alleged efforts to conceal that knowledge, is off to a tremendous start on VOD, boosting the film's underdog bid for Oscar recognition. Within 48 hours of the film's release on Prime Video, it broke that platform's record for highest-grossing documentary, producers tell Deadline, surpassing the mark set by Oscar winner Free Solo.
12Barlow, Rich. "New Film The Age of Disclosure Alleges Government Cover-Up of UFOs, but BU Expert Is Skeptical". BU Today. Boston University. Retrieved July 9, 2025. Joshua Semeter (ENG'92,'97), a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Boston University's College of Engineering, says there has been investigation — and he knows. He served on a 2023 NASA panel that studied the evidence for UAPs, including classified congressional testimony by David Grusch, a former Air Force and intelligence officer...[Semeter:] All the evidence I have seen is now in the public domain and has been highlighted in multiple documentaries.
↑Pigliucci, Massimo (2010). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN9780226667867. Retrieved December 5, 2025. Harold Puthoff is the director of Austin's Institute for Advanced Studies, but is also a well-known parapsychologist and conducts research on so-called zero point energy, the idea that one can extract energy from empty space—a proposition, I should add, that violates basic principles of thermodynamics and that is considered pseudoscience by credentialed physicists.
↑Cooper, Helene; Blumenthal, Ralph; Kean, Leslie (December 16, 2017). "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. 'We're sort of in the position of what would happen if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a garage-door opener,' said Harold E. Puthoff, an engineer who has conducted research on extrasensory perception for the C.I.A. and later worked as a contractor for the program.
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