Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Roy Neary is an electrical lineman in Indiana whose life changes after a nighttime encounter with unidentified flying objects. Power failures, malfunctioning appliances and unexplained lights in the sky draw the attention of scientists and ordinary people alike, and Roy becomes fixated on a remote landmark he cannot explain or forget. His obsession strains his marriage to Ronnie and distances him from his children, while Jillian Guiler, a woman whose young son has been affected by the same phenomena, becomes an ally. A team of international researchers led by Claude Lacombe works to understand the sightings and the strange compulsion that draws certain people toward a single location.

Steven Spielberg directed and co-wrote the film with Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, following Jaws and preceding 1941; it is the sixth of the forty films he has directed in chronological order. Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy, with François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon and Bob Balaban in supporting roles. The production, backed by Columbia Pictures and EMI Films, cost about 20 million dollars and returned roughly 307 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.6 from 232,000 votes and on TMDB 7.4 from 4,853 votes, while a critics' rating of 9.2 from 116 reviews places critical appraisal noticeably higher than general audience scores.