November 16, 1977
Sci Fi
Universally considered the best film ever made about alien visitation to Earth, Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning for Best Cinematography. Power repairman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has an extraordinary encounter with a strange spacecraft while out on a call. Recurring visions of a mountain fuel an increasing obsession that drives him to an emotional breaking point. Desperate to understand what he has experienced, he finds an ally in Jillian (Melinda Dillon), a single mother who believes her son has been abducted by the aliens. Meanwhile an international group of scientists led by French expert Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) search for a breakthrough in human-alien communication. Their collective quest culminates in a remote Wyoming rendezvous and an event of unequalled importance in all of human history.