History Film / CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind

This film is one of only two in Spielberg's entire career for which he wrote the screenplay as well as directed, the other being ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence''. The original version was released in 1977; a "Special Edition" ReCut was released in 1980 after Spielberg had proven he was a serious director. (There had been ExecutiveMeddling with the cut of the original, though entirely justified as the studio was going bankrupt and production had to be hastened.) Spielberg re-edited the film yet again for a "Collector's Edition" in 1998. All three cuts were included in the film's Blu-ray release in 2007, along with a new interview with Spielberg explaining the editing.

* AntiVillain:
** Ronnie Neary is pretty bitchy and close-minded, but her only real goal is to do what's best for her family.
** Also, the government investigators seem sinister and dangerous [[spoiler:but they're trying to make First Contact without making things more complicated]].
* AppealToForce: The aliens abduct men, women and children in the 1940s then return them, unaged, 30-40 years later. This isn't exactly nice, but with that display of the mothership at the end no one really wants to pick a fight on the issue of Earth's rights and jurisdiction in the matter.

* AliensInCardiff: The aliens are first spotted in the small town of Muncie, Indiana.

** The mothership has an [[Franchise/StarWars R2D2]] attached to its underside.
** The ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' (1975) theme can be heard played by the mothership when the mother ship is communicating with the base at the end of the movie, right before the release of the humans.
** Among other things, including a mini graveyard and a VW van. The model, which is about the size of a large wedding cake, now resides in a glass case at the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-Hazy_Center Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center,]] an annex of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, located in Dulles, Virginia. Definitely worth a look if you're in the neighborhood.

* HopeSpot: After a family blowup over it, Neary decides to give up on his obsession. He takes down the UFO articles and starts dismantling the clay mountain replica he was building. However, when he rips off the top, [[SelfFulfillingProphecy he inadvertantly makes it look like the real-world mountain it's supposed to]]. In the next scene, he's chucking dirt into his house to make a bigger mountain.

* AdultFear:
** Jillian lives in an isolated farmhouse with her only child, who she ends up trying and ultimately failing to protect from the aliens who want him for unknown reasons. Anyone who has had a child kidnapped or gone missing can immediately relate to her devastation from the event.
** Ronnie, while not the most supportive spouse a person could ask for, is understandably lost and upset when her husband simultaneously loses his job (the only means they had for supporting themselves and three children) and begins suffering an apparent mental breakdown.

** ''Film/TheTenCommandments'', ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'', and ''WesternAnimation/DuckDodgersInTheTwentyFourthAndAHalfCentury'' are all seen on the Neary family TV set at various points.

One of only two films in Steven Spielberg's entire career for which he wrote the screenplay as well as directed, the other being ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence''. The original version was released in 1977; a "Special Edition" ReCut was released in 1980 after Spielberg had proven he was a serious director. (There had been ExecutiveMeddling with the cut of the original, though entirely justified as the studio was going bankrupt and production had to be hastened.) Spielberg re-edited the film yet again for a "Collector's Edition" in 1998. All three cuts were included in the film's Blu-ray release in 2007, along with a new interview with Spielberg explaining the editing.

After a series of bizarre incidents where long-lost ships and aircraft begin reappearing in very unusual places around the world, a wide swath of the state of Indiana is buzzed by a very flashy troupe of [=UFOs=]. One of the many witnesses to this flyby is power-company employee Roy Neary (Creator/RichardDreyfuss). Following the event, Neary is inflicted with visions of a distinctive-looking mountain. His family life quickly falls apart, and his wife Ronnie (Creator/TeriGarr) leaves him. He eventually learns that what he has been seeing and obsessively sculpting is the Devil's Tower rock formation in Wyoming. He meets fellow witness Jillian Guiler (Creator/MelindaDillon), a widowed mother desperately seeking her young son Barry, who has been carried away by the [=UFOs=]. They attempt to reach the Tower, even as the U.S. government, well aware of what is happening, concocts a biohazard scare involving the derailment of a train carrying nerve gas and places a military cordon around the site...

''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 science fiction film[[note]]Spielberg insisted it was "science fact"[[/note]] written and directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg, with special effects by Creator/DouglasTrumbull.

''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 science fiction film[[note]]Spielberg insisted it was "science fact"[[/note]] written and directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg.

* RecycledSoundtrack: The ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' (1975) theme can be heard when the mother ship is communicating with the base at the end of the movie, right before the release of the humans.

After a series of bizarre incidents where long-lost ships and aircraft begin reappearing in very unusual places around the world, a wide swath of the state of Indiana is buzzed by a very flashy troupe of [=UFOs=]. One of the many witnesses to this flyby is power-company employee Roy Neary (Creator/RichardDreyfuss). Following the event, Neary is inflicted with visions of a distinctive-looking mountain. His family life quickly falls apart, and his wife Ronnie (Creator/TeriGarr) leaves him. He eventually learns that what he has been seeing and obsessively sculpting is the Devil's Tower rock formation in Wyoming. He meets fellow witness Jillian Guiler (Creator/MelindaDillon) a mother desperately seeking her young son Barry, who has been carried away by the [=UFOs=]. They attempt to reach the Tower, even as the U.S. government, well aware of what is happening, concocts a biohazard scare involving the derailment of a train carrying nerve gas and places a military cordon around the site...

* AffectionateParody: 1982's ''[[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080544/reference Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind]]''
** The ProfessionalWrestling promotion Wrestling/ExcellenceProfessionalWrestling titled its May 12, 2018 event ''Close Encounters of the Feline Kind''.

* TheGreys: The extraterrestrials were physically modeled after real-life accounts of alien abductions. This is one of the first times they were actually used in cinema, the first having been in 1956's ''Film/EarthVsTheFlyingSaucers''. Also an UnbuiltTrope, as Spielberg deliberately gave the Grays different heights, intending to show that their species had the same kind of diversity as ours. Most abduction accounts and subsequent fiction describe the Grays as all identical. The initial tall alien was a marionette. It was impossible to completely film it without the strings showing except in the shots visible in the movie, which is why you only see it the once. The other aliens at the end were played all played by young girls, Spielberg felt that "girls move more gracefully than boys."

** There's a brief shot in the Special Edition which shows the wreck of the Cotopaxi, a ship that disappeared in the BermudaTriangle, in the Gobi Desert.

* {{Expy}}: Lacombe is based on RealLife French [=UFOlogist=] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vallee Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e]].

* {{Expy}}: Lacombe is based on RealLife French [=UFOlogist=] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e Jacques Vallee]].

* {{Expy}}: Lacombe is based on RealLife French [=UFOlogist=] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e]].

* {{Expy}}: Lacombe is based on RealLife French [=UFOlogist=] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e Jacques Vallée]].