This is a perfect example of Spielberg’s gift for taking the totally bizarre, mixing it liberally with the everyday and mundane and to produce a quite acceptable and believable situation. From the start of the film, the viewer is slowly conditioned by the surroundings; familiar sights, sounds, brand names, language, and relationships. Strange little occurrences are introduced inviting new concepts that slowly develop and gain momentum until the idea of boarding the spacecraft not only seems believable - but the right thing to do. Lots of action but not an action packed thriller – this film, while not the most serious monk in the monestery, is much more thought provoking and features the apparently slowly dying art of character development. I’ve never been a big fan of the space alien genre - but as far as they go – this remains one of the best and brightest.

One of the first truly modern UFO movies, and Teri Garr was and so cute and adorable back then.

Choked Up Encounters of the Worst Kind. What a stupid movie....10 hours (seemingly) of build-up to hear aliens play a Casio. Of course, in the meantime, we did get to see the no-talent Richard Dreyfuss build a clay mountain in his living room. What classic cinema that was.