First Contact!

Movies about "first contact" with aliens, both friendly and decidedly not.
Updated September 29, 2022
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Arrival
Villeneuve, Denis
DVD
Based on Ted Chiang's 1998 short story "Story of Your Life," Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is a mind-bending journey into alien contact, human frailty, grief and comparative linguistics.
Contact [1997 film]
Robert Zemeckis
DVD
Based on Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name, Contact stars Jodie Foster as a driven radio astronomer and Matthew McConaughey as a conflicted spiritual advisor in a tense and thought-provoking exploration of human limitations and alien possibilities.
Independence day
Devlin, Dean.
DVD
Aliens arrive, fireworks ensue.
The War of the Worlds [1953 film]
Byron Haskin
DVD
Byron Haskin's 1955 film moves H. G. Wells' classic from London to small-town California. Special effects are primitive but terrifying.
2001: A Space Odyssey [1968 film]
Stanley Kubrick
DVD
Kubrick's imagining of Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel. Features first contact, malevolent artificial intelligence, and one of the most mind-bending ending in film.

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