First Contact!

Movies about "first contact" with aliens, both friendly and decidedly not.
Updated September 29, 2022
Unbound Librarians
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Close encounters of the third kind. [videorecording (DVD)]
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DVD
Steven Spielberg followed Jaws (1975), his first major box-office success, with this epic science fiction adventure about a disparate group of people who attempt to contact alien intelligence. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is an electrical lineman who, while sent out on emergency repairs, witnesses...
Released only two years after Jaws,Close Encounters cemented Steven Spielberg's reputation as a young director with talent and range.
Contact. [videorecording (DVD)]
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DVD
An astronomer discovers a signal from another planet and is chosen to go into space on a new spaceship and find its source.
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.
Super 8. [videorecording (DVD)]
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DVD
Writer/director J.J. Abrams teams with producer Steven Spielberg for this period sci-fi thriller set in the late '70s, and centering on a mysterious train crash in a small Ohio town. Summer, 1979: a group of young friends are filming a Super-8 movie when a pickup truck derails a speeding train. When...
J. J. Abrams' small-town, big-budget Super 8 feels like a Spielberg movie—in fact Spielberg co-produced—with themes of friendship, loss, and coming of age.
Signs. [videorecording (DVD)]
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DVD
Two brothers wake up one morning and find their dogs barking wildly, and one's children wandering in the corn fields. A mysterious pattern of crop circles have appeared overnight, and the men now must deal with unexplained events.
M. Night Shyamalan's charming but spooky masterpiece.
War of the worlds. [videorecording (DVD)]
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DVD
Spielberg brings Wells' iconic novel to New York City. Stars include Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning and Tim Robbin.
2001 : [videorecording (DVD)] a space odyssey.
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DVD
A space voyage to Jupiter erupts in disaster when the ship's computer goes mad. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
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.
Independence Day. [videorecording]
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VHS
Hostile aliens attack Earth as the 4th of July weekend approaches. The crew to save Earth is led by the President, a Marine pilot, and a computer scientist.
Aliens arrive, fireworks ensue.

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