Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind arrived in 1977, the same year as Star Wars, and offered a completely different vision of what science fiction could be. Where George Lucas built a space opera, Spielberg made a film about ordinary people responding to something they can’t explain. Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, a power company lineman in Indiana whose close encounter with a UFO sets off an obsession that consumes his life and tears apart his family. The film was a massive commercial success and earned Spielberg his first Best Director nomination.

The film’s standing in the science fiction genre has only grown stronger over the decades. Its depiction of alien contact as a source of wonder rather than terror set it apart from nearly everything that came before, and its influence on how filmmakers approach the subject is difficult to overstate. Audiences continue to respond to its central proposition: that humanity’s first meeting with extraterrestrial intelligence could be beautiful.

Wonder, Music, and the Devil’s Tower Sequence

The final act of Close Encounters is one of the most celebrated sequences in cinema history. The arrival at Devil’s Tower, the communication through music and light between humans and the alien visitors, and the sheer scale of what Spielberg puts on screen create a sense of awe that very few films have matched. Spielberg builds to it with extraordinary patience, letting the tension and mystery accumulate over nearly two hours before delivering a payoff that justifies every minute of waiting. The five-note musical phrase that becomes the language of first contact is one of the most recognizable motifs in film.

John Williams’ score is essential to everything the film achieves. The music doesn’t just accompany the wonder on screen, it generates much of it. Williams moves between the domestic and the cosmic with a fluency that mirrors the film’s own tonal range, grounding Roy’s family scenes in something warm and familiar before lifting the extraterrestrial sequences into territory that feels transcendent. The collaboration between Spielberg and Williams was still in its early stages here, and the level of trust between them is already remarkable.

Spielberg’s direction of the encounter sequences demonstrates a filmmaker who understood that restraint creates more wonder than spectacle. The early sightings are fragmented, ambiguous, experienced through the confusion of people who don’t know what’s happening to them. The lights in the sky. The vibrating road. The household objects moving on their own. By the time the full reveal comes, Spielberg has earned it by making the audience as desperate to see what Roy sees as Roy himself is.

Richard Dreyfuss brings a frantic, almost manic energy to Roy that makes the character compelling and deeply human. Roy’s obsession is not romantic or noble. It’s something that frightens him as much as it drives him, and Dreyfuss lets you see both the exhilaration and the terror of being unable to stop. The famous mashed potatoes scene, where Roy unconsciously sculpts the shape that’s been planted in his mind, captures something primal about the way an idea can take hold of a person and refuse to let go.

The Family Left Behind

The most persistent criticism of Close Encounters centers on Roy’s abandonment of his family. Roy’s wife Ronnie, played by Teri Garr, and their children are left behind as his obsession intensifies, and the film treats this departure as a necessary step on Roy’s journey toward something larger. For many viewers, this sits uncomfortably. The film asks you to feel joy at Roy’s departure aboard the mothership while knowing that he’s leaving three children and a wife who’s already been through an ordeal. Spielberg himself has acknowledged this tension, saying fatherhood changed how he viewed the ending.

The pacing in the first half can feel uneven. Spielberg juggles multiple storylines, including a subplot involving the French scientist Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) and a separate thread in India, that don’t always connect smoothly to Roy’s personal story. The global scope is important thematically, showing that the contact phenomenon is worldwide, but some of these detours slow the momentum of what is fundamentally a personal story about one man’s transformation.

Teri Garr’s Ronnie is underwritten by the script’s design. She exists primarily to represent what Roy is leaving behind, and while Garr brings real frustration and pain to the role, the character is never given the depth that would make Roy’s choice feel as weighty as it should. The film’s sympathies are so clearly with Roy’s journey toward the unknown that the people who can’t follow him there become obstacles rather than fully realized people.

The multiple versions of the film, including the original theatrical cut, the 1980 Special Edition, and the 1998 Director’s Cut, can create confusion about which version to watch. Each has its advocates, and the differences are meaningful enough that the choice matters, particularly regarding whether audiences see the interior of the mothership.

Obsession as the Price of Transcendence

Close Encounters asks a question that it doesn’t fully answer: is the wonder worth the cost? Roy gains something extraordinary by following his vision to its conclusion, but he loses everything ordinary along the way. Spielberg frames the finale as a moment of pure beauty and connection, but there’s an undertow of sadness to it that gets more noticeable with each viewing. Roy gets to touch the infinite. His kids get a missing father. The film’s refusal to reconcile these two things is what makes it more interesting than a simple story about the magic of first contact.

Should You Watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

If you’re drawn to science fiction that prioritizes wonder and human emotion over action and spectacle, Close Encounters is one of the genre’s essential works. It’s a film that rewards patience and rewards even more on repeat viewings, when the foreshadowing and emotional architecture become clearer. Anyone interested in Spielberg’s filmography should consider it required viewing alongside his later sci-fi work.

Skip it if you need your science fiction to move at a steady clip, or if a protagonist who abandons his family is going to be an immovable obstacle for you. The film is aware of the moral complexity of Roy’s choice but ultimately celebrates it, and that framing either works for you or it doesn’t.

The Verdict on Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind remains one of the most optimistic science fiction films ever made, and Spielberg’s vision of first contact as an act of wonder rather than war still feels radical. Richard Dreyfuss gives a performance that’s both magnetic and unsettling, and the final sequence at Devil’s Tower is filmmaking at its most awe-inspiring. The human cost of Roy’s obsession complicates what could have been a simple feel-good story, and that tension is what gives the film its lasting depth.