Too many fans seem to be blown away

Best movie ever!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie is overrated ... surely very well made and still worth watching "for entertainment purposes only!" even today because of its good (but not exceptional) cinematography ... but too overrated no matter what ... yes, a few fine scenes and even maybe a lot of calculated government-approved subversive messages too, but that's about it all ... have seen much better entertaining movies of this director (The Jurassic series for example) and this one barely cuts it even half as much ...

I hate to say it, I swear I'm not a contrarian, but Close Encounters is a mess. The film reeks of a young, overconfident Spielberg coming off the success of his masterpiece, Jaws, and directing his own screenplay, but afraid of editing himself down because he was in love with his script. And a solid idea his film's plot is, filled with interesting characters, an eerie yet hopeful take on alien life. Unfortunately, his film gets bogged down in the final third. Richard Dreyfuss is charming as ever, and his humor hits regularly, Melinda Dillon is also hugely watchable, and the soundtrack is incredible, one of the all-time greats, but a lot of what is setup is never paid off. Dreyfuss' family life is heavily focused on in the first two acts, but the film seems selfish, with Dreyfuss and the film abandoning his children and wife for a fantastical ending that just doesn't want to end, and plays the audience a little too long. It at times feels like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in how it's so in love with it's giant ships and epic scale, but the humans get waysided by the spectacle. The ending is awe-inspiring, in fits, but overstays it's welcome, with a cynical character decision in the end, that left me angry and dumbfounded. This film is a complete mess, but it's a beautifully directed one, with an incredible score, and some great performances, and it should be appreciated for those reasons alone. It's worth a watch, and maybe it will connect with you more, but for me it seemed like 1977 Spielberg needed to be humbled, which seemed to have happened with his film 1941, with bombed, and brought him back down to Earth.

An enchanting film with great special effects, yet I feel reluctant to regard the aliens as peaceful and awe-inspiring since they do abduct people, even children - and it is also hard to accept the protagonist's selfish decision at the end without any concern for his family.

Whenever i came around a list of greatest sci-fi films of all time,most of the time i saw this movie mentioned in the list. Reviews of this film are also very great be it on RT,IMDb or Metacritic so i thought to watch this movie but lo,the movie turned out be something which intended to tell so much but turned out be too less.The religious themes of the film derails the film from its itinerary. Too many unanswered questioned also vexed me a lot. Character development is almost good. The way aliens are shown in the movie is good but at the same time their eerie behavior made no sense.The screenplay was good in parts. Mystery created around the UFO sighting was pretty good but considering the tone of the movie, climax made no sense at all. The movie started off really well but the end product sounded half-baked. Richard Dreyfuss over-the-top antics didn't work well. Teri Garr is good but had nothing much to do.Melinda Dillon was there only for crying and making sad faces. Visuals are breathtaking. Even for today's standard it looks pretty cool. Background score is good. So is cinematography.Direction is not up to the mark. I think Mr. Spielberg got muddled about the course of the narrative.It is the most overrated film in Steven Spielberg's filmography. Its way beyond my apprehension as how this film is termed as the greatest in its league.