Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Sun. May 5 2:00 PM | Sat. May 11 4:00 PM

Richard Dreyfuss stars as line worker Roy Neary, who along with several other stunned bystanders experience a close encounter of the first kind - witnessing UFOs soaring across the sky. After this life-changing event, he becomes obsessed with the inexplicable vision of a strange, mountain-like formation. Meanwhile, a lost aircraft from World War II and a military ship that disappeared decades earlier suddenly reappear in unusual places, bizarre occurrences indicative of close encounters of the second kind - physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. Ultimately, Roy and others are inexorably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen: a close encounter of the third kind.

The title of this 1977 Steven Spielberg film was derived by the director from astonomer J. Allen Hynek's classification system for close encounters with extraterrestrials. Hynek who worked with the United States Air Force on Project Blue Book and numerous other UFO studies over the years, was hired by Spielberg as a scientific consultant and makes has a cameo in the picture. Routinely rated among the top ten science fiction films of all time, Close Encounters of the Third Kind was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress in December 2007 and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

OMSI Members receive $3 off admission for this special screening; Member Empirical vouchers are not applicable.

Duration: 137 mins. | Rating: PG | Studio: Columbia Pictures