Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

The title is taken directly from astronomer J. Allen Hynek's classification: a close encounter of the first kind is a nearby sighting, the second leaves physical traces, and the third involves seeing occupants^[1]. Spielberg deliberately avoided the invasion narrative, using light, music and an enormous mothership to stage contact as a near-religious meeting^[2]. Hynek himself has a cameo. The film all but defined the public image of the "benevolent alien" and the "glowing mothership" for decades.