Going almost back to the beginning of his career, Steven Spielberg has been a master at making great alien movies. Early in his career, he made two masterpieces, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Then there was a lull until he returned with War of the Worlds in 2005. He even slipped some aliens into one of his biggest franchises with 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Now Spielberg’s back with another one on the 2026 movie schedule, Disclosure Day. I thought this would be a great time to look back at Spielberg’s previous movies and think about how the latest one might stack up.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Spielberg’s first foray into the genre came very early in his career with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The movie was his follow-up to the huge hit that was Jaws, and the world was expecting a lot. He certainly delivered. The movie stars Richard Dreyfuss as Roy, a Midwestern electrical lineman who comes in contact with a UFO while investigating a widespread power outage.
Like so many of Spielberg’s films, Close Encounters was a massive hit when it was released in 1977, finishing third at the box office behind #2 Smokey and the Bandit and a mostly-forgotten film called… Star Wars. America was in the grip of sci-fi fever, and though Close Encounters is a much more personal movie than Star Wars, it scratched an only slightly different itch with its iconic scenes and heartfelt story. We’re almost 50 years removed from its release, and it still holds up remarkably well.
One interesting tidbit about the movie is that Dreyfuss was not Spielberg’s first choice for Roy. Initially, he tried to woo Steve McQueen to play the part, but McQueen turned him down, saying he wasn’t right for the role. Dreyfuss, meanwhile, lobbied for the part after working on Jaws with the director. Still, other big names had to say no before Spielberg agreed, including Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. It’s safe to say that in the end, Dreyfuss was the perfect choice all along.
Five years later, after having box office success with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, Spielberg came back to aliens with one of his best movies ever, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. If you weren’t around in 1982, just know that the movie was a complete pop culture phenomenon. It’s hard to explain just how huge E.T. was, except to say that when it was all said and done, it was the highest-grossing movie at the box office of all time. Between June 1982 and October 1982, E.T. was either #1 or #2 in the box office rankings.
By the time it finally closed, it had surpassed Star Wars as the all-time box office champion. It held the record for the next 11 years until it was surpassed by another Spielberg classic, Jurassic Park, in 1993. The movie has been released multiple times, adding to the total each time. It even caused profits to jump handsomely for Hershey’s with the inclusion of Reese’s Pieces. Spielberg had solidified his spot at or near the top of Hollywood’s all-time director’s list, a list he would be on even if it had been his last film. It wasn’t his last film, of course. It wasn’t even his last alien film.
Interestingly, the original idea for E.T. was for it to be a horror movie. Spielberg initially wrote a follow-up to Close Encounters called Night Skies. That project never really came together, but ideas from it would spawn not only E.T., but Poltergeist and Gremlins. To call that time in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s an artistically fruitful one for Spielberg is the ultimate understatement!
War Of The Worlds
More than two decades after E.T., after successes like the aforementioned Jurassic Park, along with seminal movies like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, and my favorite, Catch Me if You Can, among many others, Spielberg teamed up with Tom Cruise for 2005’s War of the Worlds. It was a brand new take on the classic story by sci-fi pioneer/author H. G. Wells.
Though War of the Worlds isn’t the cultural touchstone that E.T. has become, it was still a wildly successful movie, taking in more than $600 million at the box office that summer. If I’m honest, I’m still a little partial to the 1953 adaptation of the story, but that one certainly feels dated. And like most Spielberg movies, his version with Cruise does seem more timeless, looking back a couple of decades now.
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds certainly holds up better than the abomination of an adaptation that Amazon released last year, starring Ice Cube and his webcam (as the Razzies put it). That movie will always be bad. It’s incredible how timeless all of Spielberg’s movies are, except, perhaps, the final entry on this list.
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
You know, I almost hesitated to even include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on this list. Not just because it’s the worst entry in that iconic franchise by a mile, but because the aliens only make an appearance towards the tail end. As a child of the ‘70s who grew up in the ‘80s and came of age in the ‘90s, it pained me to see what had become of Indy and Spielberg with this one.
Honestly, I’ve only seen it once, and that was when it was first released in theaters in 2008. While I’ve tried a couple of times to revisit it, I just can’t. But there are technically aliens involved, so it had to be a part of this list. I’m at a loss here; I really don’t know what to say about it other than I hate it. It’s the only Steven Spielberg movie I never want to watch again (well, and Schindler’s List, but that’s because it’s almost too good at ripping out my heart).
We have no idea how good Disclosure Day will be, but given Spielberg’s track record, I am confident in predicting it will be leagues better than Crystal Skull. Of course, it’ll be a few more months before I can confirm that.