Encountering ETs in the movies: friends and foes

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (EMI Films, Columbia Pictures).

A brief orbit around the contrasting ways cinema has portrayed extraterrestrials since the 1950s

It’s fascinating to look at how cinema, our most popular art form, has portrayed extraterrestrials over the decades, reflecting fears — and hopes — in the world at large.

My view is that any detailed discussion of intelligent non-human lifeforms, apart from…