The definitive version of Stephen Spielberg's sci-fi masterpiece is now free to stream

Saeed Wazir is a South Africa-based journalist with over 15 years of IT experience and a love for reading and writing. He joined Pocket-Lint after writing tech articles for Dot Esports and Screen Rant and now covers the latest in TV, streaming, laptops, tablets, and PCs. When he's not looking for the latest gadgets, he's relaxing on the beach or exploring open-world games.

The thing I love the most about sci-fi is that it includes all kinds of movies with wildly different types of stories and themes. I can watch movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day if I'm in the mood for a blockbuster action extravaganza, or check out Moon if I want to relax and see something more low-key and thoughtful. Some movies, like Event Horizon, blur the line between sci-fi and horror and deliver an equal amount of thrills and scares.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a slow-burn sci-fi classic directed by legendary director, Stephen Spielberg, while he was on one of the hottest movie runs of all time. It was released in 1977 and went on to make over $300 million off a 19 million budget.

It was also nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Director, Visual Effects, Supporting Actress, amongst others, and took home the Best Cinematography prize.

The Director's cut was released in 1998 and is just two minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. It's the closest to the director's original vision and combines elements from the earlier cuts into one definitive version.

Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, an electric utility lineman who sees a UFO one night while he's investigating the power outages in the area. He, along with other people who've seen it, start behaving erratically and have an uncontrollable urge to build a mountainous shape out of household objects.

Meanwhile, the UFO sightings are becoming more frequent and people start disappearing. Experts unravel part of the mystery which takes them to the Devil's Mountain in Wyoming. The army cordons off the area but can't stop the people who've been experiencing visions from reaching the mountain. They must discover the reason for their behavior and its link to the aliens, which seem intent on making contact with them.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Director's Cut is now free to stream on Youtube

You can now see Spielberg's classic sci-fi epic the way he envisioned it

You can see Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Director's Cut for free with ads here on YouTube. If you'd rather see it without ads you can buy or rent it from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango.

This film is also available in other formats for collectors and people who prefer physical media. You can find the Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD versions here on Amazon

You can stream other iconic sci-fi movies on YouTube this month

Watch these classics for free

Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi action movie starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The Earth is under siege by aliens, and the humans are making a huge counter-offensive to stop them. Tom Cruise's character, Major William Cage, has a chance encounter with an alien who gives him the power to cheat death. He must keep re-living the same day until he can solve the mystery of the aliens and beat them for good.

The Thing is a John Carpenter cult classic starring Kurt Russel. The premise is simple. A group of researchers in remote Antarctica must survive against an alien that can take anybody's form and is picking them off one-by-one.