Starman (1984)
It makes me happy whenever I discover a movie I haven’t heard about before with a premise that is right up my alley. A friendly alien that answers our call from Voyager and the follows a story not unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind with a cautious tale of savage violent humans symbolized by the militaristic government, and the peaceful misunderstood alien that befriends a lonely human.
It may be a bit clichéd and it is told in a very straight forward manner, with little ambiguity with regards to who to root for and where the moral message lies. It just works perfectly for what it is aiming for. Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen are both very convincing and you get to really like them as you follow them on their little road with half the military on their heels. It might not quite reach the level of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but still pretty damn good and a bit of an outlier for John Carpenter - while it does have a few of his signatures, far from his usual horror.
Rating: 4