Matinee Monday : Contact (1997)

"We are not alone..." Two-time Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster and Hollywood's brightest new star, Matthew McConaughey, shine in this spellbinding drama of a dedicated astronomer's quest to make first Contact. Despite scorn from her colleagues, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (Foster--The Accused, The Silence of the Lambs) devoutly eavesdrops on the universe. And then, one fateful morning, she hears a cryptic signal. As the world's scientists scramble to decode "the message," Ellie must struggle to become Earth's single emissary on a journey beyond theory or experience. Seeking support, she turns to her only ally--and former lover - --religious scholar and top-level government advisor, Palmer Joss (McConaughey--A Time to Kill). Separated by very different beliefs, they reunite in their passion for knowledge and truth. From Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sagan's best-seller comes the story of a visionary scientist's unshakable conviction that somewhere in this boundless universe an intelligence yearns for Contact.