E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

The tale of a gentle extra-terrestrial feels as heartfelt as ever 40 years later — an apt prelude to Spielberg’s most personal work, The Fabelmans.

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Forty years before The Fabelmans — his upcoming semi-autobiographical film making its world premiere at TIFF in September — Steven Spielberg wove his feelings of helplessness and loneliness as a child of divorce into the fabric of this unique love story about a boy and his alien. Elliott Taylor (Henry Thomas), the neglected middle child of a recently uprooted California family, forges an unlikely friendship with a scared little alien hiding in the woods behind his house. Although E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial escalates into a fairly spectacular adventure, with government agents chasing our heroes through suburbia (an image that surely inspired the entirety of Stranger Things), there was a point when this movie seemed like a gamble. Hard to imagine now, especially with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark on its director’s résumé, but a sci-fi adventure with no stars, a gentle pace, and a central character created with animatronics and rubber suits was seen as truly risky… until people saw it and realized it was a modern classic. Four decades later, E.T. feels as heartfelt, as thrilling, and as real as ever. And now, it’s a prelude to the most personal work of Spielberg’s career.

NORM WILNER

Content advisory: brief coarse language, some scenes may be frightening for young children