National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Universal Pictures released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in June 1982, directed by Steven Spielberg. The film became the highest-grossing release of its time and remains a defining work of the New Hollywood era, blending suburban family drama with science fiction in a way that reshaped popular cinema for the decade that followed.

This cell, titled Mary, captures a brief, warm moment featuring the character Mary in a tilted, intimately lit interior shot. The framing across the three frames shows her mid-laugh, with subtle shifts in expression from one frame to the next suggesting the natural flow of a single continuous take. Keys appears within the scene, grounding this quiet moment in the film's domestic emotional landscape.