National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Universal Pictures released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in June 1982, with Steven Spielberg directing at the height of his commercial and artistic powers. The film became the highest-grossing release of its time, displacing Star Wars, and remains a defining work of the New Hollywood era — a science fiction film built not on spectacle alone but on genuine emotional intimacy between a child and an alien stranded far from home.

This cell, titled E.T., presents three consecutive frames from a low-angle close-up of E.T. himself, shot outdoors near a building exterior with utility lines crossing a pale sky above him. The repeating frames capture a single suspended moment, the camera looking up at E.T. with the quiet reverence the film consistently extended to its central figure.