National Film RegistryLibrary of Congress · Inducted 1994
“Written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Steven Spielberg, this film chronicles the relationship between a young boy (Henry Thomas) and a benevolent alien who is stranded on Earth and trying to find his way back to his home planet. The film's masterful blending of hopeful innocence with excitement and humor made it both a critical and popular success.”
Universal Pictures · Amblin Entertainment · 115 min
Box office
$792.9M worldwide on a $10.5M budget
Honors
Academy Awards — 4 wins, 9 nominationsGolden Globe Awards — 2 wins, 4 nominationsLos Angeles Film Critics Association — 2 winsBritish Academy Film Awards — 1 win, 8 nominationsAll 20 wins · 27 nominations on record
Academy Awards: Best Visual Effects
Academy Awards: Best Original Score
Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing
Academy Awards: Best Sound
Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture – Drama
Golden Globe Awards: Best Original Score
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Film
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Director
British Academy Film Awards: Best Original Music
Japan Academy Film Prize: Outstanding Foreign Language Film
David di Donatello: Best Foreign Director
National Board of Review: National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
Saturn Award: Best Special Effects
Saturn Award: Best Writing
Saturn Award: Best Science Fiction Film
Saturn Award: Best Music
Saturn Award: Best Classic Film DVD Release
National Society of Film Critics Award: Best Director
Boston Society of Film Critics Award: Best Director
Grammy Award: Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media
Scholarship
Named in the title of 28 peer-reviewed works
Examples
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial — 100 Science Fiction Films, 2013
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — A K Peters/CRC Press eBooks, 2010
E.T. the extra-terrestrial — Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter), 1982
Sources: Wikidata · Library of Congress · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
FILM NOTES
Released by Universal Pictures in 1982, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial became one of the defining motion pictures of its decade, holding the record for highest-grossing film of all time for over a decade after its debut. Directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Melissa Mathison, the film's story of a stranded alien and the boy who befriends him struck a chord with audiences worldwide, earning nine Academy Award nominations and cementing its place as a touchstone of American popular cinema.
This cell preserves a card marking the picture's opening, the frame that greets audiences before the story unfolds and sets the tone for what follows. Its pairing with Elliott and E.T. speaks to the heart of the film, the bond between a lonely boy and the visitor he shelters and comes to love. Title card cells are prized by collectors for marking a picture's very beginning, a fragment of celluloid that carried the first announcement of the story to theater audiences in 1982.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm colour optical theatrical release print of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge; spacing appears even and the punched corners look clean throughout the visible strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical soundtrack track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, with what appears to be a twin-track (stereo) variable-area configuration.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read key numbers or stock codes clearly.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight warm-neutral tint; the dye image reads as a rich, dense colour positive with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No splices, cue marks or prominent scratches are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to show the same title-card composition, consistent with a title or logo sequence from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Era check
A colour positive 35mm print with variable-area optical soundtrack is consistent with a theatrical release print from 1982, when optical stereo was the standard release format.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000062748
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
