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
Released by Universal Pictures in 1982, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial became one of Steven Spielberg's defining achievements and, for a time, the highest-grossing film ever made. Its story of a stranded alien befriended by a suburban boy struck a cultural nerve, blending science fiction with childhood wonder in a way few studio films had attempted. The picture earned widespread critical acclaim and multiple Academy Awards, cementing its place as a touchstone of American popular cinema and a defining work of Spielberg's career during the height of his creative partnership with Universal.
This cell preserves a title card moment, the on-screen naming of the film itself, a piece of film history collectors prize for marking the very threshold of the story. Alongside it appear Elliott Taylor and Elliott, the boy at the heart of the tale, and E.T., the visitor whose bond with him became one of cinema's most enduring images of friendship. Title card cells hold particular value for archivists, standing as the formal introduction to a film's identity, the frame where audience and story first meet.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm colour optical 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 edges appear clean with no torn or deformed holes visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical soundtrack track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, consistent with a mono or stereo optical print.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes or key numbers clearly.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight cyan-teal tint along the edges; the dye image reads as a warm, saturated colour positive with no obvious red shift or fading.
Projection history
Faint horizontal lines are visible across the frame area consistent with projection wear; no splices or cue marks are seen.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to show the same title-card composition, consistent with a title sequence from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Era check
The variable-area optical soundtrack, colour positive stock with cyan-tinted base, and perforation layout are all consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print from the early 1980s.
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 000062749
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
