40 years ago this month saw the release of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – a film about a stranded alien, the boy called Elliott who discovers it and a bond of friendship that remains as magical and heartbreaking as it did back in 1982.
We think of Spielberg movies today as thrilling roller-coaster rides, full of sharks, dinosaurs and swashbuckling archaeologists. Yet for me, E.T. remains Spielberg’s most exhilarating work: a deep meditation on loneliness, friendship and growing up in small-town America.
