E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Steven Spielberg's family sci-fi film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) follows a boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) and a small alien stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings try to help the alien return home while hiding him from his mother and government authorities. Six-year-old Drew Barrymore played Elliott's younger sister.

The film was inspired by an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960. Twenty years later, he developed the story with screenwriter Melissa Mathison, drawing from the abandoned project Night Skies. The film was shot in an unconventional chronological order to help the young actors deliver convincing emotional performances.

Distributed by Universal Pictures, it became a box-office phenomenon - surpassing Star Wars and becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until 1993, when Spielberg's Jurassic Park took the top spot. Rotten Tomatoes ranks it as the greatest sci-fi film ever made.