Trivia: The girl kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene is none other than former playmate and baywatch star Erika Eleniak!

Spielberg's most personal film and probably his best. This has stood the test of time and remains a classic film. There are not as many of Spielberg's directorial flourishes here but the decision to shoot from the POV of the children is inspired and certain shots stay with you - the silhouette of the bike passing by the moon of course is now iconic. John Williams at this stage of his career was rolling out classic scores one after the other and here he creates a piece of music so good, Spielberg decided to edit the final sequence to the music. But it's the children and their performances that make or break this film and while the core trio are all very good, Henry Thomas delivers probably the greatest performance by a child actor to date, completely sells the relationship between Elliott and ET, and provides the emotional backbone to the film that makes it so appealing.

Watched with my wife, the 7th grader, and the kindergartner. I only kind of half watched... It's been a long week. I really wanted to check out my youngest's reactions. Watching this with my 5 y.o. involved answering a lot of questions, but she LOVED it: wide eyed amazement, tears at the appropriate places, and shouts of "YEAH!!!" during the bike scenes. Some of the animatronics are definitely dated, but it's weird seeing these older movies with kids so used to everything being CGI... Even my 7th grader said that some scenes seemed really realistic, which surprised me.

remind me to the Wall.E