E.T. (Extra Terrestrial) was the top grossing film of the 80’s.
The Steven Spielberg film, released in 1982, is the story of Elliot, a lonely boy who befriends a friendly alien, who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the alien return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.
E.T. learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie (played by Drew Barrymore in one of her early movies) says in response to her watching Sesame Street .
It enlists Elliott’s help in building a device to “phone home” by using a Speak & Spell toy, hence the infamous line repeated even to this day.
Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest on Halloween, where E.T. makes a successful call home. Again, something else synomonous with the film and the 80’s is the picture of them flying in front of the moon.
According to Wikipedia, after his parents’ divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion. Spielberg said that E.T. was “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore”. Hence the movie was born.