Teacher Guide
Learning goals, teaching notes, and answer keys.
View Teacher NotesPaper & online answer keysE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Movie Guide
Choose the format that fits your classroom, then explore the film through focused questions and evidence.
About the Film
A child befriends a stranded visitor and works with his siblings to help him return home. Explore empathy, trust, communication, and the tension between care and control.
Movie at a Glance
- Release year
- 1982
- Genre
- Science-fiction family drama
- U.S. rating
- PG
- Runtime
- Approx. 115 minutes
- Director
- Steven Spielberg
- Screenplay
- Melissa Mathison
- Based on
- Original screenplay
- Music
- John Williams
- Featured cast
- Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Drew Barrymore & Robert MacNaughton
- Story setting
- A fictional early-1980s California suburb
Check your edition when planning class periods; cuts and playback speeds can change runtime.
Content to Preview
- A child and the visitor become seriously ill; an apparent death and medical intervention are distressing.
- Government pursuit, frightening protective suits, separation, and peril.
- Some profanity, insults, brief alcohol-related behavior, and family conflict.
Preview your edition, follow school viewing and permission policies, and provide an appropriate alternative assignment. Suggested grades 5–12 are Teach Arcade’s classroom recommendation, separate from the film’s U.S. rating.
Classroom Connections
Use scene evidence to explore the topics above. Pair historical portrayals with reliable sources, literary adaptations with their texts, and animated metaphors with appropriate factual context.
Film details, advisories & classroom context: Universal film details · Content advisory (spoilers)