2. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
The Plot: A young boy tends to a gentle alien which has found itself stranded on Earth. A secret at first, the extra-terrestrial soon becomes ill, resulting in government intervention and a desperate mission, on the boy's (Elliot) part, to help E.T. return home. The Subtext: Christianity. A kind of Close Encounters of the Third Kind for kids, Steven Speilberg's E.T. is doused in Christian imagery and parallels, from the film's poster, where E.T.'s and Elliot's outstretched fingers touch to invoke Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, to the character of E.T. himself, who clearly mirrors a Christlike figure in that he's a messiah from above with miraculous healing powers; one who has undergone death and resurrection and ascends to the heavens with a simple, moral wish: for Elliot to "be good". The actual plot also mirrors some aspects of Christianity, and while the religion is obviously far too broad for E.T. to be a concrete allegory of it, it remains that, in its spiritual intentions, the film is sincere, especially when you consider small moments which lend to the idea of it as a Christian text without distracting from the main narrative throughline, such as E.T. hiding amongst the stuffed animals in Elliot's closet - which mirrors, in a roundabout way, a barn, with the alien placed there because there was "no room at the inn" (so to speak) - or the fact that E.T. is found by a group of men who likely represent a multivalent symbol, a Magi-like group who find the saviour in the darkness he will seek to enlighten.