Readers’ favourite Steven Spielberg films

Readers wrote in about Spielberg films that have stayed with them, from first cinema trips to yearly comforts. Their choices range from early blockbusters to quieter, more personal work, with many recalling how the films shaped their curiosity and emotions. Andrea, 51, from Manchester, said ET was the first film she saw at the cinema, at the Bolton Odeon in 1982, and the first to make her sob on the way home.

She connected with its single-mum family rather than the perfect nuclear families common at the time, and still finds a few notes of John Williams’s score enough to bring tears. Rhea in Melbourne defends Hook as a beloved childhood comfort she now revisits annually, quoting lines and treasuring Robin Williams’s performance.

Scott Harrison, 54, from north Wales remembers being five and, after initially trembling, announcing that his “tummy had stopped shaking” during Close Encounters of the Third Kind; the film opened his imagination and made him want to look for wonder in the night sky.

steven spielberg, e.t, close encounters, hook, john williams, robin williams, bolton odeon, manchester, melbourne, north wales