5 War of the Worlds Movies Ranked

(Photo by Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection. WAR OF THE WORLDS.)

H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds has been a steady source of inspiration and adaptation, a novel published in 1898 that we’ve carried through the centuries on the treads of its wide-scale alien terror, grueling counterattack chase against the skyscraper-tall invaders, and, bubbling just beneath its words, allegory for the destructive clawing shadow of colonial empires.

The book being public domain also helps.

Though written by the British Wells during the Victorian era, War of the Worlds has burrowed deeply into American culture, now a piece of the paranoid fabric. It all began on 1939, when Orson Welles became a broadcast legend with a realistic radio dramatization that genuinely duped people listening, whose number grows with each passing year.

In the early 1950s, the race was on to become the first sci-fi movie ever released. The sprinters: George Pal’s production of The War of the Worlds and 20th Century Fox’s Invaders From Mars. Though it was a photo finish, Mars rushed production and coalition of men in green velvet suits was no match against World’s apocalyptic mood, ominous spacecraft design, and warfare special effects.

In 2005, Steven Spielberg had Tom Cruise running for his terrestrial life in a $132-million adaptation. (This was sniped at by Asylum’s first mockbuster, H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, where they at least they credited their work.) If Spielberg’s War is looked upon as a third piece connecting to the earlier A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, they link as an exploratory vision of pre and post-9/11 anxieties.

And in 2025, we have, entirely against our will, the COVID-shot War of the Worlds, a screenlife Amazon infomercial about delivery drones and remote-spying on your daughter’s muffin intake, all to rise to the burning days of our techno-feudal dystopia. It stars Ice Cube. (Alex Vo)

#1

War of the Worlds

(2005)

76%
42%

#1

Critics Consensus: Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of War of the Worlds delivers on the thrill and paranoia of H.G. Wells’ classic novel while impressively updating the action and effects for modern audiences.

Synopsis: Dockworker Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) struggles to build a positive relationship with his two children, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie [More]

Starring:
Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Justin Chatwin

Directed By:
Steven Spielberg

#2

The War of the Worlds

(1953)

89%
71%

#2

Critics Consensus: Though it’s dated in spots, The War of the Worlds retains an unnerving power, updating H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi tale to the Cold War era and featuring some of the best special effects of any 1950s film.

Synopsis: Scientist Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) and Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson) are the first to arrive at the site of [More]

Starring:
Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Lewis Martin

Directed By:
Byron Haskin

#3

H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds

(2005)

60%
30%

#3

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Astronomer George Herbert (C. Thomas Howell) is assigned to investigate reports of strange meteors crashing into earth near New York, [More]

Starring:
C. Thomas Howell, Rhett Giles, Andrew Lauer, Tinarie Van Wyk-Loots

Directed By:
David Michael Latt

#4

War of the Worlds: Goliath

(2014)

17%
46%

#4

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Fifteen years after Mars first attacked Earth, human resistance fighters use captured Martian technology to repel a second invasion force [More]

Starring:
Adrian Paul, Adam Baldwin, Peter Wingfield, Mark A. Sheppard

Directed By:
Joe Pearson

#5

War of the Worlds

(2025)

0%
18%

#5

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: A computer security analyst working for the U.S. government finds his daily life disrupted by an alien attack. Accustomed to [More]

Starring:
Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Michael O’Neill, Olivia DeLaurentis

Directed By:
Rich Lee