9 / 10
The War of the Worlds has been adapted to film twice as a major studio production. Byron Haskin directed the 1953 version. Steven Spielberg directed the 2005 version. Both films adapt H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel about a Martian invasion of Earth. Both films relocate the setting from Wells’s Victorian England to contemporary America. Both films keep the novel’s central conceit, which is that Earth is conquered by Mars and humanity is saved not by its own efforts but by microbial infection that destroys the Martians from within. Orson Welles’s 1938 radio broadcast is a separate cultural artifact discussed at the end. The two films are both excellent. They are excellent in different ways and reflect the anxieties of different eras.
The 1953 film made approximately two million dollars on a two million dollar budget and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The 2005 film made approximately five hundred and ninety-one million dollars worldwide on a one hundred and thirty-two million dollar budget and was one of the highest-grossing films of its year. Both films have aged well in their own registers.
The 1953 Version
Byron Haskin’s 1953 version is one of the foundational science fiction films of the early 1950s. Gene Barry plays Dr. Clayton Forrester, a nuclear physicist on vacation in California who witnesses the first Martian landing. Ann Robinson plays Sylvia Van Buren. The film transplants the novel from Surrey to southern California. The Martians arrive in flying machines rather than the tripods of the novel. The visual effects work for the war machines is exceptional for 1953. The film’s images of cylindrical machines floating above destroyed buildings while emitting heat rays became foundational genre iconography.
The film’s politics are Cold War. The aliens are an existential threat. American military power proves insufficient. The atomic bomb is deployed against the Martians and fails. Humanity is reduced to prayer in the closing sequence. The microbial salvation is presented explicitly as divine intervention rather than as biological accident. The 1953 audience read this framing without needing it explained. The religious response to apocalyptic anxiety was available to most American audiences of the period.
For Writers
A foundational image in genre cinema becomes shorthand for an entire category of fiction. The 1953 War of the Worlds established the visual vocabulary for the alien-invasion subgenre. Cylindrical war machines. Heat rays. Cities in flames. Subsequent invasion films work in the visual language this film codified. The lesson is that early entries in a genre have outsized influence on what the genre becomes. The choices the foundational works make shape what subsequent works can do. Choose carefully if you are early in a genre’s development.
The 2005 Version
Steven Spielberg’s 2005 version restored the tripods from the novel and updated the politics to the post-9/11 era. Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a Newark dockworker whose ex-wife has dropped their children off for a weekend visit just before the invasion begins. Dakota Fanning plays his daughter Rachel. Justin Chatwin plays his son Robbie. Tim Robbins plays Harlan Ogilvy, a survivalist Ray and Rachel hide with during the middle of the film. Miranda Otto plays Ray’s ex-wife Mary Ann. Morgan Freeman narrates.
The film is consistently more frightening than the 1953 version. The opening sequence in which the Martians emerge from the ground in central New Jersey is one of the most effective horror set pieces in 2000s mainstream cinema. The tripods themselves are designed for maximum threat. The destruction is presented at a human scale that the 1953 version’s miniature work could not have achieved. The film’s post-9/11 imagery, particularly the ash falling over Newark and the missing-persons posters on city walls, was deliberate and is visible to any 2005 American viewer.
For Writers
A genre property can be reframed by recent historical events without changing the underlying premise. Spielberg’s 2005 War of the Worlds is the H. G. Wells story filtered through 9/11. The audience could not unsee the parallels. The lesson is that genre work has the freedom to engage with contemporary trauma in ways more direct realism cannot. The science fiction frame lets the audience confront the trauma indirectly. Direct realism can be too close. Genre provides distance that paradoxically allows engagement.
The Ogilvy Sequence
The middle section of the 2005 film is the extended sequence in which Ray and Rachel hide in Tim Robbins’s character’s basement while a Martian probe tentacle searches the house above. The sequence runs approximately twenty minutes. It is mostly silent. The audience watches the search in extended takes that build genuine claustrophobic tension. Robbins’s character has been losing his mind from the stress of the invasion and becomes increasingly dangerous as the sequence continues. Ray eventually kills him to protect Rachel and to prevent his noise from drawing the Martians.
The decision to spend twenty minutes in a single location with three characters in the middle of an alien invasion film is structurally bold. The studio reportedly questioned whether the sequence should be cut down. Spielberg refused. The sequence is the film’s strongest sustained passage. It demonstrates that horror works through patience rather than through pace. Most blockbuster films are afraid to slow down. Spielberg was not.
For Writers
Pacing in fiction is not about being fast. It is about being right. The Ogilvy basement sequence is the slowest part of War of the Worlds 2005 and the most effective. The lesson is that variable pacing produces more powerful work than uniformly fast or uniformly slow pacing. Stories need rhythm. Stories need rest. The reader cannot absorb continuous high intensity. Give them moments of stillness. The stillness lets the next intensity register.
Craft Note
The 1953 Martian-machine designs are the franchise’s most iconic visual craft. George Pal’s miniature work produced the manta-ray-shaped tripod-replacement war machines that remain the property’s signature image across multiple subsequent adaptations. The designs demonstrate how creature and vehicle design earn cultural permanence when the silhouettes are specific enough to remain identifiable across decades of imitation.
The Verdict
9/10 average. 8/10 for the 1953 version. 9/10 for the 2005 version. Both films are excellent. The 1953 version is the cultural foundation. The 2005 version is the more emotionally affecting. Watch the 1953 first for the historical context. Watch the 2005 for the modern execution. Both reward attention. Read the H. G. Wells novel separately.
FAQ
What about the Orson Welles radio broadcast?
The 1938 Mercury Theater on the Air radio adaptation, directed by Welles, famously caused public panic when listeners thought it was a real news broadcast. It is a separate cultural artifact and is worth seeking out as audio.
Is the Tom Cruise version really that scary?
Yes. The basement sequence and the highway initial-attack sequence are among the most effective horror set pieces of 2000s mainstream cinema.
Why does humanity always win through microbes?
The novel’s ending is preserved in both adaptations. H. G. Wells’s specific argument is that imperial powers (whether Mars or Britain) underestimate biological reality. The microbial ending is the point of the novel.
Are there other adaptations?
Yes. Multiple television adaptations, radio adaptations, and direct-to-video versions exist. The 1988 television series War of the Worlds ran for two seasons. The 2019 BBC miniseries is a competent return to Wells’s original Victorian setting.
Is Tim Robbins really that good?
Yes. The Ogilvy character is one of his stronger character-actor performances. The basement sequence is built around him.
How does it compare to Independence Day?
More serious. Less triumphal. Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is closer to disaster cinema than to action cinema. Independence Day is closer to action than to disaster.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Both versions if possible. The 2005 version is the more accessible entry point for modern viewers.