War of the Worlds

"They're already here."

2005 1h 57m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

🍅

76%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

6.6

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 9,607🍅76%Rotten Tomatoes●73Metacritic★6.6IMDB · 502,091

AdventureThrillerScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Ray Ferrier is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. Soon after his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son and young daughter for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm touches down.

“They're already here.”

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Cast

Tom Cruise
Ray
Dakota Fanning
Rachel
Miranda Otto
Mary Ann
Justin Chatwin
Robbie
Tim Robbins
Harlan Ogilvy
Rick Gonzalez
Vincent
Yul Vazquez
Julio
Lenny Venito
Manny the Mechanic

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: David Koepp, Josh Friedman, Chris Baker
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

$132M budget — tentpole studio territory.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 4.6× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 21 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CAST

Did you know

386+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Steven Spielberg, shot by Janusz Kamiński. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by John Williams. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Michael Kahn shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning and Miranda Otto carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Steven Spielberg directs. Janusz Kamiński behind the camera. John Williams scores. Michael Kahn cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1$132M budget — tentpole studio territory.
2Made its money back 4.6× over at the box office.
3Released 21 years ago.
4386+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
5Directed by Steven Spielberg, shot by Janusz Kamiński. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by John Williams. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Michael Kahn shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning and Miranda Otto carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "They're already here.".
10IMDB entry: tt0407304 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 14 themes, including "daughter", "new jersey", "post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd)", "airplane".
12Released under 11 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Janusz Kamiński
Original score: John Williams
Editing: Michael Kahn
Production design: Rick Carter
Costume design: Joanna Johnston
Makeup / hair: Audrey L. Anzures
VFX supervisor: Matthew Gratzner
Sound: Anna Behlmer
Stunt coordinator: Vic Armstrong
Runtime: 117 min · 1h 57m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $132,000,000
Box office: $603,873,119
Return: 457% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: War of the Worlds (2005)
Rotten Tomatoes: 76% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 73/100
IMDB rating: 6.6/10 · 502,091 votes
MPAA: PG-13

Awards

Nominated for 3 Oscars. 16 wins & 49 nominations total

Also by

Steven Spielberg

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Peter McGinn2020-04-05
★ 8/10
I enjoyed this entry into the HG Wells film library. The special effects are great (to this amateur anyway) and the acting and action more than adequate. Plus it stays near enough to the sci-fi genius of the author to satisfy the fans of the classic novel. I will say that I got a little tired of the son acting like such a teenager, but he and the Tom Cruise character both show some character growth by the end of the film. Tom is one of those actors who seems to be playing himself a lot, but I suspect there is a lot more work to it than that. I'm not sure Dustin Hoffman would have gotten his Academy Award for Rain Man if he had played off a lesser actor than Cruise. I think there are a couple of scenes the movie could have done without, such as in the cellar with Cruise, his daughter and the man who lived there. It slowed the story down, changed the tenor of the drama, and didn't add a lot, in my view. But it is what it is and overall I found War of the Worlds to be entertaining. Good science fiction movies can be hard to find.
JPV8522020-05-09
★ 5/10
First time seeing this in 15 years and lame plot, annoying characters (both kids got on my nerves) and a protagonist who just runs around, as Tom Cruise does so well, but has zero impact on the end game which was... bacteria. Yeah, this was just as dumb today as it was back then. At least the visual effects and sound design still holds up. 2.5/5
CinemaSerf2023-02-13
★ 6/10
Sometimes it just pays to leave well alone, and this remake of the 1953 version adds nothing aside from more sophisticated special effects. A vehicle for Tom Cruse, it allows Stephen Spielberg to turn this menacing and thought-provoking sci-fi classic into a family melodrama with the star and his dysfunctional family travelling the breadth of the country trying to escape the terror that is falling from the skies. These metallic creations are ruthless, destroying everything in their path but somehow the emphasis of this is more on why "Ray" can't get on with "Robbie" (Justin Chatwin) and whether or not "Rachel" (Dakota Fanning) can keep hold of her childhood toy. The effects are good: the lasers and the pyrotechnics; the explosions and scenes of dereliction are impressive - but oddly enough, I found them less so than in the iteration made fifty years earlier. Lots of horrified expressions as the cast look longingly at green screens, some banal dialogue and we end up with a film about the people in/behind it rather than one about alien world domination. After almost two hours, the ending - and it's huge significance - is almost an afterthought to the boring story of who did what to whom over the years in the "Ferrier" family. Cruise can, at times, bring charisma to the screen. Here he brings little and I am afraid that I found this a triumph of commercialism over creativity and was cheerily egging on the aliens from fairly early on.