Tom Cruise's 116-Minute H. G. Wells Sci-Fi Movie Is An Apple TV Streaming Hit 21 Years Later

More than two decades after it was a giant hit at the box office, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds" is a hit again ... on streaming. According to FlixPatrol, who track these sorts of things, the 2005 adaptation of "War of the Worlds" (not to be confused with the 2025 version, where Ice Cube looks directly into the camera with a confused face for almost 2 hours) is climbing the charts on Apple TV.

Adapted from the H. G. Wells sci-fi classic, "War of the Worlds" was one of several films Spielberg made in the wake of 9/11 that tried to grapple with the shocking terrorist attacks ("Munich," which was released the same year as "War of the Worlds," is another example of this, and one of Spielberg's very best films). Tom Cruise plays one of those classic Spielberg Bad Dads, who has to try to connect with his estranged children while also attempting to keep them alive during a terrifying alien invasion.

I've often felt like the legacy of Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is unfortunately mixed in the eyes of the general public. The film was a massive hit (it took in $604 million at the box office), but when people talk about the movie, the tend to complain about the overly happy ending or about the infamous press tour surrounding the pic.

It was during promotion of "War of the Worlds" that star Tom Cruise performed his now-infamous couch-jumping routine on the Oprah Winfrey show. Rumor has it (according to a story in Vanity Fair, at least) that Cruise's antics bothered Spielberg, and the two haven't worked together since (which is a bummer; I'd love to see Tommy Cruise make another Spielberg pic).

Anyway, all this aside, "War of the Worlds" is an absolute blast (and hey, Bong Joon Ho agrees). It features some jaw-dropping Spielberg set pieces, an it's legitimately terrifying at times: the first alien attack scene, where giant tripods come out of the ground and start turning people to dust, is scary as hell. Cruise is quite good playing a clueless dad who doesn't know how to deal with his frightened children, played by Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin. One of my favorite moments in the film has Cruise's character trying to make a sandwich for his children, failing, and getting so frustrated he throws the sandwich at a window — where it sticks in place like a piece of pop art.

As for the ending, while I agree that a bleaker conclusion might have felt more honest, I can't fault Spielberg, an eternal optimist, for trying to find some sort of light in all the darkness. And hey, he gets it all done in under 2 hours (116 minutes, to be exact), which is pretty impressive for a movie like this. If you really want something darker from the filmmaker, maybe go watch the aforementioned "Munich," which concludes on a more hopeless note.