There have been two movie versions: 1953 and 2005.
The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on screen depiction of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name. Produced by George Pál and directed by Byron Haskin from a script by Barré Lyndon, it was the first of several adaptations of Wells' work to be filmed by Pál, and is considered to be one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. It won an Oscar for its special effects.
War of the Worlds is a 2005 science fiction-disaster film based on H. G. Wells' original novel starring Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It was released on June 29, 2005.
It is one of four film adaptations of the novel, preceded by two straight-to-video versions released in the same year and the original 1953 film version.
However, it was also a radio broadcast that took place in 1938 as a Halloween joke; however, many people took it seriously and panic occurred.
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds.
The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (i.e., it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the dramatic effect. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program's news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Orson Welles to fame.
Welles' adaptation was one of the Radio Project's first studies.