The War of the Worlds (1953 film)

The War of the Worlds (also known in promotional material as H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds) is a 1953 American science fictionthriller film directed by Byron Haskin, produced by George Pal, and starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. The first film adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1898 novel of the same name in which Earth is invaded by Martians, the setting is changed from Victorian era England to 1950s Southern California. The first of two adaptations of Wells's classic science fiction filmed by Pal, The War of the Worlds won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and went on to influence other science fiction films. It is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. In 2011, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".