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The War of the Worlds poster

Movies that feel likeThe War of the Worlds (1953)

The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.

If you loved The War of the Worlds, the closest films we have are Logan's Run (1976), The Omega Man (1971) and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023). All three share The War of the Worlds' cerebral and kinetic feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Slaughterhouse-Five (1972).

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If The War of the Worlds hit the spot, these will too

Logan's Run poster
Logan's Run
1976 · dir. Michael Anderson
🍅 58%★ 6.8action · science fiction

Common ground: dystopia

The difference: Made in the 1970s, in a different era of the craft

In the 23rd century, inhabitants of a domed city freely experience all of life's pleasures — but no one is allowed to live past 30. Citizens can try for a chance at being "renewed" in a civic ceremony on their 30th birthday. Escape is the only other option.

The Omega Man poster
The Omega Man
1971 · dir. Boris Sagal
🍅 65%★ 6.4science fiction · action · drama

Both are built on the same subject: dystopia

The difference: Leans harder into drama than The War of the Worlds does

Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain; sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes poster
🍅 64%★ 6.6science fiction · actionHulu

Cerebral where it counts, kinetic underneath

64 years before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem, Coriolanus Snow sees a chance for a change in fortunes when he mentors Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12.

Fahrenheit 451 poster
Fahrenheit 451
1966 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 82%★ 7.2drama · science fiction

Both lean on bleakness more than on science fiction

The difference: Easier on the momentum than The War of the Worlds

In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

Dredd poster
Dredd
2012 · dir. Pete Travis
🍅 80%★ 7.1action · science fiction

Cerebral action in both cases

In the future, America is a dystopian wasteland. The latest scourge is Ma-Ma, a prostitute-turned-drug pusher with a dangerous new drug and aims to take over the city. The only possibility of stopping her is an elite group of urban police called Judges, who combine the duties of judge, jury and executioner to deliver a brutal brand of swift justice. But even the top-ranking Judge, Dredd, discovers that taking down Ma-Ma isn’t as easy as it seems in this explosive adaptation of the hugely popular comic series.

They Live poster
They Live
1988 · dir. John Carpenter
🍅 86%★ 7.2science fiction · action · thrillerPrime Video

The same preoccupation in both: alien invasion

The difference: Sits closer to thriller than The War of the Worlds does

A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.

Rollerball poster
Rollerball
1975 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 55%★ 6.5science fiction

Science fiction built on bleakness, twice over

In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.

Zardoz poster
Zardoz
1974 · dir. John Boorman
🍅 49%★ 5.8fantasy · action · thrillerPrime Video

Kinetic action, and it commits to that

In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.

Slaughterhouse-Five poster
Slaughterhouse-Five
1972 · dir. George Roy Hill
🍅 82%★ 6.8drama · science fiction · warPrime Video

Science fiction with a pulse of ideas, in both cases

Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.

THX 1138 poster
THX 1138
1971 · dir. George Lucas
🍅 72%★ 6.6science fiction · drama

Both lean on bleakness more than on action

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes poster
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
1971 · dir. Don Taylor
🍅 75%★ 6.3action · science fiction

Both sit in the same kinetic register

The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a spacecraft. Intrigued by their intelligence, humans use them for research - until the apes attempt to escape.

The 6th Day poster
The 6th Day
2000 · dir. Roger Spottiswoode
🍅 40%★ 6action · science fiction · thriller

One thread runs through both: laser gun

A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.

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The best-reviewed films that share The War of the Worlds’ defining feeling.