Film

Sun, Nov 1, 2:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

Reserve advance member tickets

Explore category and above

All tickets available Oct 25

The War of the Worlds. 1953. USA. Directed by Byron Haskin. Image courtesy of Photofest

The War of the Worlds. 1953. USA. Directed by Byron Haskin. Screenplay by Barré Lyndon, based on the novel by H. G. Wells. With Gene Barry, Anne Robinson. 35mm. 85 min.

Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds is a hugely influential 1950s science fiction extravaganza for which the filmmakers reportedly allocated $1.4 million of a $2 million budget to special effects. Gene Barry and Anne Robinson dutifully lead the picture, but the real stars are the top-notch optical effects and miniature photography, rendered in vibrant Technicolor, that earned the film an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and wowed audiences—including a seven-year-old Steven Spielberg.

This film accompanies Sundays with Steven.

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].