20 Hidden Sci-Fi Movie Gems You Can Watch On Netflix

10. War Of The Worlds

Some five decades later, Steven Spielberg would adapt the same source material for his own take on Welles' book, dropping the 'the' of the title for his War Of The Worlds, starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. Coming in the same year as his masterful Munich, Spielberg was on a high (a jackpot year to rival Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 - in which he released La Chinoise and Weekend - according to ardent Spielberg supporter, Armond White), and War Of The Worlds contains all the classic Speilberg-in-genre-mode traits.

Not everyone holds it in high regard though, and complaints about the disappointing ending and a miscast Tim Robbins (as an eccentric survivalist) often prevent it from ending up in the top rank of the director's oeuvre. But War Of The Worlds is worth it for the special effects alone, which still serve as the pinnacle of the alien-invasion movie monster league. It's also beautifully shot by Spielberg's regular director of photography, Janusz Kaminski, who captures the apocalyptic wreckage better than anyone else in the (sub) genre.