The War of the Worlds (1953 film) receives high acclaim from critics: At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 85% rating based on 27 critics; the consensus states: "Though it's dated in spots, "The War of the Worlds" retains an unnerving power, updating H. G. Wells' classic sci-fi tale to the Cold War era and featuring some of the best special effects of any 1950s film". "The War of the Worlds" was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant in 2011 by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The Registry noted the film's release
The War of the Worlds (radio drama) because "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", an unsponsored CBS cultural program with a relatively small audience, ran at the same time as the NBC Red Network's popular "Chase and Sanborn Hour" featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. At the time, many Americans assumed that a significant number of "Chase and Sanborn" listeners changed stations when the first comic sketch ended and a musical number by Nelson Eddy began and then tuned in "The War of the Worlds" after the opening announcements, but historian A. Brad Schwartz, after studying hundreds of letters from people who heard "The War of the Worlds", as