The 2025 sci-fi reboot of War of the Worlds, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, has landed with a critical thud, receiving a rare and resounding 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Based on 12 critic reviews, not a single one found the film redeemable, making it one of the worst-reviewed major releases in recent memory. Despite this, the movie has surprisingly climbed to the No. 2 spot on Prime Video’s global streaming chart, indicating a large but evidently disappointed viewership.
Starring rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube as Will Radford, a Department of Homeland Security cyber-security analyst, and Eva Longoria as NASA scientist Dr. Sandra Salas, the film is presented in a “screen-life” format. Entirely told through computer screens and video calls, the movie attempts a modern narrative style similar to thrillers like Searching, but with far less acclaim.
Directed by Rich Lee, the story begins with meteors crashing into Earth, unleashing alien machines that attack global data centers. As the world collapses into chaos, Radford uncovers that a government surveillance system called “Goliath” may have triggered the invasion. With the help of his hacker son, known as “Disruptor,” they attempt to shut down the alien threat by uploading a computer virus and taking Goliath offline. The aliens are eventually defeated, but not before widespread destruction and government corruption are exposed.
Critics were not kind. Variety described the film as “a feature-length Amazon commercial,” calling out its excessive product placement and muddled plot. ScreenAnarchy similarly slammed it as “a 90-minute infomercial for Amazon.” The dialogue, acting, and visual effects were heavily criticized, with many labeling the experience tedious and uninspired. IMDb user ratings reflect this poor reception as well, hovering around 3.2 out of 10, and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score (the Popcornmeter) is only slightly better, sitting near 12%.
To understand how severe a 0% rating is, it’s helpful to know how Rotten Tomatoes works. The platform aggregates reviews from professional critics and calculates the percentage of those who gave a film a positive rating, defined as 6 out of 10 or higher. A 0% score means that not a single critic found the film favorable. It’s one of the harshest indicators of failure in mainstream film. Unlike average scores like those used on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes’ “Tomatometer” is based on binary “fresh” or “rotten” decisions, which makes a 0% especially brutal.
While such a low score is uncommon, War of the Worlds (2025) is not alone. Other films that have received 0% critic scores include The Layover (2017), a raunchy road-trip comedy starring Kate Upton and Alexandra Daddario; Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011), widely considered one of the worst comedies of the 21st century; Pinocchio (2002), a failed live-action adaptation by Roberto Benigni; and Jaws: The Revenge (1987), a notorious franchise-killer panned for its poor effects and story.
In stark contrast, a handful of films have achieved the coveted 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. These include cinematic classics like 12 Angry Men (1957), Pixar’s Toy Story 2 (1999), and James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984). More recent films like Paddington 2 and Lady Bird also flirted with perfect scores, earning universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Such high marks are rare, with Rotten Tomatoes maintaining strict criteria for what constitutes a “fresh” review.
