The story opens in Newark, New Jersey, with dock worker Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) finishing the third shift in the morning. His pregnant ex-wife Mary Anne (Miranda Otto) and her wealthy new husband Tim (David Alan Basche), drop off Ray's 10-year-old daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) at his house. They are staying with him in Bayonne, New Jersey, while Tim and Mary Anne visit her parents in Boston, Massachusetts for the weekend. Rachel suffers from a panic disorder, while Robbie harbors resentment and outright disrespect towards his father. Later that day, Ray wakes up from a nap and is told by Rachel that Robbie has stolen his car and left.
Ray immediately sets out to find him, but is distracted by a strange wall cloud formation near his neighborhood. As he and Rachel view it from the garden, the clouds begin to unleash electromagnetic pulses, disabling all of the working electronic devices in the area, including cars. Ray finds an apologetic Robbie, and tells him to take care of Rachel in the house while he goes to look at a hole in the ground that Robbie mentioned. Traveling past, he advises a mechanic to replace the solenoid of a Plymouth Voyager he is repairing. Ray and many other people find the mysteriously cold hole in the intersection, from which a large Tripod machine emerges. It begins to vaporize all humans within its range, and starts to destroy all the buildings in its path. Ray however, manages to escape and returns to his house. After packing food, Ray and the kids abandon their home and steal the Plymouth Voyager, which, due to Ray's advice of changing the solenoid, is the only operating vehicle in town.
The family drives to Tim's house, and take refuge in the basement for the night. During the night, a tripod destroys an airliner that crashes into the development, demolishing many of the houses. In the morning, Ray meets a small news team, who show close-up video footage to Ray of the lightning in the previous "storm". In slow-motion, they see what they believe to be a pod, deducing that the aliens "rode" down the lightning into the ground where the Tripods were located. The reporter believes that the machines were buried in the Earth long before the rise of humanity. After hearing the siren of a nearby Tripod approaching the area, the news crew flees. Ray gathers Rachel and Robbie and they leave to join their mother in Boston.
As the family continues on their journey and stop for a bathroom break, Rachel is startled by the sight of thin mutilated corpses floating along the Hudson River. They are passed by a convoy from the U.S. Army. Robbie begs the soldiers driving by to allow him to join and fight, but is ignored until Ray confronts him along with Rachel. In the evening, as they drive along NY 385 their van is attacked by a mob along their travel route, who are desperate for transport. However, after a man steals the van by holding Ray at gunpoint, Ray and his children are forced to continue on foot. They reach a Hudson River ferry in Athens, New York, but as a Tripod appears over the hills on the horizon (joined by two others), the crowd panics and the ferry immediately sets off. However, escape proves futile as a fourth Tripod hiding underwater capsizes the ferry. Ray, Robbie, and Rachel manage to escape and swim to safety, while other refugees are captured or killed. On a hill, they witness the town of Athens being destroyed.
Later, the family comes across U.S. Military forces somewhere in Massachusetts, attacking a group of Tripods; entirely fruitless efforts as the machines are protected by force-fields. Although their weapons are ineffective, the military continues with their assault to delay the advance of the Tripods, and give some time for the refugees in the area to escape. Robbie attempts to join the battle, and Ray reluctantly lets him go in order to save Rachel from being taken away by a couple nearby, who see her waiting alone by a tree and worry for her safety. In the ensuing chaos an enormous firebomb erupts, Robbie is separated from Ray and Rachel, and they assume he is dead.
As they flee the battle, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter in a nearby basement by a man named Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), who lost his family to the Tripods. The invaders settle close to the house where the trio is hiding, and tensions start to emerge between Ogilvy, who wants to strike back at the aliens, and Ray, who is preoccupied with his own safety and that of his daughter. Later that night, a Martian probe gains access to the basement, and the three barely manage to escape detection. A small contingent of aliens enters to explore the basement, and Ray struggles to stop Ogilvy from attacking them with a shotgun. The aliens are summoned back to the Tripods by a siren before Ogilvy has an opportunity to shoot them. Meanwhile, the invaders begin cultivating a strange "red weed", which appears to be a mysterious plant fertilized with the blood of captured humans. Subsequently, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown after witnessing one of the Tripods harvesting blood and tissue from a helpless human victim. Ray, concerned that the commotion Ogilvy is creating might draw the attention of the invaders to himself and his daughter, makes the decision to murder Ogilvy and thereby silence him. Rachel goes to comfort her father, who is clearly affected by having to carry out the killing. The pair then falls asleep, but are awoken by another probe entering the basement, which sights Rachel. Ray attacks the probe with an axe and it retreats, while Rachel flees the house.
Ray attempts to find Rachel, but is attacked by a Tripod. As he tries to find safety in a truck which the Tripod tosses upside down, Ray spots his daughter standing nearby, screaming as the Tripod advances towards her. The Tripod captures Rachel and ignores Ray's provocation, forcing him to harass it with some hand grenades he finds nearby. Though the shield protects the Tripod, it immediately captures Ray and deposits him in a metal cage with many other captives, and a traumatized Rachel. A closed chute above the cage releases an arm which periodically grabs a human to be devoured. After it grabs Ray, the other prisoners fight to save him, and successfully pull him out from within the interior of the Tripod. Ray reveals that he left the remaining grenades primed within the Tripod, and the grenades detonate, destroying it. The cage is dropped on a tree, and Ray and Rachel - along with the other surviving captives - escape.
Soon afterwards, Ray and his daughter continue to move towards Boston. It is there that they find that the entire "red weed" is dying, and the Tripods are beginning to seriously malfunction. After seeing birds fly near, and land, on one still-moving Tripod, Ray realizes that the shields are no longer operational. He draws this to the attention of a group of soldiers who are trying to lead refugees to safety, and the soldiers attack the Tripod with several Javelin missile launchers - successfully bringing it down. With the threat gone, Ray finally brings Rachel to Mary Anne and Tim at her parents' house, where she has been waiting for them. Robbie also comes out of the house, revealing that he survived too. The movie closes with Ray and Robbie hugging, and Ray crying in relief.
Afterwards, the narrator reveals that the Tripods were breaking down because the invaders and their weeds were suffering from terrestrial diseases, for which they had no immunity.
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