<P> Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three and a half stars (out of four), saying "War of the Worlds definitely wins its battle, but not the war ." Wilmington stated the film brought the viewers on a wild journey through two sides of Spielberg: the dark and the light . He also said the film contained a core sentiment similar to that of Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . About.com's Rebecca Murray gave a positive review, stating, "Spielberg almost succeeds in creating the perfect alien movie", with criticism only for the ending . Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader praised the special effects and Cruise's performance . Roger Ebert criticized the "retro design" and considered that despite the big budget, the alien invasion was "rudimentary" and "not very interesting", regarding the best scenes as Ray walking among the airliner wreckage and a train running in flames, declaring that "such scenes seem to come from a kind of reality different from that of the tripods ." </P> <P> The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 8th place in its list of best films of the 2000s . Japanese film director Kiyoshi Kurosawa listed the film as the best film of 2000 - 2009 . </P> <P> War of the Worlds was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Visual Effects (Pablo Helman), Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ron Judkins), and Sound Editing, losing all to King Kong . The film was nominated for six Saturn Awards, and won Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Dakota Fanning). The film won a Golden Reel Award for Sound Effects & Foley, a World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Soundtrack, and three VES Awards for its special effects, and was nominated for three Empire Awards, three Satellite Awards, and an MTV Movie Award . </P>

Did war of the world's win any awards