Continuity: In the kids’ bedroom, while Mary Ann speaks, Ray sits with the baseball cap in his hand. When the shot faces him he holds the brim with the cap facing out, but when the shot faces Mary Ann he holds the back of the cap with the brim hanging down.

Continuity: When Mary Ann carries Rachel’s backpack into Ray’s kitchen, she places the backpack down on the floor to her left, with her left hand and then steps away. However, in the next shot, she is still holding it and then places it down to her right, with her right hand.

Visible crew/equipment: When the first ship is beginning to emerge from the ground, we see a shot of two men on top of a swaying scissor lift, notice in the close-up there is nothing between them. When the shot cuts to a wide view, a camera covered by tarps appears between the two men.

Continuity: When Ogilvy shouts, "Ray! Ray! Ray..." in his cellar, Ray runs to him and there's blood splattered all over Ogilvy's face, but in the next shot the amount and pattern of the blood differs.

Factual error: The minivan that Ray drives is shown several times with its rear-most side window rolled all the way down. No such ability exists on any year/model of Chrysler-built minivan. They are either fixed (non-opening) or hinged at their forward edge to open like a 'flap' at the rear edge. The glass isn't broken, as it appears/reappears depending on the scene, and no such customization is possible as such a large window has no place to go down to due to the wheel well location directly below. The windows were obviously removed so the camera could move through the glass without having to use digital effects to go through the window, but in doing so, they created an obvious mistake.

Continuity: In Boston, when Ray breaks off a piece of the dried up root from the statue, the piece he holds in the next shot is completely different.

Continuity: When Ray finally arrives at his ex in-laws’ house, in the shot from behind Mary Ann, Ray passes the two cars on his right and is near the corner, but a few shots later, when Ray puts Rachel down, he is standing beside the first car, back up the street.

Continuity: The airplane wreckage and debris all around Mary Ann’s house differs between shots.

Audio problem: When Ray carries Rachel out of Mary Ann's destroyed house, Ray and Robbie walk past some wreckage and are near the van, yet in the next shot they just start walking past that wreckage again. Additionally, the audio is not in sync with Ray's lips in the first shot.

Continuity: Just before the news van leaves, in the shot facing the News Producer she asks Ray, "Hey were you on that plane?" then extends her left arm to touch Ray with her left hand. However, in the shot facing Ray, she has her right arm extended to touch Ray.

Audio problem: In Boston, just after the military destroyed the tripod, in the tunnel Ray holds Rachel and we hear him say, "I love you. It's ok. It'll be ok," but his lips really say, "I love you. It'll be ok. It'll be ok."

Continuity: As the asphalt begins to burst open, the Portuguese restaurant’s windows shatter, and when the camera pans to the church there are very few people on the street in front of it. In the next shot, however, there is a huge crowd in front of it.

Continuity: When Mary Ann and Ray walk into the kids bedroom, Robbie is lying on his bed with books, etc. In the next shot his position, pillow, etc., differ, and there are different books on his bed.

Continuity: When Ray and Rachel crawl under the kitchen table during the lightning strikes, in the first shot Ray's entire body is behind the leg base, yet in the next shot his arms and upper body are in front of it.

Factual error: When Robbie runs up the hill to watch the army attacking the tripods, Rachel is left standing by a tree and a squadron of AH-1 gunships flies overhead to attack the aliens. However, these helicopters don't have any landing struts (certainly the one nearest the camera doesn't), but all models of the AH-1 had fixed struts.

Audio problem: In the scene where the aliens appear to throw the Bayonne Bridge off its pylons and the eighteen-wheeler crashes on top of the apartments, look closely on the far right. There is a red car, and right above it is a round black object above the hedge. As the scene continues, it starts to fade away into the red house behind it.

Continuity: When Ray and the kids are driving down the freeway, there are several cars stopped randomly so they have to swerve a lot. But when it shows them inside the car, talking, they are driving perfectly straight. When it shows them from the outside again, the random cars are back and they start swerving again.

Factual error: The last ferry to sail on the Hudson-Athens ferry line, depicted in the movie, was in 1947 and there's no ferry terminal any more.

Factual error: The New York Central Railroad's West Shore Line train tracks depicted in the scene with the burning train in Athens NY is not accurate. Tom Cruise and the children walk right onto the ferry terminal after crossing the train tracks, but in reality the tracks are over two miles to the west of the Hudson River shoreline.

Revealing: Dakota Fanning cannot actually see the computer generated birds that are flying high over the Hudson-Athens ferry. If you look closely her eyes stair straight ahead and not up in the air where they should be.