Roswell made an interesting appearance in the 1996 blockbuster Sci-Fi hit "Independence Day" (1996). At a key point, the film's heroes Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith are taken to Area 51. Inside, in a secret lab, we see a recovered UFO which scientists explain was recovered from the Roswell, New Mexico crash in 1947, as well as a captured alien.

But this was not the first appearance of Roswell in a movie. in 1994, HBO aired an original movie called "Roswell." Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Martin Sheen, Peter MacNicol, and Dwight Yoakam, the film told the story of real-life army officer Jesse Marcel and his 30 year search for the truth about the government cover-up of his discovery of a UFO landing in the desert near New Mexico. The screenplay, by Arthur Kopit, was based on the well documented book "UFO Crash at Roswell."

A humorous approach was taken in an episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." When a shuttlecraft goes through a time warp, it crash lands in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The alien Quark, a big-earred Ferrengi, is taken into custody by the Air Force. This supposed "explanation" of the famous Roswell crash was fun and entertaining.

Although no full length feature film, based on the Roswell crash, has ever been released theatrically in the U.S., a little known feature film called "Hanger 18" comes close. Released in 1980, and starring Darren McGavin, Robert Vaughn, Gary Collins, and James Hampton, this independently made feature, by Sun Classic Pictures, deals with a crashed alien UFO, with dead aliens aboard, that is being secretly studied by the U. S. government. Although much of the story, involving U.S. astronauts on the run after they witness a UFO in space, is made up, other aspects of the film, including the nature of the aliens recovered, their strange, hieroglyphic-like language, and the title itself (a reference to the supposed hanger at Wright-Patterson Air Force base where the crashed Roswell saucer was stored for awhile) are obviously references to the Roswell incident.