Roswell Movie Influences

Above, a crashed UFO in the arctic is discovered in The Thing From Another World (1951).

When The Roswell Incident took place in July 1947, it spawned a genre of science-fiction movies that began in the 1950s and continues to this day.

A number of movies were influenced by The Roswell Incident.

According to The Robot's Voice:

Everyone knows about this one: in summer 1947, a UFO allegedly crashed a few dozen miles from the New Mexico town of Roswell. Though there were a few press reports that mentioned “flying discs,” the Air Force quickly identified the debris as a weather balloon and the entire incident was forgotten until 1978, when the Army Air Field officer responsible for investigating the incident suggested there was something amiss about the debris, and that it may have been covered up by the military. 

This led to an explosion of interest in the Roswell incident. The story grew as more and more witnesses came out of the woodwork. According to this version, the balloon story was a cover-up for an actual UFO crash. Roswell has been the subject of the 1994 TV-movie Roswell (above) and the TV series Roswell (1999-2002). The Roswell incident also plays a role in the films Independence Day and Men in Black, as well as the classic Futurama episode “Roswell That Ends Well,” where Zoidberg turns out to be the alien the military attempts to vivisect.

Above, a crashed UFO in the Arizona desert is found in It Came From Outer Space (1953).

There are two movies from the heyday of the 1950s that immediately come to mind that The Roswell Incident influenced: The Thing From Another World (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953).

Both movies involve crashed UFOs. These two movies are considered classics today. These are the only two UFO movies I can think of involving crashed space ships. I considered Invaders From Mars, but that movie's flying saucer landed inside the quicksand bog, not crashed.

If anyone else can think of other movies involving crashed UFOs, feel free to state them in the comments.