UFO declassification fever: 5 UFO movies to watch before Disclosure Day hits theaters

On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of Defense released its first batch of 162 declassified UAP documents, including 120 PDFs, 28 videos, and 14 images. Anyone can access them for free by logging in to WAR.GOV/UFO, with no security clearance required. The files come from the FBI, NASA, ODNI, and the State Department, and include records of unexplained phenomena during the Apollo 11, 12, and 17 missions, Cold War-era flying saucer sightings, and Air Force mission reports from 2020 to the present. Every detail feels uncannily like a scene from The X-Files or Arrival.

• Further reading:Do UFOs really exist? NASA forms a team to study unidentified aerial phenomena and uncover the truth behind the myth!

After taking in the real-life version, many people will probably want to stay immersed in this vast world. We’ve rounded up 5 films and TV series, organized by release year, that are well worth revisiting. Each has a subtle connection to these newly declassified files.

This weekend’s must-watch: 5 UFO movies to get you in the mood

1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Steven Spielberg’s classic alien-contact film follows ordinary people who spot unidentified flying objects and are driven by an urge to find the truth. Its portrayal of the government concealing information from firsthand witnesses closely mirrors the real-life backdrop of this declassification. It’s the one most worth catching up on before the new film.

2. The X-Files, Season 1 (1993)

If you haven’t seen it, now is the perfect time. Season 1 opens right away with the government concealing UFO evidence. What seemed like a conspiracy-theory premise at the time has somehow become the backdrop to real news in 2026. Watching it again now can instantly give you goosebumps.

3. Men in Black (1997)

A lighter take on a government cover-up. Its entire world is built on the premise that aliens have always been here, and ordinary people simply don’t know it. This time, the U.S. government’s voluntary declassification feels like the film’s universe officially collapsing in real life, because no one’s really here to erase your memory now.

4. Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece takes viewers through wormholes and five-dimensional space. Though the film centers on time, space, and love, its reverence for the unknown universe perfectly captures humanity’s smallness before the vastness of the galaxy. Set against these newly released classified files, that quiet sense of awe speaks for itself.

5. Arrival (2016)

A linguist tries to communicate with alien spacecraft that suddenly land at 12 locations on Earth, while governments try to control all information at the same time. The film turns alien contact into a philosophical story about time and language. Seen alongside the cases in those 162 documents that officials say they can’t resolve, it feels entirely different.

June 12’s can’t-miss release: Spielberg’s Disclosure Day

If those 5 still aren’t enough, a major new film arrives on June 12.

Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi film Disclosure Day opens exactly one month after the U.S. government released its declassified UAP files, making the timing remarkably precise. The story centers on alien visitors arriving on Earth and a government conspiracy to cover it up on a massive scale. Emily Blunt plays a weather reporter with a mysterious connection to the visitors; Josh O’Connor plays a man who possesses evidence of first contact and is forced to flee; and Colin Firth plays a senior government official willing to do anything to keep the truth from coming out. The screenplay is by David Koepp, who wrote Jurassic Park, while John Williams composed the score in his 30th collaboration with Spielberg. Spielberg himself said he believes the film is closer to reality than people might imagine, and that it will leave many people asking questions.

The film’s official tagline is: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people.”

Seeing this film in a theater during the first month after the real-life declassification event will be a very unusual experience.

The universe is so vast. What are we?

Hollywood has been telling UFO stories for decades, full of government cover-ups, astronaut sightings, and mysterious phenomena on the moon. Now, all of them have official real-world counterparts. The X-Files wasn’t predicting the future; it was describing something that had always existed, something you simply weren’t allowed to know about.

When you actually go to WAR.GOV/UFO and look through those photos and reports, the feeling that rises inside is hard to describe in a single word.

It’s not fear, nor is it entirely excitement. It’s more like a quiet sense of shock. For decades, while people have been falling in love, binge-watching shows, and discussing next season’s trending colors, things we can’t name have been flying in the sky.

The observable universe spans 93 billion light-years. Humanity currently knows of more than 2 trillion galaxies. At that scale, Earth is a speck of dust, and human existence is even more fleeting than dust.

Perhaps the most important message in these declassified files isn’t the existence of UFOs itself, but the reminder that humans have never been the beings in the universe most worthy of serious attention. We just happen to live here, and only happen to be finding out now.

In some ways, that thought is more shocking than any declassified photograph.

Join POPBEE Circle and subscribe to the POPBEE newsletter for the latest updates, and get early access to exclusive perks and discounts! Beyond this article, here are a few recent stories worth checking out: