Could aliens think our movies are real?

Probably not in the literal sense, but they could misinterpret them if they detected and decoded them in a very different way than we expect.

A cautious answer is:

• It’s possible in principle that aliens could mistake a movie for a real event, especially if they lacked context for human storytelling, acting, or visual conventions.
• But if they were able to analyze the content well, they would likely notice patterns that suggest it’s a constructed narrative rather than a direct recording of reality.
• We don’t know how alien perception or cognition would work, so there’s a lot of speculation here.

So the short answer is: yes, in principle they could think some movies were real, but it’s more likely they’d eventually recognize them as fictional or staged once they understood the signal.