MS Word doents all have "~$" in the name, and none of these files will open it says they are corrupt.?

Each one of these files is faded and says it "cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents".After clicking "OK" a pop up says "some of the contents are unreadable" and ask if you want to recover the doent. when I click "yes" the first pop up appears again, the after clicking "OK" again, the pop up just disappears and nothing happens. What's going on and how can I fix it?