Best Pregnancy Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of pregnancy cinema — measured across 3,871 indexed frames from 58 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Pregnancy films over-index on skin, doorway and pillow — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
mother! (2017)
Darren AronofskyDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 6.6TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Amidst a wild flat meadow encircled by an Edenic lush forest, a couple have cocooned themselves in a secluded mansion that was not so long ago burned to the ground, devotedly restored by the supportive wife. Within this safe environment, the once famous middle-aged poet husband is desirous of creating his magnum opus; however, he seems unable to break out of the persistent creative rut that haunts him. Then, unexpectedly, a knock at the door, the sudden arrival of a cryptic late-night visitor and his intrusive wife will stimulate the writer's stagnant imagination. Little by little, much to the perplexed wife's surprise, the more chaos he lets in their haven, the better for his punctured male ego. In the end, will this incremental mess blemish, irreparably, the couple's inviolable sanctuary?
- 2
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Lee CroninDP Dave GarbettIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
- 3
Black Christmas (1974)
Bob ClarkDP Reginald H. MorrisIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
It's time for Christmas break, and the sorority sisters make plans for the holiday, but the strange anonymous phone calls are beginning to put them on edge. When Clare disappears, they contact the police, who don't express much concern. Meanwhile Jess is planning to get an abortion, but boyfriend Peter is very much against it. The police finally begin to get concerned when a 13-year-old girl is found dead in the park. They set up a wiretap to the sorority house, but will they be in time to prevent a sorority girl attrition problem?
- 4
We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)
Lynne RamsayDP Seamus McGarveyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Tilda Swintonas Eva Khatchadourian
John C. Reillyas Franklin Plaskett
Ezra Milleras Kevin Khatchadourian, Teenager
Eva's a mother trying to piece together her life following an incident caused by her odd child, Kevin. Once a successful writer, she's forced to take whatever comes her way, in spite of the increasingly bizarre and dangerous things Kevin says, or does.
- 5
Predestination (2014)
Michael Spierig, Peter SpierigDP Ben NottIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Predestination chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to prevent future killers from committing their crimes. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must stop the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time and prevent a devastating attack in which thousands of lives will be lost.
- 6
The Invisible Man (2020) (2020)
Leigh WhannellDP Stefan DuscioIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
The film follows Cecilia, who receives the news of her abusive ex-boyfriend's suicide. She begins to re-build her life for the better. However, her sense of reality is put into question when she begins to suspect her deceased lover is not actually dead.
- 7
Snowpiercer (2013)
Bong Joon HoDP Hong Kyung-pyoIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Set in 2031, the entire world is frozen except for those aboard the Snowpiercer. For seventeen years, the world's survivors are on a train hurtling around the globe creating their own economy and class system. Led by Curtis (Chris Evans), a group of lower-class citizens living in squalor at the back of the train are determined to get to the front of the train and spread the wealth around. Each section of the train holds new surprises for the group who have to battle their way through. A revolution is underway.
- 8
45 Years (2015)
Andrew HaighDP Lol CrawleyIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Sir Tom Courtenay) are planning to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary with dozens of friends. The event is to take place soon in the community hall of Norwich, the town near which they live. A week before the party, Geoff receives a letter which, although he tries to hide it, obviously troubles him. When his wife asks him what is going on, Geoff tells her that the body of Katya, his first great love who disappeared fifty years before in the Alps, has just been found in a melting glacier. From then on, Geoff starts behaving more and more strangely and for the first time after so many years Kate asks herself who the man she married so long ago really is.
- 9
Short Term 12 (2013)
Destin Daniel CrettonDP Brett PawlakIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
At a foster-care facility for at-risk teenagers, Grace is a young counselor trying to do her best for kids who often have been pulled from the worst kinds of home situations. Even then, life is not easy as Grace and her colleagues care for kids who are too often profoundly scarred, even as they try to have lives of their own. Now, things are coming to a head as Grace readies for marriage even as some her charges are coming to major turning points in their lives. To cope, Grace will have to make difficult perceptions and decisions that could put her career, and more importantly her charges, at dire risk.
- 10
Lasse HallströmDP Oliver StapletonIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Homer is an orphan in remote St. Cloud, Maine. Never adopted, he becomes the favorite of orphanage Director Dr. Larch, who imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. When Wally and pregnant Candy visit the orphanage, Dr. Larch provides a medically safe, albeit illegal, abortion, Homer leaves with them to work on Wally's family apple farm. Wally goes off to war, leaving Homer and Candy alone together. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
What pregnancy films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a pregnancy frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — skin is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- skin2.0×
- doorway1.9×
- pillow1.8×
- hair1.8×
- eyes1.8×
- lamp1.8×
- sweater1.8×
- blood1.7×
How pregnancy films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate pregnancy from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 86%eye levelvs 69% baseline
- 25%closeupvs 21% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Shrek the Third (2007) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 3,871 frames from 58 films carrying the pregnancy label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/pregnancy
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