There were ultrasounds. Disturbing images of post-abortion fetuses. Mention of fetal heartbeat and ability to feel pain. One way or another, the value of life in the womb came up in more than half a dozen movies last year.

Cinematically speaking, you might even call 2007 the Year of the Unborn Child.

Four of the baby-happy films — the ultra-crude Hollywood comedy Knocked Up, the Catholic-produced Bella and the indie comedies Waitress and Juno — have a number of plot points in common. An unexpected and unwanted pregnancy raises the subject of abortion, but the less-than-thrilled mother makes the decision to have her baby. In each story, the appearance of the child in the last act is seen as a joyous and transforming experience, an absolute good.

In one case, Knocked Up, the conception begins with a one-night stand, but eventually leads to the parents settling down together to raise the child. Not a very likely outcome, perhaps, but the other three have less idealized and more realistic endings, two involving adoption and all involving single parenthood — not the ideal, but still all positive outcomes given the circumstances.

One of the most hopeful endings involves the most inauspicious beginning, the high-school pregnancy in Juno, also the only one of the four films in which the unborn child’s right to life is explicitly invoked. (Waitress came close, with the protagonist acknowledging her baby’s “right to thrive” as the basis for her quitting smoking.)

A fifth film, the Romanian drama Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, takes a different trajectory: Set in the Communist Romania of the 1980s, the film centers on a college girl who has already decided to procure an illegal abortion. A loathsome back-alley abortionist, sexual victimization and threat of bleeding to death all emphasize the general repulsiveness of a situation that culminates in a devastating close-up of a dead fetus lying on a hotel bathroom floor.

While the illegality and conditions of the abortion are certainly emphasized, the film uncompromisingly gives the fetus itself its due in the wrenching, wretched proceedings.

Finally, two 2007 documentaries, Unborn in the USA and Lake of Fire, show the pro-life movement — particularly the more extreme end — in a generally unfavorable light, but still hear it out to an extent.

Lake of Fire covers both sides of the abortion debate, and while its sympathies are clearly skewed in favor of abortion, it presents a range of views on the pro-life side, including Village Voice columnist and Jewish atheist Nat Hentoff, who opposes abortion on humanistic and moral grounds.

Flix Pix: Top 10

Openness to life in the womb wasn’t the only pleasant surprise Hollywood and Co. had up its sleeve in 2007. Here are 10 films that, for me, rose above the rest.

• AFTER THE WEDDING Danish director Susanne Bier made her English-language debut in 2007 with the moving Things We Lost in the Fire, but this Danish-language release is even better. An emotionally layered family melodrama, After the Wedding is a well-crafted, emotionally satisfying meditation on the sometimes tangled and sticky ties that bind, on loss and the possibility of redemption. Some objectionable language; sexual references and a brief scene of sexuality with fleeting nudity; some heavy drinking. Mature viewing. Subtitles. Available on DVD.

• THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK “It is as if history is giving us a chance to redeem ourselves for our failure in Rwanda — and we’re failing again.” That devastating line sums up the impotent fury of Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s powerful documentary of the Darfur conflict, frankly acknowledged by the United States as genocide but still dithered over by the U.N. (calling it genocide would entail legal obligations to intervene) while nothing is done. Grisly documentary footage of scenes of carnage; some objectionable language; might be okay for mature teens. Available on DVD.

• THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY In some ways the antithesis of recent pro-euthanasia films (The Sea Inside, Million Dollar Baby), Julian Schnabel’s mesmerizing film is a life-affirming exploration of one of the most crushingly debilitating conditions imaginable. Based on the memoir of Parisian jet-setter Jean-Dominique Bauby, who dictated the book literally by blinking his left eyelid after succumbing to “locked-in syndrome” as a result of a massive stroke, the film puts the viewer literally in Bauby’s head. We hear his thoughts and see what he sees. Some sexual content and limited nudity; some crude language. Subtitles. Mature viewing. In theaters.

• IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON A rare award-winning documentary of human achievement rather than human failure, David Sington’s uplifting film revisits the triumphs and tragedies of the United States’ Apollo program. Blending interviews with 10 surviving astronauts with extraordinary never-seen archival footage, In the Shadow of the Moon is an eloquent testament to the grandeur of creation as well as man’s unique place in it. A couple of mild profanities and mild crude references; footage of wartime bombings. Fine family viewing. Coming to DVD Feb. 12.

• INTO GREAT SILENCE Easily the film of the year for me, Philip Gröning’s contemplative record of life in the Carthusian Grande Chartreuse monastery is an exercise in rigor and discipline that becomes a euphoric experience of joy and inner peace. More than a documentary of monastic life, it is a spiritual voyage, a pilgrimage into the inner meaning and experience of monastic life, of the rigors and joys of contemplative life. Nothing objectionable. Subtitles. Available on DVD.

• JUNO It’s way crass, yes, but it’s surprising just how much heart — and wit — Jason Reitman’s snappy hipster comedy has beneath its blasé Gen-Y attitude. Sixteen-year-old Juno is old enough to know she isn’t ready to be a mom but, after an eye-opening encounter with a shy pro-lifer at an abortion clinic, she decides to give the child up for adoption and sets out to find the perfect couple. What follows involves some very imperfect choices by imperfect people, yet the longings and needs of the human heart are heard with remarkable clarity. A brief sexual encounter (no explicit nudity); frequent crass language and sexual references; references to divorce and to remarriage. Mature viewing. In theaters.

• THE LIVES OF OTHERS The oppressive Realpolitik police state of 1984 East Germany is the setting for writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s astounding feature debut, which strikingly contrasts the banality of evil — itself a familiar subject — with something more difficult and ambitious, the vitality and winsomeness of humanism and goodness. Like John Paul II, The Lives of Others attests the power of art over evil. Notwithstanding a few strong but non-prurient sexual encounters, this film offers some of the year’s most redemptive themes. Two or three brief but somewhat graphic sexual encounters, one with brief partial nudity involving a prostitute; cohabitation; some drug abuse. Subtitled. Caution: mature viewing — discernment required. Available on DVD.

• ONCE John Carney’s personal, intimate art-house hit relates a short but memorable encounter between a bearded Dublin street musician and a pretty young Czech pianist. She is lovely; he is lonely. Both are wounded souls, and their connection is emotional as well as musical and creative, but she has an adamantine sense of responsibility and decency, and won’t let things go too far. Like a favorite song, it’s a film you would rather play for someone than try to describe. Constant casual obscenity; a couple of profanities; a few sexual references. Mature viewing. Available on DVD.

• RESCUE DAWN Werner Herzog’s second cinematic take on the real-life story of German-born Navy fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, who escaped from a Laotian POW camp during the Vietnam war, Rescue Dawn is one of the director’s most accessible films, and one of his best. Despite sometimes regrettable liberties with the story, including a falsely negative portrayal of another POW, it’s a powerful depiction of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of great psychological as well as physical cost. Depictions of torture and abuse of prisoners; deadly battlefield violence; occasional profanity and much crass language; a few mild sexual references. Mature viewing. Available on DVD.

• RATATOUILLE In a dispiritingly off year for family films, Pixar’s latest triumph doesn’t disappoint. Directed by Brad Bird, the story about a culinarily gifted rat covers conventional ground: overcoming prejudices, following your heart, believing in yourself. But it’s also about pursuing excellence rather than settling for mediocrity, not compromising principles for a quick buck, and putting your heart and soul into something you believe in even if it’s a risk. References to a character’s out-of-wedlock parentage; brief references to characters with dodgy histories; slapstick violence including gunplay; brief grisly images of dead rats in traps. Fine family viewing for most children. Available on DVD.

Honorable Mention

Here are some other films that didn’t make my top 10 but that I can still recommend with some enthusiasm (and, in some cases, some caveats or cautions).

Amazing Grace, Michael Apted’s inspirational biopic of English abolitionist and devout Christian William Wilberforce (teens and up); The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Andrew Dominik’s faithful adaptation of Rob Hansen’s novel about fame, hero worship and the wages of sin (mature viewing); Bella, Alejandro Gomez Monteverde’s lovely drama about wounded hearts, family, a crisis pregnancy, heroic love and understanding (teens and up); The Bourne Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass’s thrilling climax to the series of an amnesiac CIA operative trying to recover his moral self (mature viewing); Lars and the Real Girl, Craig Gillespie’s deceptively sweet comedy about a severely socially maladjusted young man whose small-town community reaches out to him amid a disordered but chaste emotional attachment to a life-size female doll (mature viewing); Mr. Bean’s Holiday Steve Bendelack’s sweet, good-hearted and genuinely clever slapstick comedy starring Rowan Atkinson (fine family viewing); The Namesake, Mira Nair’s generally engaging but elusively incomplete adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel about culture clash and generation gaps (mature viewing); Offside, Jafar Panahi’s winsome Irani comedy about Iranian female soccer fans disguising themselves as men to sneak into a World-Cup qualifying soccer match despite the law barring women (teens and up); Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi’s overstuffed but wildly entertaining climax to the best super-hero trilogy to date that still makes room for comic-book homilies and moral themes (teens and up). Things We Lost in the Fire, Susanne Bier’s heartfelt English-language debut film about loss, grief and recovery (mature viewing).

Steven D. Greydanus is editor and

chief critic of DecentFilms.com.