The Most Disturbing Birth Scenes In Movie History

The human body is capable of doing amazing things, but they are often pretty disturbing. Such is the case with pregnancy and childbirth. Because bearing children is such an important part of life, it's also a frequent subject of many, many stories. Sometimes, the arrival of a new baby serves as the blessed beginning or happy ending to a romance. Other times, the vulnerability and absurdity associated with the birthing process make it great fodder for gross-out comedy. In the majority of those cases, birth is a plot point or a joke, and a realistic depiction of the process is rarely the goal. Water breaks, women scream, then in the next scene, they're dewy-faced and holding a far-too-clean newborn. 

Some movies aren't afraid to show childbirth in all its protracted pain, high risk, and natural gore, though. Maybe because of the inherent stakes and shock value, pregnancy and delivery often serve as climactic moments in dramas, thrillers, and even supernatural horror and science fiction films. Cinematic births can be difficult to sit through for a number of reasons. Some are too realistic for comfort. Some pervert the phenomenon for over-the-top or out-of-this-world purposes. And, as is reflected in real life, sometimes the outcome of a birth-gone-wrong is worse than all the contracting and pushing could ever be. Here's a look at some of the most distressing births the big screen has to offer so far.

2006's "Apocalypto" is a fraught but thrilling movie with an equally fraught but thrilling birth scene near its conclusion. The movie was released shortly after writer-director Mel Gibson's infamous arrest for DUI, during which he infamously shouted out some heinous anti-Semitic statements, and the reactions were mixed; some consider the film a masterpiece, while others critiqued his culturally inaccurate and overly bloodthirsty portrayal of his subject. 

In the story, Jaguar Paw's tribe is raided by Zero Wolf's tribe, who burns most of the village to the ground, kills or captures the men, and leaves the few remaining children to fend for themselves. Jaguar Paw's father, the chief, is murdered and he's taken prisoner, but not before he can hide his pregnant wife Seven and their son Turtles Run in a deep forest pit. Seven's pregnancy is Chekhov's baby, and she's stuck at the bottom of that pit for a long time before her husband can fight his way to freedom and come back for her. She starts having contractions just as the waters from a heavy rainstorm begin to spill into her hidey-hole. An incredibly stoic Seven gives birth standing up and holding firm to a tree root, as she tries to keep her own head above water, with Turtles Run carefully balanced on her shoulders. This is anything but a new-age water birth. Seven's baby comes into the world amongst violent waters and even more brutal violence upon the land. 

Alfonso Cuarón's critically acclaimed 2006 film "Children of Men" is entirely about the birth of one very important child. In this particular dystopian version of the year 2027, no babies have been born and survived for almost two decades. That's thrown the civilized world into chaos; few functional societies remain as people panic and struggle to comprehend the coming extinction of the human race. 

Theo, a British government employee, is kidnapped by an activist group run by his ex-wife Julian with whom he shared a child named Dylan who died in an earlier pandemic. Julian tasks him with finding a way to get a refugee named Kee to a supposedly safe group of scientists known as the Human Project. They're working to figure out what's behind mass infertility. Kee is of use to them, it turns out, because she is the only known pregnant woman on Earth, but that also means there's a bounty on her. Theo has to pull strings and watch his and Kee's back as various forces — the British military, revolutionaries and refugees, mutineers in their own circle — conspire against them. 

As their allies are picked off one by one, Kee starts having contractions. Theo has to help her deliver the baby in a dark room and in secret as a war breaks out on the other side of the door. As if having a baby under those circumstances, isn't stressful enough, after she gives birth, Kee and her baby are almost immediately kidnapped. Theo has to brave the gunfire between the fighting factions to get mother and child to the vessel that's come to rescue them, the Tomorrow. 

There's nothing supernatural about 2020's startlingly real childbirth drama "Pieces of a Woman." The film opens with a single 24-minute-long take in which a woman named Martha's birthing plan goes heartbreakingly wrong. Martha and Sean had arranged to deliver at home with the help of a midwife named Barbara, but when Martha goes into labor and Barbara can't make it, a woman named Eva arrives to assist instead. The mother-to-be tries to manage her discomfort, which includes gagging and uncontrollable shaking, with Eva's guidance and Sean's support as she moves from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bed. "Pieces of a Woman" does an excellent job, compared to most birth scenes, of depicting how much longer the labor process is than the delivery. 

It also shows how complicated childbirth can be. As the midwife examines Martha to see if her cervix has dilated to the full 10 inches, Martha experiences sharp pain. The situation worsens when the baby's heart rate drops as she's about to push. Eva tells Sean to call an ambulance as Martha gives birth to what appears to be a healthy baby girl, but her joy turns to agony as the baby turns blue. The child dies from heart failure within minutes, leaving Martha and Sean to grieve and search for reason and blame in the second act. "Pieces of a Woman" is not for the faint of heart, especially for those who have experienced a similar loss, but for portraying Martha with so much accuracy and empathy, Vanessa Kirby earned a well-deserved Academy Award nomination.

Darren Aronofsky — director of "Requiem for a Dream" and "Black Swan" — doesn't really try to make movies that people will like. Disquieting images are kind of his bread and butter. But even fans of the auteur's work were taken aback by his 2017 film "Mother!" which starred Jennifer Lawrence in the nameless title role. The movie was audibly booed at its Venice film festival premiere, and it received an F Cinemascore, which puts it in a rare group of few films that have upset audiences so intensely. 

"Mother!" can be viewed as a religious parable or a metaphor for humanity's mistreatment of the environment and innate tendency toward destruction. Lawrence's Mother is the beloved wife of an acclaimed poet, played by Javier Bardem and credited only as Him. An Adam and Eve-like couple shows up to disrupt Mother and Him's personal Eden, followed by two Cain and Abel-like sons, one of whom predictably kills the other. Before long, hoards of Him's out-of-their-minds fans are looting their house, just as Mother is about to give birth. Him rushes Mother into his study long enough for her to deliver the baby, but Mother's labor is still grueling to watch. What happens next, though, is much worse. Him's cult wants to see his and Mother's baby, but she refuses. When she falls asleep, he grants the mob's wish and the baby is passed around, crowd surfing-style until its neck is broken. Finally, Him's crazed followers rip apart and devour the baby, which Aronofsky shows in graphic detail as Mother watches on in horror.

Probably the most famous "birth" in movie history doesn't involve a human woman or baby at all. In Ridley Scott's 1979 space horror classic, "Alien," the crew of the Nostromo makes a pitstop on an inhospitable moon — against most of their better judgment — while on route back to Earth. A distress call leads them to an abandoned ship where they lose communication with the team, and a man named Kane happens upon a compartment full of what looks like alien eggs. These are Xenomorphs, the space monsters with the oblong heads that you've probably seen even if you haven't seen "Alien."

When Kane touches one of the dormant Xenomorphs, it springs to life and attaches to his face. The crew attempts to peel it off, to no avail. Soon, it detaches of its own accord and dies... or so everyone thinks. Kane seems fine, and the crew settles down for one last meal before resetting their course for home. During their dinner, Kane becomes unwell, and as his fellow crewmembers scramble to help, a baby version of a Xenomorph suddenly bursts from his abdomen and escapes into the Nostromo to cause future havoc. 

Minutes later, the thing is fully grown and ready to kill again. Xenomorphs have a complicated, multi-stage lifecycle that requires a host, so they occupy then destroy the human body. The actor's reactions to the scene are so genuine because Scott withheld information about the now-iconic "chest-burster" moment, so the cast was nearly as aghast as moviegoers were. 

It's a little sociologically loaded, but one of the most off-putting birth scenes ever filmed depicts a man giving birth to more men. Writer-director Alex Garland's 2022 psychological horror pic "Men" really wants to say something about toxic masculinity and the unforgiving and often scary world that women wake up to on a daily basis. Critics and audiences were divided about the pic, and "Men" received a D+ Cinemascore from viewers who may not have been prepared for its heavy-handed symbolism and its twisted, freakish, and explicit climax. 

In the film, Jessie Buckley's Harper seeks solace in a quaint village after she witnesses the traumatic death by suicide of her abusive husband. She rents a house from a man named Geoffrey, then begins to notice that the entire place is populated with men — and only men — who bear a strong resemblance to her landlord (Rory Kinnear in various wigs and prosthetics). One by one, they try to guilt her for her husband's death and terrorize her in her place of refuge. "Men" culminates with a sequence in which the naked man gives birth to a boy, who gives birth to a priest, who gives birth to Geoffrey, who finally gives birth to her late husband, James. The scene is unflinching in what it shows and the viscera with which it shows it and was accomplished with some awkward practical effects. It's certainly memorable, but some felt it ended the movie on a misogynistic note. 

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.