SPOILER ALERT! This post discusses important plot surprises in four films.

They could not be more different in genre, budget, and intended audience, but four movies now in theaters have one important central theme in common: they are all about someone at the end of life, looking back and trying to see what it all meant. They all deal with meaning and purpose.

In The Sense of an Ending, Logan, Before I Fall, and “The Last Words” characters discover that their life is not what they thought and not what they wanted when it is almost too late to make a change. That’s one film based on a literary novel with top British actors, a complicated plot that goes back and forth in time and elegant, understated dialog, one conclusion to a comic book franchise with references to classic Westerns like “Shane,” one movie based on a YA novel that’s like a sad “Groundhog Day,” and one is a heartwarming story with a beloved Hollywood Oscar winner playing an irascible woman who wants to control her own obituary. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that these all come at the same time. But they seem to be in conversation with each other in a way that makes these existential conundrums even richer.

And they pretty much agree on the answer: loving and being loved, and doing good in the world.