The 40 Sexiest Movie Sex Scenes of All Time (For Sex)
From the car scene in 'Titanic' to the steamy threesome in 'The Dreamers', these are the 40 sexiest, hottest, seductive movie sex scenes filmed in Hollywood.
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What makes a sex scene legitimately sexy? Is it chemistry? Is it realism? Is it showing (more than a little) skin? Maybe it's the same thing that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about porn: You know it when you see it. (That said, the best sex on film is a world away from your average PornHub clip.)
In addition to the "this is hot" aspect, film has the potential to make sex subversive and to normalize certain acts and behaviors for a mainstream audience (if done right). On this list we don't only feature scenes that are interesting, wild, or sexy, but queer scenes (see the long, intense scene from 2013's Blue is the Warmest Color), uncomfortable and awkward scenes, and scenes that depict acts that people have often been ashamed of but shouldn't be. Ultimately, what these scenes all have in common though, is the ability to transform all sorts of sexual acts into something we can all consider for ourselves or at least feel differently about—all done in a tasteful way.
Rather than attempt to define what makes a sex scene successful, the Complex Pop Culture team rounded up 40 sensuous moments and explored what makes each tick. At face value, they have little in common, other than actors doing their best to fake an orgasm (and sometimes not even that), but each is titillating in its own way. From foreign cinema classics to indie films to mass-market sensations, these are the sexiest sex scenes ever to grace the silver screen.
The Flogging Scene in Nyphomaniac (2013)
In spite of the title and the posters that depicted characters’ faces as they climaxed and that trailer with its pristine black-and-white shot of a bead of liquid running down Stacy Martin’s inner thigh, Lars von Trier’s two-part Nymphomaniac isn’t a sexy movie. This isn’t a failure on the film’s part; sex is more often played for comedy, especially in part one. (The montage of flaccid, dopey penises is a good illustration of this.) Part two shifts gears and things get ugly.
If you’ve followed von Trier’s career, it isn’t a surprise that the only genuinely sexy encounter comes from a place of pain. Joe, at this point played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, has found a new partner who genuinely excites her, unlike her jackass husband (played by Shia LaBeouf). Jamie Bell, the sexiest thing in the film, plays K, a disciplinarian with a real fondness for flagellation and tight knots. A number of women wait for his services; Joe shares a fluorescent-lit waiting room with them. The sexual energy is derived from Joe appearing to be in a vulnerable position for the first time in the movie. But when she gets off without Bell’s character’s permission, you see that she still has the upper hand. It’s pretty hot, even if you’re not into red marks on pale skin. —Ross Scarano
The Quickie in Last Tango In Paris (1972)
Best movie quickie of all time? No, we’re not talking about the controversial buttered-butthole sodomy scene that left actress Maria Schneider crying and feeling “a little raped.” (That is: the worst.) But the pop-off that pops off the anonymous, strictly sexual, May-December relationship between middle aged Paul (Marlon Brando) and 20-year-old Jeanne (Schneider) in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 erotic classic Last Tango in Paris has to be in the running for its pretense-less primal lust.
Devastated by his wife’s suicide, Paul acts like an aloof asshole when the strangers meet at a Parisian apartment they’re both scoping out. But suddenly, without so much as a smile or a flirtatious word, he creeps in close with the alpha male dominance and determination of the Booty Warrior. Sweeping Jeanne up by her crotch, he carries her across the room where they tongue each other down, he rips her pantyhose, and they squat-smash raw for a few passionate seconds before collapsing and rolling away from each other.
We’d be mad at the brevity but we’re mid O-face at the thought of the time and money we’d save if we could skip all the small talk and drinks and just get it in with the attractive randos we run into. That’s perfect strangers, for real. —Justin Monroe
The Striptease in The Night Porter (1974)
A prisoner of a World War II concentration camp vamps and sings in German wearing just pants, suspenders, elbow-length black gloves, and an SS officer’s hat for a group of Nazis—what does it mean if you admit to finding this erotic? Liliana Cavini’s The Night Porter is a challenging experience, existing somewhere between arthouse cinema and Nazisplotation. (For an example of a film that isn’t so divided see Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS .)
The film’s most infamous scene, where Charlotte Rampling’s character Lucia turns the concentration camp into a cabaret, is a corkscrew of arousal and discomfort and disgust, with each new kink in her posture, the way she leans onto a table and then comes back upright, bringing about a different feeling. It’s also a fantasy, a performance of a performance. Eventually Lucia and her abuser/lover Max, played by Dirk Bogarde, find that they can’t escape the roles in their sadomasochistic relationship. History has damaged them permanently. That’s the real brutality of the film. The rest is theater. —Ross Scarano
The Final Sex Scene in In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
From a macro vantage Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses is one long sex scene building to a violent and very final climax. The two lovers, Sada Abe (played by Eiko Matsuda) and Kichizo Ishida (played by Tatsuya Fuji), meet cute at the Tokyo hotel; he’s the owner, she’s the former sex worker turned maid—their first meeting isn’t consensual, but soon after they become obsessed with each other and with the erotic possibilities of each other’s bodies. These are the years preceding World War II, and Sada and Kichizo withdraw from society to fuck each other in zesty ways. At one point, Kichizo inserts an egg into Sada. That’s a novel highlight, to be sure, but the sexiest scene is the final act of sex, where they push each other until neither can be pushed any further. Until Kichizo succumbs to Sada, and she parades their love for the world in the most garish way possible. These words may be vague, but Oshima’s visuals are explicit. You’ll see. —Ross Scarano
Betty's Sexual Awakening in Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch can be a difficult director. Surrealist that he is, he doesn't always make it easy for the viewer to follow the “story” of his films. He regularly leans on stylized set pieces and flawless performances from his actors to create a tableau that's visually compelling, but isn't necessarily about anything.
Call me a brick-headed Philistine, but I think Mulholland Drive is exactly this type of entry in Lynch's filmography. It radiates a compelling, dreamy quality that draws viewers further and further into a film that seems to function as a picture book as opposed to a singular, cohesive narrative. I'm sure you've got your theories about what the film is actually about (the box is a soul-transference device, duh), but that's just my point, all of Mulholland Drive is open to interpretation. Except the sex scene between Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) and Camilla Rhodes (Laura Elena Harring)—there's pretty much just the one way to interpret that.
In a film that is calculating in how it keeps viewers off-balance, this sex scene functions as an oasis from the cinematic vertigo that Lynch has built. The scene is a chance for the viewer to catch their breath and take a moment from Lynch's disjointed mind-fuck to take a knee. Without getting swallowed up in the quicksand of the plot, Betty and Camilla break into a neighboring apartment when the find the body of woman who's been dead for days. The pair freak out and return to their apartment, where Camilla disguises herself with a blonde wig and the two women have sex later that night. The scene delivers with honesty and a passionate intensity which, unlike the rest of the film, is welcomely realistic. —Hanuman Welch
The First Time in Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
More tragic than the love story of Blue Is the Warmest Color is the fact that the only thing people seem to talk about is its seven-minute sex scene between Emma (Léa Seydoux) and Adele (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Sure, the scene is punctuated by their complete nudity, their ass slapping (OK, this part is kinda funny), their seemingly unsimulated attempts to pleasure each other, but what's forgotten is the motivation behind this: They're both utterly consumed by their love. They can't get enough and they try, from every angle, from every stolen kiss, from every squeeze, to quench that desire. It's impossible, and the tear that escapes Adèle's eye at the end of it, signaling her emptiness because the passionate act is over, is a testament to that. —Tara Aquino
The Tent Scene in Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story about two male ranch hands that succumb to their unforeseen attraction toward one another stirred a lot of controversy at the time of its release back in 2005. It took two A-list actors, Heath Ledger (playing Ennis Del Mar) and Jake Gyllenhaal (as Jack Twist), and created a sizzling, homosexual sex scene in a tent on a cold night in Wyoming. What makes Brokeback Mountain such a seminal film on this list is that it tastefully depicted this love affair between two men. It didn’t try to glorify or besmirch the act of homosexual sex. At its core, this scene is a perfect example of what happens when our passion and desire for sex becomes so overwhelmingly strong that we sometimes feel completely helpless against its powers. —Lauretta Charlton
The Michael Douglas/Sharon Stone scene in Basic Instinct (1992)
Prior to Basic Instinct's success, Sharon Stone was largely relegated to the slums of late night, soft-core b-movie ignominy. Stone was working on Cinemax schlock like King Solomon's Mines and Cold Steel before being cast in Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall and shortly afterward, Basic Instinct. Basic Instinct is a movie more infamous for a single scene than the entire rest of the film put together. The leg-cross-heard-round-the-world may have been the cause of countless bouts of early '90s culture-crusader pearl-clutching, but the half-nano second of Stone's crotch is pretty tame by modern standards. I don't know what the female equivalent of a dick-pic is, but Sharon Stone invented it and that non-sex sex scene basically overshadowed what is still a completely separate and far hotter moment in the film.
Michael Douglas' character Nick Curran is all but positive Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is guilty of the murder at the opening of the opening of the movie, but that doesn't stop him from donning the deepest of v-necks and trailing her into an LA nightclub. After seducing Catherine away from her lover on the dance floor, Nick and Catherine wind up back at Catherine's apartment for a welcoming realistic sex scene. The pair actually look like two real human beings engaging in something resembling sex between mortals and not Hollywood sex-droids. It's passionate, athletic, mutually beneficial, and most importantly believable. —Hanuman Welch
The High School Role-Playing in A History of Violence (2005)
In David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, sex and violence fuel each other like yin and yang. Cronenberg's film tells the story of mild-mannered town hero Tom (Viggo Mortensen) who, it's soon revealed, was once a hit-man for the mob. But before things turn truly ugly, we get a glimpse inside his relationship with wife Edie (Maria Bello) in one of the most intimate and truly hot sex scenes of the 2000s.
The scene begins with Bello dressing up as a high school cheerleader uniform, complete with sheer white panties. (See, pubic hair can still be sexy in the 21st century!) It's the sort of playful, even goofy sex that a long-married couple might have at this point in their relationship. Compared to another sex scene later in the film, when Tom takes takes Edie almost by force on the stairs, you can see how Tom's brutal past changes every part of their relationship, from fighting to fucking. —Nathan Reese
The Train Scene in Risky Business (1983)
I saw Risky Business at waaaaay too young an age. It was before Tom Cruise was the commercial super star, brand commodity, and, finally, couch-jumping, questionably sane individual the world now knows. This was the film that essentially launched his career thanks largely to a dance number in his fruit of the looms and Bob Seger, but there's one sex scene in this proto-John Hughes, coming-of-age film that has withstood the decades since Cruise has become the Pepsi of Hollywood.
Rebecca De Mornay, aside from sounding like a villain from Arthurian times, was one of the most sought after female leads in 1980's Hollywood, and it was her role as pre-Julia Roberts, Hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold™ named Lana that ushered in my still developing taste in sex. Cruise plays a high school-aged young Republican with aspirations of becoming a corporate raider whose parents leave him alone for the weekend. Being a teenager in the '80s, Cruise hires an escort to stay with him at his parents' palatial Chicago suburban estate; enter Rebecca De Mornay.
The sex-on-a-train scene (as well as the sex-on-a-staircase-scene) was massively formative for an entire generation of viewers. The fact that both people remain clothed the entire time, don't make a sound, and proceed to get down public is truly amazing. It also helps that the entire movie's soundtrack was scored by Tangerine Dream (again, I'm old) lends a hazy, dream-like quality to the exchange. —Hanuman Welch
The Dorm Room Scene in Blue Valentine (2010)
The sex scene that infamously earned Blue Valentine its NC-17 rating is also its sexiest. Early into their relationship, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) find themselves wrapped around each other's fingers, unable to keep their hands off each other and obsessed with pleasing the other. They're both equally in this. They're both blinded by it. And there's no scene more telling of that than when Dean, after staring longingly into the eyes of a vulnerable Cindy, slowly makes his way down to pleasure her. Nothing about the scene feels pornographic—they're both clothed and the only sounds filling the room are their moans. It's as realistic as you can get with a love scene, perhaps because it's about the love. —Tara Aquino
The Coaching Scene in Boogie Nights (1997)
Anyone who doesn't think porn can be passionate, sensual, and even endearing needs to watch this scene. Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), in his first ever adult film scene, shares the screen with veteran actress Amber Waves (Julianne Moore). Here, the two role play as a struggling actor and a casting agent, respectively. After Waves instructs Diggler to show off his size for the job, the two get hot and heavy on her desk in a way that doesn't exactly differentiate it from every X-rated romp you illegally downloaded. However, what sets this moment apart is what happens in the quiet moments in between takes. Waves whispers Diggler some encouragement and coaches his way through his orgasm, infusing the scene with tenderness. You know you're watching something special. You know these two aren't just fucking. You know they actually care about each other. —Tara Aquino
The Hotel Sex Scene in Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Most people think of the bromance in Judd Apatow's terms: two buds playing Soulcalibur while smoking pot and making dick jokes. But if we're being honest, Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También is a far more realistic portrayal of male bonding, one that delves into the weirdness and horniness of youth that only true BFFs understand. The film is essentially a classic road-trip story about two friends, Tenoch and Julio—played by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal—who pick up a sexy, oh-so-mysterious older woman along the way. While there is plenty of sex in the film (the hilarious opening, which cross-cuts between the pair thrusting frantically with their girlfriends, netted the film its “unrated” status), it's the seduction of Tenoch in the hotel room by Luisa (Maribel Verdú) that's the most iconic. It's a raw, realistic moment that happens in real-time speed—a.k.a. 20 or so seconds of explosive, confused emotional release. Like so much real-life sex, it may be short but the fallout haunts the friends (and audience) long after. —Nathan Reese
The Chess Game in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
It has been said that many women prefer foreplay to sex. If this is true, I would argue that chess is the ultimate game of foreplay. It’s a game of war and strategy. The queen is everything and every piece on the board is there to protect her. It’s a game that is full of casualties and metaphors. Intelligence and quick thinking are paramount. I’ve always loved chess, even though I’m not particularly good at it. There’s something about the way the pieces move on the board that I find sensual. I saw the original Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway when I was in high school and watching a lot of TCM and AMC. The scene where Thomas Crown and Vicky Anderson play a game of chess was one of the hottest scenes I had ever seen in film and still is today. “Do you play?” he asks. “Try me,” she demands.
Though there is no penetration in this “sex scene,” the sex is palpable, even to a teenager. There are shots of Dunaway caressing her lips with her perfectly manicured fingernails while Steve McQueen undresses her with his eyes. She slowly sticks her fingers in her mouth, caresses her bishop as it if were a hard cock, slyly shows her opponent some side boob to try and throw of his game. She succeeds, but first gives him a look that says, “Do you really think I would use my sex just to win a silly game of chess?” The answer, of course, is yes. This is a woman who likes power and likes to win. And confident women are great in bed. “Check,” she says. It’s an irresistible power play and Crown is powerless. He rises from the table and walks toward her. “Let’s play something else…” The scene ends with a terrible, pre-sex make out session that isn’t very sexy at all, but it hardly matters at that point. Just watch the chess match and be prepared to be put in the mood. —Lauretta Charlton
The Love Hotel Tour in Enter the Void (2010)
After hovering for what feels like hours (and when your soul detaches from your body after you’re shot by Tokyo police while high on DMT, the correct word is “hovering”), Oscar finally comes to the love hotel, where he drifts in and out of rooms witnessing sex acts of varying levels of kinkiness. The scene climaxes (literally) when he comes to the room where his sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) is making love to her boyfriend Alex. Aside from the taboo voyeurism the scene lends, its intimacy, especially when Gaspar Noe’s camera assumes Alex’s POV, is suffocating and disorienting in a way that only sex can be, thanks to the droning hum of the background music and the pulsating neon lights. Coming up close to de la Huerta’s dazed, pleasure-contorted face has a familiarity to it that wraps you in while also making you feel dirty. And I haven’t even mentioned how the scene ends… —Andrew Gruttadaro
The Interrupted Bathroom Quickie in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover(1989)
Sex is almost always a sudden accumulation of details. A particular sound caused by a particular feeling in a particular room with a particular scent. Film is very good at making certain facts plain—for instance, the way light hits a fold in a garment, like a dress being pulled around a waist in a bathroom stall. Other things can only be suggested.
In the first sex scene in Peter Greenaway’s formalist masterpiece The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Georgina (Helen Mirren) and Michael (Alan Howard) fuck briskly in a bathroom stall while Georgina’s lout of a husband dines with his cronies in the next room. Jean Paul Gaultier designed the film’s costumes. In a flash, they change from room to room. In the dining room, Georgina wears red; the room matches her. In the bathroom, the white tile finds its mirror in her now white dress and single glove. This sudden change is like a spark that inflames desire between the two characters, sends them into a stall. The film can’t make you know it completely, but you imagine Georgina tasting the wine and food on Michael’s breath as they rush to kiss each other in the sliver of time allotted for their illicit quickie. Each detail contributes energy. —Ross Scarano
The Pool Scene in Wild Things (1998)
Neve Campbell was America's wholesome (albeit traditionally attractive) big sister in Fox's family drama Party of Five. The series ran for six seasons and launched the early '00s film career of both Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt. In 1998 Campbell, in an apparent turn to distance herself from her character in the drama, co-starred in Wild Things alongside Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, and most famously Denise Richards. Wild Things, like most movies from the '90s, looks dated in the worst ways possible and it wears its sex on its Guy Harvey sleeve the entire time, but for a movie that's billed as an erotic thriller there's one scene that withstands the 16 years since its release: Yes, the pool scene between Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) and Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell).
The lesbian pool scene, while highly-stylized, was many a teenage boy's first glimpse at on-screen sex between two women that didn't classify as porn. The two female leads, Denise Richards as the wealthy, privileged socialite; Campbell as the goth kid from the trailer park vacillates between aggression and tenderness as the two meet somewhere in the middle. The scene, while obviously very memorable to a certain aging demographic, is about much more than just the sex. The scene is about class, wealth, status, and how sex can be the great equalizer between two vastly different members of socioeconomic realms. Also, Kevin Bacon is spying on the two from the bushes the whole time in typical Bacon-lurking fashion.—Hanuman Welch
The Flowers Scene in Jason's Lyric (1994)
Sparked by the breakout success of John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, the early 1990s saw a wave of “hood” movies, mostly about street kids trying to find better lives amidst tons of crime and killer rap-heavy soundtracks. Jason’s Lyric, though, is an anomaly when put alongside that era’s more widely discussed entries, like Juice and Menace II Society. Yes, there are guns, death, and the obligatory rapper/actor in the cast (here, it’s Naughty By Nature’s Treach), but those are all extraneous components surrounding what’s essentially a tragic love story.
A love story with an unexpectedly softcore-level sex scene, mind you. It starts off all innocent and fairy-tale-like, with burgeoning lovers Jason (Allen Payne) and Lyric (Jada Pinkett Smith) head off for a casual, PG-rated date on a rowboat. You’re thinking, “Why the hell is there a rowboat in a movie that features Jayo Felony and Spice 1 on its soundtrack?” Before long, however, you understand why that soundtrack also includes Brian McKnight. In the conveniently empty woods, in broad daylight, Jason and Lyric have the kind of slow, passionate sex you’d see in Red Shoe Diaries, and, no surprise, it’s seriously hot—like, 23-year-old Jada Pinkett in-the-nude hot.
So hot, in fact, that you’re able to overlook how director Doug McHenry nearly makes the sequence comical by pulling the camera back to show that they’re bumping uglies atop cartoonish red and purple flowers. If only someone had filmed Spice 1’s reaction the first time he saw those flowers. —Matt Barone
The Bloody Hotel Sex Scene in Angel Heart (1987)
In this case, context isn’t everything. In fact, it’s the ultimate turn-off.To appreciate Angel Heart’s erotic, intense moment of sweaty intercourse, just enjoy it for its surface-level pleasures. How Lisa Bonet, forcefully shedding her The Cosby Show innocence, commits to the scene with an almost animal-like fury, writhing on that grungy New Orleans hotel bed as if she’s been possessed by the spirit of Linda Lovelace. The ways in which the ‘80s-era Mickey Rourke embodies movie-star masculinity and the kind of sleazy-uncle sexiness that drives middle-aged women crazy. How, despite director Alan Parker’s camera’s presence, and, of course, the edits and musical score, it sort of looks like Rourke and Bonet are actually having sex. It’s that raw and convincing.
So, yeah—avoid delving deeper into what’s actually happening in the scene. How all of the human and chicken blood pouring down from the ceiling symbolizes sacrifice. How, once Angel Heart’s whopper of a twist reveals itself, it’s more of a T&A homicide than sensual interaction. And, yes, how Bonet’s character, Epiphany Proudfoot, is, gasp, the daughter Rourke’s character didn’t know he had. Yeah, forget about all of that and simply bask in the so-hot-it-could-be-real bumping and grinding. —Matt Barone
The Foodie Scene in 9 1/2 Weeks (1986)
9 1/2 Weeks put sexy food scenes on the map with this unforgettably enticing moment. Mickey Rourke's John woos Kim Basinger's Elizabeth using her tastebuds only, teasing her with everything he can find in the refrigerator, from sugar-sweet maraschino cherries to tongue-scorching jalapeños. But the honey he puts on her outstretched tongue is the icing on the sexual chocolate cake, and turns their sexy game into a real deal romp on the kitchen floor.
While most of this list falls into the "don't try this at home" category, 9 1/2 Weeks boasts a scene that was made once and has been recreated hundreds of times since. So if you haven't yet, get your ass into the kitchen and get your freak on. —Shanté Cosme
The “Make Me Feel Good” Scene in Monster's Ball (2001)
When I nominated this scene, most people thought I was joking. “She’s not enjoying herself,” they argued. “It’s not sexy. It’s just sad.” You may agree with them, but hear me out. The reason why Halle Berry getting smashed by Billy Bob Thornton is such an important scene on this list is because it’s one of the most primal and raw sex scenes in modern cinema. We all know that sex can help relieve stress, but it can also help us deal with depression and pain. Too often in movies the sex scene is about consummating a love affair between two characters that no one thought had a chance of being together. That’s all fine and well, but that’s not really how life works.
In real life, the star-crossed lovers don’t often end up together. In real life, a single mother struggling with addiction and dealing with poverty and death may very well see sex a final resort before diving into the deepest darkest pit of depression she’s ever encountered. It’s a saving grace. It can be elevated to a spiritual level. This reasoning may not fit everyone’s definition for “sexy,” but that’s okay. What’s important is to recognize that sex doesn’t always come in the same package and with the same formula. It can also be like medicine—a prophylactic for the lonely, dying soul. —Lauretta Charlton
The Threesome in The Dreamers (2003)
A decade ago, Eva Green was the art house muse du jour of Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci's when she co-starred in the cinematic love letter, The Dreamers. The film was slapped with an NC-17 rating, but still managed to net a respectable $15 million at the box office. Here, Green co-stars with Michael Pitt and Louis Garrel as three cinephiles in Paris during the 1968 student riots. Green and Garel play a pair of enigmatic French siblings who seduce a visiting American film aficionado played by Pitt.
While the backdrop of politics, Godard, and classic Hollywood set the stage for The Dreamers, all of that is overshadowed by the sex—lots and lots of sex. There's sex between Green and Pitt, sex between Pitt and Garel, and finally sex between Garel, Green, and Pitt. The threesome between the leads takes on, naturally, a dream-like sense of artifice as the trio treat the entire affair with a director's eye. The erotically charged, gauzy menage-a-trois seems fleeting as Bertolucci presents all three to the viewer with carnal abandon. —Hanuman Welch
The Fantasy Scene in Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
“Do you remember last summer in Cape Cod?” Thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, that’s a question no husband wants to hear his wife ask. Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman), very stoned, tells her husband (Tom Cruise) about a Naval officer who she wanted so bad that she would’ve given up her entire life to have him, even for a little bit, and it’s this monologue that haunts Cruise’s character for the rest of the movie. Kidman’s night with the officer only happens intermittently in Cruise’s imagination (depending on who you ask) after that, a blue-lit sex scene that drips with lust and vengeance even while being littered with dopey fantasy tropes—cue the slow motion, and the officer never takes off his uniform for God’s sake. It’s unrelentingly sexy to Dr. Harford despite himself, and the only way he can get it out of his mind is to clap it away with a try-hard vigor that only Cruise could pull off. —Andrew Gruttadaro
The Seduction Scene in Bound (1996)
Three years before The Matrix’s groundbreaking bullet-time effects, filmmaking siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski did the seemingly impossible—they somehow made the name “Corky” sound sexy as all hell.
"Do I make you nervous, Corky?" With that question, delivered by Jennifer Tilly and her uniquely baby-like voice, Bound’s sexual gauntlet is dropped. Tilly’s character, Violet, the bisexual girlfriend of a Chicago mobster, titillates the ex-con plumber Corky (Gina Gershon), her first step towards getting Corky to help her swipe $2 million from her gangster hubby. “I’m trying to seduce you,” admits Violet. No efforts from Violet/Tilly are needed to win over Bound’s audience, though, all of whom are rendered powerless once Violet sticks Corky’s finger in her mouth and then guides it all the way down. In that childlike voice of hers, Tilly begs, “Please, kiss me.”
Very little separates Bound’s infamous moment of erotica from those Skin-A-Max flicks you’d secretly watch late at night when your parents were sleeping. If not for the Wachowskis being real directors, and elevating the sequence with slick camerawork, Bound could’ve been titled Pop the Cork and no one would’ve known the difference. Well, except that it never would’ve received a theatrical release. And only softcore connoisseur’s would know it exists. —Matt Barone
The Turning in The Hunger (1983)
There’s nothing particularly sexy about developing an addiction. Unless, of course, it’s a supremely seductive vampire (Catherine Deneuve) infecting a beautiful doctor (Susan Sarandon) with bloodlust, transforming her into an immortal companion during a sensual love scene. What makes the turning so special and hot in Tony Scott’s artsy British horror flick The Hunger, aside from its stunning participants, is the delicate camera work, “The Flower Duet” soundtrack, and the slow build. From flirtation over red wine, which spills on the doc’s blouse, it escalates to her stripping topless, them sharing a gentle first touch and kiss, and then, as seen through a mirror and blowing white curtains, writhing nude, more kissing, caressing, and eventually biting and sucking. It’s possibly the least traumatic turning in the history of vampires. —Justin Monroe
The “Bend Over” Scene in Secretary (2002)
Pain never looked as good as it did in Steven Shainberg's Secretary. If you're sick of hearing about Fifty Shades of Grey, this film could satisfy your BDSM curiosity. Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a repressed secretary working for her tyrant of a boss, E. Edward Grey (James Spader), who tells her how to dress, how to talk, and how to eat. As horrible as her job might seem, life outside of it isn't any better: she's awkward, cuts and burns herself, and has a sexually inexperienced boyfriend. When Lee makes one typo too many in one of her letters for Edward, he makes her bend over onto his desk to read the letter aloud, typos and all. As she does, Edward loudly slaps her ass without warning. It's a tense moment that's filled with suspense: the camera turns to Lee from Edward's perspective, and she turns around to meet his eyes—Will she scream? Run out of the door?—no, she turns back to the letter and continues to read. Edward smacks, smacks, and smacks until he's satisfied, with the camera firmly focused on Lee's face as she endures the pain—a pain that, finally, isn't inflicted on her by her own hands, but by someone else's. A safe pain.
The scene ends with an exhausted Edward bending over Lee who slowly moves her pinky over his thumb. From there their BDSM relationship begins, with Lee being in the role of submission. Yet, she uses that role, a role that she wants, to begin manipulating Edward into giving her the sexual satisfaction she finally awakens to. —Jason Duaine Hahn
The Steamy Flashback in Unfaithful (2002)
Unfaithful is, more or less, the cinematic equivalent of one of those ridiculous romance novels that bored housewives read to remind themselves about sex and passion—you know, those things that evaporate once you get married and settle into ho-hum domestication. Instead of Fabio lookalikes adorning gaudily illustrated book covers, there’s suave French guy Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez), who’s the polar opposite of the disenchanted Connie Summer’s (Diane Lane) lovable but internal-fire-deficient Ed (Richard Gere). Once Connie hears Paul’s silky accent and catches onto his sexual attraction, the housewife turns into a…well, let Kurupt’s sage wisdom fill in the rest.
What separates Unfaithful’s incredibly sexy sex scene from the others on this list is how, for the most part, it’s explained via a monologue. Riding a train home after her first body-to-body romp with Paul, Connie recounts how Paul disarmed her with his mouth, kissing her stomach and then between her legs, changing her caution and guilt into an enthused, put-it-on-me participation. Not that the sight of the beautiful Diane Lane reaching peak sensuality needs any extra assistance, but Lane’s emotional telling of the incident, with the mixture of remorse and post-intercourse excitement seen all over her expressive face, makes an already hot encounter seem like the apex of erotica.
Meaning, Diane Lane could read crap like Jungle Freakn’ Bride aloud and make it sound smoldering. —Matt Barone
The Phone Booth Scene in True Romance (1993)
Fans of the film will agree, Tony Scott's True Romance is constantly punctuated by Alabama's (Patricia Arquette) hyper-sexuality. From her bleach-bottle hair to her one-size-too-small cleavage revealing blouses, Arquette is a trailer park Marilyn Monroe to Christian Slater's juvie hall Elvis and she's absolutely distracting in all of her tawdriness. Easily the hottest sex scene in the whole film takes place appropriately outside of a truck stop alongside I-80 as the couple flees from Chicago to Los Angeles with the mafia at their backs. Slater phones his best friend, Dick Ritchie, in Los Angeles (played to goofy perfection by Michael Rappaport) from a phone booth and introduces Arquette as his new wife, before putting her on the phone to introduce herself. The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" scores the pair devouring one another within the confines of a phone booth as trucks roar down the interstate.
The actual sex is relatively tame by today's standards, but it manages to perfectly capture the raw, rock 'n roll abandon of the pair's cross-country 'fuck it' adventure. Rappaport's Richie is privy to the entire encounter as he's left on the receiver listening as the pair tear into one another in a shuffle that's all cowboy boots, Hawaiin shirts, and torn g-strings. —Hanuman Welch
The Pre-Party Sex Scene in We Own the Night (2007)
Okay, this is simple. Beautiful person Eva Mendes' Amada Juarez writhes on a couch in anticipation of her lover, beautiful person Joaquin Phoenix's Bobby Green. His red shirt is the brightest thing in the dimly lit room. Her black blouse makes her skin stand up and shout, ditto her red mouth and the white teeth you see when his hand touches her. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” is the soundtrack. They’re having the sex you have early in the evening, before you go out and meet friends and get high. Everything here just pops. (Sidebar: But the sexiest scene in James Gray's movie is actually when Juarez walks down a dark hallway with a lit cigarette between her lips and the fire at the smoke’s end is most of the illumination and the shot only lasts a moment but it makes you slide out of your chair and onto the ground where you can just puddle and collect yourself before beginning again.) —Ross Scarano
The Whipping Scene in Belle de Jour (1967)
Not everyone is into kinky sex and erotica, and not everyone is into the bizarre style of French surrealist Luis Buñuel. Belle de Jour, however, is one of his more accessible films as it deals in sexual repression, class, and prostitution. There are many scenes highlighting sex and desire in this film, but what makes them so hot is the fact that they all feature Catherine Deneuve in her prime. You could argue that the sexiest scenes are those with Deneuve as the titular character in the brothel attending to the whims of her clients, but to my mind, the sexiest scenes are the ones in which we catch a glimpse into the mind of a woman who is a deviant shackled by circumstance as the wife of a very successful surgeon.
There’s a good amount of BDSM in this movie, but the sexiest scene is when she fantasizes about being bound, lashed, and raped while her husband watches. (I’d rather not get into a heavy exegesis here, but many brave feminists have helped unpack the psychology behind rape fantasies. This film boldly addresses that twisted desire.) The result is rather steamy. —Lauretta Charlton
The Times Clint Eastwood's John McBurney Sleeps With Every Woman in The Beguiled (1971)
While Don Siegel's film isn't very popular, it’s got some very disturbing sex scenes that are good for sex (depending on what turns you on, naturally.) Because most people haven't seen this film, I’m just going to quote the voice over from the original trailer: “A refuge or a hell, as Clint Eastwood's John McBurney, wounded Yankee, is brought to an all-girls school to become the prisoner of these man-deprived women, these man-eager girls. Consider the possibilities. Is he a helpless victim to be threatened, teased, enticed, loved at their will and pleasure? Or is he a man, aggressive, wooing, demanding, who must love to stay alive? McBurney, man, the symbol, the sexual enemy. The tensions, the jealousies, the conflicts of sexual confrontations rare even for today.”
This movie is all about a POW who ends up at an all-girls school and proceeds to bone down on them all. It’s hard to choose just one sexy sex scene from this unsung jewel of early 1970s American cinema. You’ll have to watch and choose for yourself. —Lauretta Charlton
The Last Night Hookup Scene in Weekend (2011)
It’s possible to forget what a sexualized male body looks like on screen if you just watch mainstream (straight) Hollywood stuff. Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, concerned as it is with a romantic weekend between two men, necessarily captures its subjects with ardor, curiosity, and excitement. The curve of a thigh where the hair begins to thin and the skin goes smooth. A neck arching during a blowjob, the way the Adam’s apple moves when moaning. A broad, naked expanse of back. Of course, Haigh’s script lets you know these men, too, and the performances from Tom Cullen and Chris New bring them to devastating life. The privacy you’re let in on during the film’s big sex scene feels special. Maybe it won’t always be that way, as gay sex becomes a more visible reality of life for the straight world. But even still, it’s hard to believe that Weekend will ever be anything but hot. —Ross Scarano
The "Take My Breath Away" Scene in Top Gun (1986)
When selecting the films on this list, Top Gun almost didn't make the cut for a number of reasons. For starters, it's just really hard to imagine Tom Cruise as a sex symbol in 2014. Another is because the movie's famous sex scene is set to Berlin's cheeseball classic, “Take My Breath Away,” a song whose dated charm has little to do with sensuality. Then there was the heated argument in our editorial meeting that the actual best sex scene in the film is arguably the shirtless volleyball scene—a contention that makes quite a bit of sense, if you think about it. But forget all that and try to go back to 1986, when Tom Cruise was a hot-bodied stud, Kelly McGillis was the ultimate beach babe, and Top Gun was the cutting edge of summer entertainment. Sure it's easy to be cynical, but it's even easier to let Charlie and Maverick take your breath away.—Nathan Reese
The Vigorous DMX Sex Scene in Belly (1998)
There are not enough movies with sex scenes starring DMX, who's a force of nature in Hype William’s forever-surprising avant-garde gangster movie, Belly. The sex montage occurs early in the picture, not long after the nightclub robbery. Covered in baby oil, DMX stalks through his palatial home like a lion before pouncing on his lover Keisha, played by Taral Hicks. (Note: It does not make sense to list a name for DMX’s character, since he can only be DMX. He is always DMX.) When I say pounce, I mean that. He pounces and pounds Keisha into the bed, one leg crooked and up near what would be her upper torso. But you can’t see Keisha. Williams lights the scene so that all you get is the sinewy back and butt of DMX as he vigorously thrashes about. It’s like he’s digging to the center of the earth. When people talk about plowing in the context of sex, they’re talking about DMX in Belly. —Ross Scarano
The Entirety of Original Sin (2001)
Original Sin, directed by Michael Cristofer, is ostensibly a film about a British woman's arranged marriage to a coffee baron in 19th century Cuba, but most people remember it as the movie where Angelina Jolie, as Julia Russell, and Antonio Banderas, as Luis Antonio Vargas, have sex. A lot. As far as actual plot mechanics are concerned, the twists are only there to keep the steamy action coming. At the time of the movie's release, there were rumors that one or more of the sex scenes were unsimulated, a claim that, if real, would have made Angelina's Golden Raspberry Award all the more insulting. Still, the two minutes of Jolie and Banderas going at it amidst billowing white sheets is a sex scene for the ages. And for those with different tastes, there's also Jolie's BDSM tryst with a rival suitor played by Thomas Jane, who cuts Jolie's back with a knife (erotically, of course) before some Cinemax-style insinuated anal. (I'd make a joke about The Punisher here if it were 2004.) Say what you will about the clunky acting, goofy melodrama, and sub-Brian De Palma eroticism, but in the early days of DSL, Original Sin was an all-in-one PornHub for a generation. —Nathan Reese
The Car Scene in Titanic (1997)
James Cameron's iconic movie is on every sexiest sex scene list for a reason. It’s about the kind of lusty young love we would all like to live over and over again. That time you saw your first set of boobs. The time you fell in love with a kid from the wrong neighborhood. The first time you had sex in a car on a luxury ocean liner that’s about to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Everyone can relate to this movie. It’s also another great example of the power of suggestion. You see the car rocking, you see the steamy windows, and you see Kate Winslet's hand pound against the foggy windowpane in what we can only guess is the most fulfilling climax a woman could ever ask for. The cherry on top is that the on-screen chemistry between Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack and Winslet's Rose was very palpable, which only made this unforgettable sex scene even better. —Lauretta Charlton
The Desk Scene in Jungle Fever (1991)
Trying to assign any of Spike Lee's films to a single theme is both reductive and short-sighted. It was 1991's Jungle Fever that explored the intersection of race and sex in the Black, Hispanic, and Italian communities of New York City in the early '90s. Lee himself contributed the term to the cultural lexicon, defining jungle fever as "sexual attraction between members of two different races" and the term, for good or bad, has ben around ever since Wesley Snipes plays Flipper, a married, successful architect, and Annabella Sciorra plays Angie, an Italian-American office temp. Their sex is initially brief, but hugely symbolic as the pair make love on a drafting table in Flipper's office. Flipper even admits that he's a 'happily married man' before the two have sex. Fully clothed, the pair cross a line that will devastate family, friends, and respective communities. —Hanuman Welch
The Diamond Heist in Femme Fatale (2002)
Multitasking is an important ability for any professional, be it editor, lawyer, or international jewel thief. Especially international jewel thief. While most sex scenes keep the action on the actors' assets, the opening tour-de-force sex scene in Femme Fatale is really an action scene in the (very much naked) body of a borderline X-rated hookup. The scene opens with Rebecca Romijn's character enticing Rie Rasmussen's character with a sultry look that could seduce any supermodel—which of course Rasmussen is—before undressing her in order to get her rocks off, both literally and figuratively. It's the sort of high schlock that defines director Brian De Palma at his best, and is just a hint of what's to come in what might be De Palma's most underrated erotic thriller.—Nathan Reese
The Last Scene in Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Director Mike Figgis' Leaving Las Vegas is one of the more depressing, soul-crushing films ever made—right down to its 80-proof marrow. But since it also happens to star Elisabeth Shue at the height of her '90s powers, it's also really, really sexy. There's an undeniable chemistry between Nicolas Cage's decayed portrayal of an alcoholic on the edge and Shue, who becomes his enabling angel. Though the movie has no shortage of nudity on Shue's part, it's not until the last scene that Cage and Shue consummate their doomed affair as Cage is dying. After they finally make love, Cage utters one final word before he slips off: “Wow.” Wow is right. —Nathan Reese
The Masturbation Scene in Black Swan (2010)
Black Swan’s Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) isn’t just a prude—despite the fact that she’s a grown woman, she is no more sexually experienced than a middle-schooler. The stuffed animals lined up throughout her bedroom signify her stunted maturity. You get the sense that the only man who’s ever stepped foot into the room is the guy who moved the furniture into it. That limited carnal experience is a problem, too, since ballet company head Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) demands that Nina bare her skin, both figuratively and literally, if she wants to lead his prestigious Swan Lake rendition.
Alone in her bed, the morning after a particularly harrowing berating from Thomas, Nina takes matters into her own hands. Wisely, director Darren Aronofksy doesn’t busy up the scene with too much camera work—simply being an observer, he allows Portman’s deeply committed performance do all of the work. By the time Nina’s body flips over and starts grinding the air, and composer Clint Mansell’s smoky orchestral score builds into its own sonic orgasm, you almost expect those stuffed animals to wipe sweat from their furry brows. —Matt Barone