Sex in Cinema: Greatest and Most Influential Erotic / Sexual Films and Scenes

History of Sex in Cinema:
The Greatest and Most Influential
Sexual Films and Scenes
(Illustrated)

Part 26

Introduction: In the following illustrated compilation are some of the most significant films in the history of sex on the screen. The influential film milestones and their memorable sexual/erotic scenes are thoroughly described. Including portrayals of sex and/or nudity, these films were often considered quite erotic, groundbreaking, unique and/or controversial at the time. The following listing of these influential, memorable and classic sex scenes and films takes into account all of the available surveys of this type of material, and attempts to provide an informed, detailed, unranked, chronological (by film title) grouping of the most influential and groundbreaking films and scenes. Some of the most notorious (or infamous) films are quite mediocre, usually made as an excuse to display nudity or eroticism of a star performer.

Key to Icon Symbol:

- Milestone Films With Scenes That Were Especially Notorious, Infamous, Controversial, or Scandalous

History of Sex in Cinema: Greatest and Most Influential Erotic / Sexual Films and Scenes (chronological order, by film title) - Part 26 Intro \| Part 1 \| Part 2 \| Part 3 \| Part 4 \| Part 5 \| Part 6 \| Part 7 \| Part 8 \| Part 9 \| Part 10 \| Part 11 \| Part 12 \| Part 13 \| Part 14 \| Part 15 \| Part 16 \| Part 17 \| Part 18 \| Part 19 \| Part 20 \| Part 21 \| Part 22 \| Part 23 \| Part 24 \| Part 25 \| Part 26 \| Part 27 \| Part 28 \| Part 29 \| Part 30 \| Part 31 \| Part 32 \| Part 33 \| Part 34 \| Part 35 \| Part 36 \| Part 37 \| Part 38 \| Part 39 \| Part 40 \| Part 41 \| Part 42 \| Part 43 \| Part 44 \| Part 45 \| Part 46 \| Part 47 \| Part 48 \| Part 49 \| Part 50 \| Part 51 \| Part 52 \| Part 53 \| Part 54 \| Part 55
Movie Title	Brief Scene Description	Example
Pretty Baby (1978)	Louis Malle's American debut film was a semi-scandalous picture upon its release due to charges of child porn, but gorgeously photographed, set in a 1917 New Orleans bordello in the red-light district of Storyville, with a virginal 12 year-old Violet (Brooke Shields) as a child prostitute and her brothel mother Hattie (Susan Sarandon); in one of the more controversial scenes, the brothel madam offered the naked Violet in her bath to a customer ("Now, how about it? Pure as the driven snow"); Violet and her mother were both often photographed nude by Ernest Bellocq (Keith Carradine) - who also married the young girl!; various versions were edited (with dark shading or closeups to avoid portraying underage nudity)
Sextette (1978)	One of the worst turkey films (or flops) ever made, and "sin-sational" Mae West's final film based on her own Broadway musical, in which she embarrassingly maintained her sex-kitten persona while parodying herself at the age of 85 - as aging Hollywood actress Marlo Manners; she croaked uncomfortably unfunny double entendres or quips ("I'm the girl who works for Paramount all day, and Fox all night", or "Well, marriage is like a book, the whole story takes place between the covers") and old standbys ("Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"); she was paired with her newlywed sixth husband Sir Michael Barrington (32-year old Timothy Dalton) who at one point spoke/sang to her the disco hit and their signature tune Love Will Keep Us Together; there's also an awkward gymnasium scene with West surrounded by studly muscular men from the US Gymnastics Team
Stay As You Are (1978, It/Sp.) (aka Cosi Come Sei)	This little known provocative European film told about a May-December romance (and possible incest) between a Roman landscape architect named Giulio Marengo (54 year-old Marcello Mastroianni) and the youthful Francesco (19 year-old Nastassja Kinski) - who was possibly his real daughter; it included full frontal female nudity, and scenes of various interludes of love-making and playfulness, especially during a breakfast scene, between the middle-aged man and the vibrantly beautiful and nubile Kinski (a precursor to her role in director/lover Roman Polanski's Tess (1979))
The Stud (1978, UK)	In this late 70's camp film of sexual lust and illicit love (from a book by Jackie Collins, the film star's younger sister), a silly sex scene (a notorious group orgy scene at a swimming pool) involved Joan Collins (as nymphomaniacal and decadent Fontaine Khaled, the wife of a wealthy businessman) swinging on a swing and having sex at the same time with Oliver Tobias (as London disco/club manager Tony Blake) - her appointed stud
An Unmarried Woman (1978)	Director/writer Paul Mazursky's serious and groundbreaking (but dated) feminist film portrayed the character of NYC mid-30s wife/mother Erica (Oscar-nominated Jill Clayburgh); she was casually nude with her husband Martin (Michael Murphy) in the opening scenes, and was suddenly dumped by him for a much younger woman; the scenes of her obvious confusion, humiliation, and anger toward all men were followed by the scene of her one-night stand with smooth, gold necklace-wearing co-worker and swinger Charlie (Cliff Gorman), and then her more reciprocal loving relationship with handsome artist Saul (Alan Bates) - but in the end - her final realization was that she was in control of her life as an unmarried and independent woman
Alien (1979)	This Ridley Scott sci-fi/horror film was rich with Freudian sexual metaphors and symbols of sexual violation and biological reproductive imagery (i.e., a huge alien spacecraft with numerous vaginal orifices, the face-hugger, the chest-bursting newborn's birth, the slimy penis-headed beast, and the sequence of Lambert's (Veronica Cartwright) death - with the creature's phallic tail sliding up between her legs and her pseudo-orgasmic grunts and howls of pain over an intercom as she was killed offscreen), the scene of Ash's stuffing of an adult magazine into heroine Ellen Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) mouth, and the ending sequence with Ripley's appearance in a braless, sleeveless undershirt and skimpy mini-panties as she confronted the threatening alien beast
Being There (1979)	In a later scene in Hal Ashby's insightful satire, the reclusive, illiterate, passive and simple-minded gardener Chance (Peter Sellers) said: "I like to watch" in the amorous company of unsatisfied wife Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine); his most famous line about his joy of watching TV was misinterpreted by Eve ("You mean you'd like to watch me...do it") as an invitation to sexually stimulate herself (on a full-sized bear-skin rug while grabbing the bedpost) while he watched an exercise program on TV from the nearby bed
Caligula (1979, It./US)	This was Hollywood's first big-budget ($15 million), bizarre blockbuster sexploitation epic of 'classy' hardcore sex and gory violence - and it became both a critical and commercial disaster; noted as the most expensive pornographic film ever made, it was originally intended to be high-art, with major stars (Malcolm McDowell as the Roman emperor Caligula, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, and Peter O'Toole), by Penthouse's producer Bob Guccione from a script by Gore Vidal (who later disowned it); the sordid film included graphic and steamy sex scenes of sexual depravity and orgiastic decadence (including a large-scale orgy, a phallic swing, masturbation, sleeping with a horse, incest, and explicit oral sex acts including a lesbian one between two Penthouse Pets Lori Wagner and Marjorie Thoreson as Anneka Di Lorenzo that was filmed later and inserted for prurient interest); originally self-rated as X and shown as unrated in a 156-minute version, then severely edited for an R-rating down to about 105 minutes; this objectionable film, condemned as worthless fantasy trash, arrived just before the new conservatism that took place during the Reagan administration and its subsequent Meese Commission Study of Pornography (finally published in mid 1986)
Various European starlets in Erotic Dramas	During the liberalized 1970s and early 80s, many foreign film stars - known as European starlets (some mentioned elsewhere) - appeared in many foreign-made, R-rated soft-core romantic/comedy dramas often requiring the stars to be naked; these numerous sex romp films included these three better-known actresses: Malicious (1973) (aka Malizia, It.), Till Marriage Do Us Part (1974) (aka Dio Mio, Come Sono Caduta In Basso, It.), The Divine Nymph (1976, It., and 1979 US), The Innocent (1976, It./Fr.) (pictured), and Wifemistress (1977) (aka Mogliamante, It.), with Italian film actress Laura Antonelli Hubert Frank's soft-core, 'erotic travelogue' sexploitation film Vanessa (1977, W. Germ.) - a German-produced, Hong Kong-shot, dubbed-in-English film, with 20 year-old German actress Olivia Pascal; ads promoted: "Where Emmanuelle ended, Vanessa begins!" with the title character experiencing a lesbian scene with her 'cousin', a bondage-whipping scene with her 'uncle', a sensual Oriental massage, and more The Cricket (aka La Cicala, It.) (1980), and Honey (aka Miele Di donna, It./Sp.) (1981) with French actress Clio Goldsmith	The Innocent (1976) Vanessa (1977) La Cicala (1980) Honey (1981)
Hair (1979)	Hair was first presented as a controversial, cult musical play with memorable songs ("The Age of Aquarius" among others), featuring rebellious anti-establishment and anti-war themes and the hippie lifestyle of the late 60s - and a much-talked about total nude scene; it was then made into a major film studio event by Czech director Milos Forman, with some sexual frankness including skinny-dipping (with a young Beverly D'Angelo)
Hanover Street (1979, UK)	Director Peter Hyams' WWII war-time romantic drama with a sweeping John Barry score featured a love triangle between an American pilot named David Halloran (a young Harrison Ford) and pretty British nurse Margaret Sellinger (Lesley-Anne Down), who was married to secret agent Paul (Christopher Plummer) - the plot revolved around the question posed to David: should Paul's life be saved or sacrificed during combat?
Hardcore (1979)	Writer/director Paul Schrader's film told about the one-man crusade of businessman and religious Michigan Calvinist Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) to find his misguided daughter Kristin (Ilah Davis), who had run away to California to join the world of the underground porn film industry; it included the scene of the screening of an ultra-low budget 8mm X-rated porno of the girl found by private investigator Andy Mast (Peter Boyle) (with Jake's anguished screaming "TURN IT OFF!"), and a scene with a sweet-natured stripper/prostitute and porn actress named Niki (Season Hubley) who helped Van Dorn on the trail
H.O.T.S. (1979)	This R-rated, raunchy and witless campus comedy was typical of the late 70s and 80s (that played on late-night cable TV) - it followed on the successful heels of Animal House and other cheerleader films; with a screenplay scripted by two women (Cheri Caffaro and Joan Buchanan), this film combined pretty H.O.T.S. (an acronym for Honey, O'Hara, Terri, and Sam) sorority school girls (some were Playboy Playmates, including Susan Kiger, Lisa London, and Pamela Jean Bryant), a wet T-shirt contest, and the climactic topless football game in which the females wore red and white-striped bikinis - this one sequence was noted for its unique image of the attractive, topless women in a huddle taken from the ground's point of view