History of Sex in Cinema:
The Greatest and Most Influential
Sexual Films and Scenes
(Illustrated)
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History of Sex in Cinema: |
See also the multi-part Sexual and Erotic Films in Cinema, The Most Controversial Films of All-Time and the Best and Most Memorable Film Kisses of All Time in Cinematic History. Key to Icon Symbol:
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Greatest and Most Influential Erotic / Sexual Films and Scenes (chronological order, by film title) - 1975 Intro | Pre-1920s | 1920-1928 | 1929-1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934-1937 | 1938-1943 | 1944-1946 | 1947-1952 | 1953-1954 | 1955-1957 | 1958-1959 | 1960-1961 | 1962-1963 | 1964 | 1965-1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992-1 | 1992-2 | 1993 | 1994-1 | 1994-2 | 1995-1 | 1995-2 | 1996-1 | 1996-2 | 1997-1 | 1997-2 | 1998-1 | 1998-2 | 1999-1 | 1999-2 | 2000-1 | 2000-2 | 2001-1 | 2001-2 | 2002-1 | 2002-2 | 2003-1 | 2003-2 | 2004-1 | 2004-2 | 2005-1 | 2005-2 | 2006-1 | 2006-2 | 2007-1 | 2007-2 | 2008 | 2009 | |
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Movie Title |
Brief Scene Description |
Example |
Barry Lyndon (1975, UK)
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Stanley Kubrick's costume drama adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel featured astonishing, gorgeous candlelit cinematography by John Alcott and oil painting-like tableauxs; it told a tale of the profligate life-style of impetuous, opportunistic, and jealous young Irish rogue Redmond Barry/Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) and his flirtatious meetings with adulterous Countess/Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) - including her bathtime as a newly-wed wife and his own infidelities with his wife's maids; one love-making scene between them was deleted from the final release |
 (above scene deleted)  
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The first full frontal female nudity (an open crotch shot) in a major-studio American film was in this Roger Corman-produced exploitation film, a biopic about Chicago gangster Al Capone (Ben Gazzara); the female actress was Susan Blakely (as Iris Crawford), who spread her legs while getting out of bed with Capone |  
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First time writer/director John Byrum's originally X-rated dark, odd-ball sex comedy (re-rated NC-17 for its DVD/video release, due to crude language, a violent near-rape scene, and full-frontal female and male nudity) was little seen due to its harsh rating; its poster proclaimed: "A DEGENERATE FILM, WITH DIGNITY," and "Now they make pornos. But they're briliant pornos"; set in 1930s Hollywood, the stage-bound film starred Richard Dreyfuss (in the same year that he made the mainstream blockbuster Jaws (1975)) as unshaven, alchoholic, robe and pajamas-wearing silent film-maker Boy Wonder, who resorted to making more explicit, low-budget, silent black and white hardcore stag/porno loop films in his crumbling and decaying mansion when the talkies arrived; screechy-voiced, red-haired former silent film starlet and flapper junkie Harlene (Veronica Cartwright) was one of the 'stars' of his erotic films (viewed spreading her legs during the opening credits) with revealing gay stud co-star Rex the Wonder Dog (Stephen Davies); but when she overdosed on heroin, the impotent filmmaker prodigy Boy Wonder realized he must finish the film he was making by shooting body parts 'inserts' (extreme close-ups) using another aspiring dark-haired actress named Miss Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper); she was the virginal, silly and naive girlfriend of Rex's financier - mob boss (Bob Hoskins), who during filming attempted to seduce and taunt Boy Wonder and get his limp "rope to rise," while he told her: "Unwrap the meat!" (referring to her private parts) |
   
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Adapted from Kyle Onstott's bestseller (first published in 1957), director Richard Fleischer's inflammatory sex- or blaxploitation drama (with inter-racial sex and various debased atrocities of slavery) was extremely controversial and banned by the Catholic Church; the trashy, 'revisionist' melodrama from Paramount Pictures (and producer Dino De Laurentiis) told about an 1840s slave-breeding plantation in which lusty plantation heir Hammond Maxwell (Perry King) was bedding black slaves, but was finally compelled by his bigoted Louisiana plantation owner father Warren (James Mason) to marry and produce offspring; although he married his non-virginal white cousin Blanche (Susan George), he continued to cheat during an affair with beautiful black 'bed wench' Ellen (Brenda Sykes) - who shortly afterwards became pregnant; the neglected, frustrated and sex-starved Blanche vengefully sought sexual attention, through miscegenation, with her husband's prize-fighting slave Mede (future WBC heavyweight boxing champ Ken Norton), and ultimately induced Ellen's miscarriage; the film ended with (1) the death of Blanche's half-black child at birth from bleeding to death, (2) Hammond's poisoning of Blanche, and (3) the gruesome killing of Mede in a boiling cauldron after being pitchforked; in one of the film's earlier scenes set in a slave market, an older lady examined the studly goods of Mede by reaching into his pants; this film was followed by an almost X-rated Drum (1976) |
 
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Maverick director/producer Robert Altman's classic film was a multi-level, original, two and a half-hour epic study of American culture, show-business, leadership and politics; typical of many films of the 70s, it contained a requisite scene of nudity in which Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles), a dim-witted, red-haired, tone-deaf, lower-class waitress who determinedly aspired to be a singer, embarrassingly performed "about a girl who never gets enough" and a second song titled "When I Love You" before an all-male political, fund-raising smoker - she was encouraged to strip by the misogynistic crowd; her bump-and-grind striptease, a clumsy, inept, asexual un-dressing in front of the crowd, included removing the padding from her bra and tossing it into the hooting group of spectators; thoroughly humiliated, she stripped off her dress, bra, and panties | 
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Night Moves (1975)
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Up-and-coming star 18 year-old Melanie Griffith appeared in her film debut opposite Gene Hackman (as middle-aged, world-weary LA private eye Harry Moseby) in Arthur Penn's noirish psychological detective thriller as free-spirited, promiscuous runaway teenager Delly Grastner in the Florida Keys with her ex-stepfather Tom (John Crawford) and his sexy mistress Paula (singer Jennifer Warren); her notable breakthrough role called for her to appear naked twice, including her mid-night swim scene; the film also featured sexual scenes between Moseby and Paula, and with his estranged wife Ellen (Susan Clark) |    
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The Pigkeeper's Daughter (1975)
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This 'dirty' movie's tagline expressed a lot about its sexploitational plot: "She brought a new meaning to the phrase, 'driving a hard bargain'!" T & A sleaze merchant and producer Harry Novak delivered this X-rated, sex-filled, soft-core romp with a Southern hillbilly-farm theme and a farmer's daughter -- one of many such backwoods films of its ilk, including Country Cuzzins (1970), Country Hooker (1970), Tobacco Roody (1970), Midnight Plowboy (1971), and Southern Comforts (1971); the Ma and Pa Kettle films of earlier decades, and the popularity of TV's "Hee Haw" helped to spur films of this sort for various 'grindhouse' audiences, before the widespread advent of mainstream pornography, heralded by Deep Throat (1972) and watch-at-home videotapes. In this adult comedy, the main title character was 19 year-old unmarried, red-headed Moonbeam Swiner (Terry Gibson), the precocious pigkeeper's daughter with her favorite pig Lord Hamilton. Moonbeam's parents -- Ma Molly Swiner (Gina Paluzzi) and Pa Swiner (Bruce Kimball) - wanted her to marry a con-artist traveling Salesman (Peter James) who appeared in town. There was also a sideplot about local stud Jasper (John Keith) and virginal girl-next-door Pretty Patty (Peggy Church). The film included a traditional romp-in-the-hay scene, an outdoor quickie with a 15 year-old hitchhiker, a horse-trough bathtub sex scene, and a scene with big-breasted Ma Swiner exchanging herself for free beauty products from the Salesman |
    
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Private Lessons (1975, It.) (aka Lezioni Private)
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After her success in Baby Doll (1956), blonde Hollywood temptress Carroll Baker starred in this sordid Italian comedy - not to be confused with the morally-questionable, controversial and clumsily-made teen fantasy sex comedy Private Lessons (1981) with Sylvia Kristel (of Emmanuelle fame); this foreign film included female masturbation, and a scene in which Baker stood totally naked as a young piano student held a lighted match close to her left breast, rear, and pubic area, while saying: "it will show you only what you've imagined… the essence of everything you have desired" |
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Director Catherine Breillat's feature debut was this erotic drama with strong and shocking sexual content - it was made in 1975, but not released until 25 years later due to financial problems with her production company and sensational controversy surrounding the film -- Breillat would later become famous for the similarly-explicit Romance (1999) and Fat Girl (2001) which were also preoccupied with the representation of female sexuality; this original and bold film showed various closeups of genitalia, a fascination with bodily fluids and smells, and sexual fantasies while it charted the budding sexuality, self-exploration and awakening of sexually-curious teenaged Alice Bonnard (Charlotte Alexandra) during a summer holiday |  
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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)
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This R-rated film has always been heavily edited for its mid-70s style nudity and controversial content; it told about an contained inquisitive young college professor Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin) who had disturbing visions during dream-sleep - flashbacks to a previous life 30 years earlier as Jeff Curtis (Tony Stephano); on a self-discovery journey - part-way accompanied by his sexy girlfriend Nora Hayes (Cornelia Sharpe), he returned to where he used to live in a small Massachusetts town, where he fell in love with his 'daughter' Ann Curtis (Jennifer O'Neill) (an 'incest' thematic element) and met his alcoholic widowed 'wife' Marcia Curtis (Margot Kidder); in the film's most talked-about and censored scene, Marcia fantasized about being violently raped by her now-murdered adulterous husband as she masturbated in the bathtub; when she suspected that Peter Proud had many similarities to her deceased husband and had come back to haunt her, she killed him again with a boat oar during his nightly swim |
  
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, UK)
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Director Jim Sharman's midnight movie cult film was a mixed genre film (science-fiction, comedy, musical, and horror); it was a groundbreaking film for its themes of transvestism, homosexuality, bisexuality, cannibalism, voyeurism, adultery, and incest, and for its popularizing and promotion of alternative sexuality, promiscuity, and rebellious behavior; its main character was the sexually-obsessed and openly-bisexual transvestite Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) ("a sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania") - his androgynous sexuality was exemplified by the outrageous dual seduction scenes (heterosexual and then homosexual of a straitlaced newlywed couple) in a lighted tent - first of Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) - in reddish light and then of Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) in bluish light; Frank also re-animated a human - an attractive new muscle-bound, blonde playmate sex toy named Rocky (Peter Hinwood); after witnessing the advances of Frank on Brad, Janet accepted Rocky's seduction while singing "Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me" in her bra and panties; by film's end, the mad Frank-N-Furter has transformed a number of the characters, including Brad, Janet and Rocky, into singing and dancing versions of himself - costumed in stiletto high-heels, fishnet stockings and black corsets - as they all dive into a swimming pool to make love to each other |
   
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Pier Paolo Pasolini's work, an art house film based on Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, ran into censorship problems and aroused outrage and disgust for its depiction of atrocities, cruel sexual perversions, and carnal debaucheries in many contested scenes; the film was divided into various chapters: "Antechamber of Hell," "Circle of Obsessions," "Circle of Shit," and "Circle of Blood"; these perverted acts were committed upon a group of about 30 young peasant teenagers (both male and female) by four ruling WW2 Fascists in the short-lived, lakeside republic of Salo in Northern Italy over a few days; the film connected fascist rulership to extremes of sexual deviation inflicted upon the imprisoned youth ("Weak, chained creatures, destined for our pleasure") who were warned they were "beyond the reach of any legality"). The film began with degradation -- the male and female youths who were seized in the town were stripped and inspected ("A delicious little ass. Never seen one firmer. A pair of little breasts, to revive a dying man") and then driven to a secluded chateau near Marzabotto; they were instructed that every day would include these acts: "intermingling, entwining and copulating incestuously, committing adultery and sodomy"; one girl committed suicide early on by slitting her own throat to escape the brutalities; depicted were the following: anal rape, practicing male masturbation with a life-sized dummy, a mock wedding ceremony (between Renata and Sergio) in which the nude couple was denied consummation and then anally raped, unprovoked gropings, degradation (the youths were collared, leashed, and forced to act like dogs begging for pieces of meat), whippings, and sexual and physical humiliation and abuse. One hapless blonde girl was forced to eat fresh human excrement with a spoon in the chapter titled "Circle of Shit" (a segment obsessed with anal bodily functions) when she was urged on by a man after he had freshly defecated on the floor: "Come, little one, it's ready. On your knees. Courage. Go on, eat! Take this spoon. Eat!" Another mock "wedding feast" served platters of cooked excrement for the guests as an "intoxicating dish". Another young girl was commanded to stand above a man and urinate into his open mouth. A contest was held to judge the "loveliest ass in the villa" - the youths were arranged in a circle on the floor in the dark, bent over with their behinds facing upwards and inspected by flashlight during the judging, as the men commented: "The differences between boys and girls are enormous...let's try to be objective". The final chapter, "Circle of Blood," began with a group wedding ceremony in which three cross-dressed older men were coupled with a male youth and then engaged in homosexual kissing and sodomy in the bedroom on their 'wedding night', in a master/slave relationship; as punishment for breaking the rules, male youth Ezio was executed, along with his black maid partner, for illegally making normal love together; bound by their wrists and sitting in a tub of excrement, one girl cried out: "God, why did you abandon us?"; further tortures conducted in the outdoor courtyard (and seen through binoculars) included penis and breast nipple-burning, tongue cutting, strangulation by hanging, eye-gouging, scalping, and male nipple branding. |
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Shampoo (1975)
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Hal Ashby's sex comedy farce was set during a 24-hour time period on November 4th, 1968 when Richard Nixon won the presidency; it told about studly, playboyish LA hair-dresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) and his round-robin sexual affairs with three women: Julie Christie (as George's ex-girlfriend Jackie Shawn), Lee Grant (as married Felicia), and Goldie Hawn (as Jill); in one scene while George tended to Jackie's hair in her steamy bathroom, they fell to the floor to be intimate although were interrupted and had to fake innocence; in another, Jackie told executive Sid Roth (William Castle), who had offered to get her anything she liked, boldly about her sexual intentions: "Most of all, I'd like to suck his c--k" - pointing to George sitting next to her, causing George to choke while eating a piece of chicken; also, Felicia's teenaged daughter Lorna (Carrie Fisher) propositioned George to avenge her cheating mother with the invitation: "You're my mother's hairdresser...Do you wanna f--k?" |    
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 Shivers (1975) (aka They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders)
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Canadian writer/director David Cronenberg's scandalous early (feature film debut and first commercial success) erotic horror film was about a group of Montreal high-rise apartment occupants on a sex and violence spree after being infected by parasites; it featured red-colored, bloody, invasive worm-like (or phallic-like, similar to grotesque male genitalia) parasites that were "a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy" - they would incubate in one's stomach, emerge from one's mouth, attach to one's face, and would ultimately turn infected victims in a sterile, high-rise apartment building called Starliner Towers into flesh-devouring, crazed sex maniacs and zombie-like fetishists; the film shocked audiences and the Canadian government (which looked upon it as hideous, pornographic, and nasty) with its lurid depictions of gore and sex, delving into multiple taboos such as pedophilia, incest, rape, infanticide, cannibalism and homosexuality; Cronenberg definitely equated sex with disease in the film; in an early scene, a promiscuous teenaged mistress named Annabelle (Kathy Graham) was stripped and chased around by deviant research scientist Professor Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein), then strangled, laid out on a table where her stomach was slit open with a scalpel into which was dumped steaming acid - and then he committed suicide by slashing his own throat with the scalpel; in another scene, a pair of girls were leashed and led around like dogs; the most infamous scene was of repressed lesbian Betts (Barbara Steele) taking a bath with one of the red wormy parasites coming up from the drain and crawling between her legs into her vagina, violating her, and bloodying the water as it infected her; afterwards, the infected Betts seductively whispered repeatedly to her female victim neighbor Janine Tudor (Susan Petrie): "Make love to me" and "Let's kiss" and passed the parasite onto her when they kissed; the resident doctor's nurse, Miss Forsythe (Lynn Lowry), relayed her "disturbing" dream about how she had made love with an elderly, strange dying man, and how everything in life was sexual: "...he tells me that everything is erotic, that everything is sexual, you know what I mean? He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other, that even dying is an act of eroticism, that talking is sexual, that breathing is sexual, that even to physically exist is sexual" - and then opened her mouth to reveal her own parasitic infection; in the final scene, the protagonist, resident physician Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton), finally succumbed to being overpowered by the parasitic forces in an indoor swimming pool orgy, where he was kissed by his infected nurse Miss Forsythe while surrounded by a group of infected inhabitants; the film's parasites stood as a critical metaphor against the swinging sexual lifestyles of the 70s, concluding with the threat of infection for the entire city of Montreal |        
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Soft-core erotic film director Just Jaeckin's ("Emmanuelle") classic but disturbing sex-art tale of erotica was based on a novel by Pauline Reage (the source of the film's voice-overs); it starred Corinne Clery as the title character (a French fashion photographer only named O) who was trained in bondage, discipline and sado-masochism at a bizarre, isolated country retreat where she had to always be sexually available and submissive; she was brought there by her boyfriend Rene (Jean Gaven) to be subjected to the sexual power games and fantasies of others; the notorious soft-focus film was banned for its depiction of depersonalizing female sexual humiliation and abuse that she chose to endure in order to please Rene - in the film's most notorious scenes, she was groped, sodomized, forced to perform oral sex, blindfolded and whipped (with visible lacerations), and branded |     
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Supervixens (1975)
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Exploitation film-maker Russ Meyer needed a comeback film after the failures of the too-serious The Seven Minutes (1971) and Blacksnake (1973); this exceptionally violent and soft-core sexy film had all the trademark Meyer themes and images, including an unappealing and brutal bathtub murder (stabbing and electrocution), lots of women named Super... (SuperCherry (Sharon Kelly), SuperSoul (Uschi Digard), SuperLorna (Christy Harburg), and SuperEula (Deborah McGuire)), and Shari Eubanks as both SuperAngel and sexually-voracious SuperVixen |  
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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.