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) - 1978 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 |
(National Lampoon's) Animal House (1978)
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This very popular 'gross-out' anarchistic comedy from National Lampoon was the first big-studio comedy of its kind aimed specifically at the teen and college demographic - and an unexpected major hit - and the first of many other successors; it provided star-making roles for many young actors (John Belushi, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hulce, and Karen Allen); the quintessential college frat party film was set at fictional Faber College in 1962 in the misfit Delta Fraternity house - known for debauchery, drinking, and other misadventures (including a toga party); one of its classic scenes was the 'Peeping Tom' scene of prankster "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) on a ladder outside a sorority house spying on undressed, feeling-good Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller) and a topless pillow fight - causing his ladder in the excitement to tip backwards (after having shared a conspiratorial glance back at the voyeuristic film audience) |   
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Coming Home (1978)
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Director Hal Ashby's late 1970s liberal anti-war treatise depicted the effects of the Vietnam War - in the intimate, steamy and provocative relationship (both sexual and romantic) between V.A. Hospital volunteer and conservative military wife Sally Hyde (Best Actress winner Jane Fonda) and combat-injured, paraplegic Vietnam war veteran Luke Martin (Best Actor winner Jon Voight), while her deranged, war-captain Marine husband Capt. Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern) was on a tour of duty; Luke was able to sensitively gauge her sexual needs and provide her with her first orgasm through oral sex - recorded on her face and in her squirming legs wrapped around his back in a very lengthy scene for a 70s film |    
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Writer/director Bertrand Blier's R-rated odd and unconventional comedy farce (the Best Foreign Film Oscar winner!) told about an unusual sexual awakening, with the tagline: "The Delicious Anarchy of Love and Devotion"; it starred Gerard Depardieu as long-suffering, burly, well-meaning and frantic husband Raoul, who went to great and drastic lengths to sexually satisfy his knitting-loving, depressed, unresponsive, almost mute and bored wife Solange (Carole Laure), by first trying to enlist other lovers to get her pregnant; the first failed candidate was bearded, glasses-wearing schoolteacher Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere); however, success finally came through a match-up with an underaged, high-IQ, precocious, socially-awkward 13 year old virginal boy named Christian Boloeil (Riton Liebman); after Solange rescued the boy from bullies' hazing, she brought him to her bed where he peeked at her beneath her nightgown as she slept; although she was shocked by his explorations, she soon gave herself to him and ended up becoming pregnant by him |    
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Director John Carpenter's low-budget slasher film, at its time, was the most profitable independent film in industry history; the landmark film set in motion the Puritanical, psycho-pathological principle that surviving murder by a psychopathic killer was directly related to the degree of one's sexual experience; it also asserted the allegorical idea that sexual awakening often meant the literal 'death' of innocence (or oneself); in the film's opening sequence (filmed from the POV of the young killer wearing a Halloween mask) - after teenaged Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson) had sex with her boyfriend Tommy (David Kyle), the six-year-old killer Michael Myers (Will Sandin as boy) took a large butcher knife, entered his near-naked sister's bedroom where he found her brushing her hair in front of a vanity table; after he surveyed her bedsheets, she turned and recognized her brother: "Michael!" and although she tried to defend herself, he furiously stabbed her to death in a brutal murder, and her bloodied body tumbled to the floor; in this film, the murders often occurred after sexual encounters when victims were distracted and off-guard - note in the middle picture the dark silhouette of the serial killer Michael Myers as teenaged Lynda (P.J. Soles) and her boyfriend Bob (John Michael Graham) made love in a bed next to a jack-o-lantern, before he was killed and she was strangled with a phone cord; the virginal baby-sitting title character Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) was able to escape mostly unscathed (as did the asexual Dr. Loomis and the young pre-teen Tommy Doyle), but others who were more promiscuous and sexually-charged were less fortunate and suffered deadly consequences as stalked victims |
  
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Director/writer Meir Zarchi's vengeance story was a notorious gang rape/vigilante revenge film with exploitative splatter-horror film elements; it told about NY socialite/writer Jennifer Hill (Camille Keaton, married to director Zarchi at the time of filming) who rented a remote and woodsy, lakeside dwelling for the summer where - after skinny-dipping - she was confronted and repeatedly gang-raped by four men (Eron Tabor, Anthony Nichols, Gunther Kleeman, and Richard Pace) in a graphic, long and violent sequence of mostly painful-to-watch scenes; afterwards, her angry, cold-blooded (yet seductive) revenge was enacted against each of the four attackers: a hanging, a lethal bloodletting castration conducted nude in a warm bathtub with a conveniently-placed carving knife, a hanging, an axing, and a disembowelment with an outboard boat motor; the film was banned outright in many countries, and vilified by critics |  
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Midnight Express (1978)
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In director Alan Parker's harrowing drama about an American imprisoned in a brutally-hellish Turkish prison for hash possession, Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) was stripped at gunpoint and forced to endure beatings, rapes, and torture by sadistic guards; in one scene, the sexually-desperate Billy asked his girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle) to show him her breasts by pressing them against the partition's glass so he could kiss them and pleasure himself |
  
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Nicole (1978) (aka Crazed or The Widow's Revenge)
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Often, an impossible-to-find, poorly-made film such as this one (until released on DVD to capitalize on its rarity) will still be touted as featuring 'one of a kind' topless nudity of one of its characters; in this case in writer-director István Ventilla's erotic thriller, it was the appearance of 24 year-old Catherine (credited as Cathy) Bach (famous in coming years as Daisy Duke in the classic TV show The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979-1985) as young and innocent Sue, who was obsessed over by slightly mad, rich lesbian widow Nicole (47 year-old Leslie Caron) with a brief breast groping (possibly with a body double) - and then killed by her trained Great Dane guard dogs |
 
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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) |
   
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Sextette (1978)
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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 |  
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Stay As You Are (1978, It/Sp.) (aka Cosi Come Sei)
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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)) |     
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The Stud (1978, UK)
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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 |  
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An Unmarried Woman (1978)
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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 |  
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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.
- Milestone Films With Scenes That Were Especially Notorious, Infamous, Controversial, or Scandalous