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

Sex in Cinema: In the following collection, excerpted from the Mini-History of Sex in the Cinema at this site, here are some of the most significant milestones, and most influential and memorable sexual/erotic scenes and films on the big screen through cinematic history. Most of these films, with portrayals of sex and/or nudity, were considered quite erotic, groundbreaking, unique and/or controversial at the time.

Sex in Cinema: In the following collection, excerpted from the Mini-History of Sex in the Cinema at this site, here are some of the most significant milestones, and most influential and memorable sexual/erotic scenes and films on the big screen through cinematic history. Most of these films, with portrayals of sex and/or nudity, were considered quite erotic, groundbreaking, unique and/or controversial at the time. HISTORY OF SEX IN CINEMA - INDEX (chronological by film title) 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 \|
Sex in Cinema: Part 31 Greatest and Most Influential Erotic / Sexual Films and Scenes (chronological by film title) Milestone Films With Scenes That Were Especially Notorious, Infamous, Controversial, or Scandalous
Movie Title	Brief Scene Description	Example
L'Annee des Meduses (1984, Fr.) (aka Year of the Jellyfish)	This pretty-to-look-at exploitation film from France, masquerading as an art-house film, featured sexual rivalry between femme fatale nymphet Chris (Valerie Kaprisky) and her 38 year-old mother Claude (Caroline Celier) over gigolo Romain (Bernard Giradeau) - their menage a trois competition was fought on the gorgeous topless beaches of the South of France at Saint-Tropez; in the same year, Kaprisky also starred in the artsy La Femme Publique (1984, Fr.) (aka The Public Woman) (also pictured) in the role of aspiring and sexually-dominated actress Ethel	L'Annee des Meduses (1984) La Femme Publique (1984)
Another Country (1984)	This British coming-of-age film, an adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play, told about an unexplicit relationship between two schoolboys in a 1930s British boarding school: openly-gay Guy Burgess (Rupert Everett in a star-making role) and James Harcourt (Cary Elwes); in one scene, the two young males gently cuddled in the moonlight - one of the earliest representations of homosexual romantic love
Bachelor Party (1984)	In this above-average, trashy mid-80s teen sex comedy starring a young Tom Hanks (as bus-driver Rick Gasko), buxom pinup Monique Gabrielle (as Tracey) appeared to test Gasko in a bedroom during a bachelor party - she dropped out of her dress, walked over and sat down at the foot of a bed where the struggling Gasko contemplated whether to have sex with her or not - he imagined heads of different people superimposed on her body that offered advice - his brother's head encouraged: "What, are you nuts? Look at my tits! They're perfect!"
Blame It On Rio (1984)	This unfunny and distasteful sex comedy was produced and directed by Stanley Donen (of Singin' In The Rain fame!); it was a remake of Claude Berri's French sex comedy Un Moment D'égarement (1977, Fr.) (aka One Wild Moment) with Jean-Pierre Marielle, and was a younger version of Blake Edwards' 10 (1979); it starred buxom and voluptuous 17 year-old Michelle Johnson (in her debut role as nymphet Jennifer Lyons) and smaller-chested Demi Moore (as Nicole 'Nikki' Hollis, Michael Caine's daughter) - two teenaged friends on vacation near the topless beaches of Rio; Michael Caine was featured as lecherous, married businessman Matthew Hollis - the best friend of Victor Lyons (Joseph Bologna), Jennifer's father; in an awkward May-December romantic entanglement, a reluctant "Uncle Matthew" was repeatedly seduced and eventually succumbed to the oversexed, intrepid, frequently nude, and under-aged Jennifer (who in one scene posed nude to take a Polaroid picture of herself and placed a small bouquet of flowers over her private parts just in time); in one scene, she boldly propositioned him: (Jennifer: "Make love to me." Matthew: "I'm twenty years older than you." Jennifer: "Twenty-eight")
Body Double (1984)	Director Brian DePalma paid homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Dial M for Murder (1954) and Vertigo (1958) in this R-rated film (with the tagline: "You Can't Believe Everything You See"); the film opened with struggling, claustrophobic B-film actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) discovering his live-in girlfriend Carol (Barbara Crampton) cheating on him; the film's centerpiece was a later scene in a swanky LA bachelor pad in which Jake was house-sitting for fellow thespian Sam (Gregg Henry) in Beverly Hills, when he voyeuristically watched (through a high-powered telescope) the beautiful, rich dark-haired Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton) (actually a porn queen 'body double' hired to impersonate her) performing a self-pleasuring, seductive dance -- soon afterwards was the infamous set-up murder (an offensive scene) by her disguised (Native American), disfigured husband using a power drill; Melanie Griffith had a breakthrough role as bleached-blonde adult film porn queen Holly Body dancing (with headphones) in a music-video scene in which British pop band Frankie Goes To Hollywood's tune "Relax" played for the X-rated porn shoot Holly Does Hollywood ("The Gone With the Wind of Adult Films" according to Eros Magazine) - her familiar-looking dance in the porno film helped Jake to unravel the conspiracy underlying the murder by leading him to enter the business of hardcore films, meet and make love to Holly Body while taking a supporting role in one of her productions; during the filming of a sex scene with her, exhibitionist Jake was so involved in the scene that the 'money shot' was not visible to the startled cameraman; the film's final credits rolled over a Psycho-like scene shot in a shower featuring how an actual body double was substituted into the film
The Bounty (1984)	Roger Donaldson's fairly faithful remake of the oft-told tale of the ill-fated HMS Bounty, (also MGM's Best Picture winner Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton, and in 1962 with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard), starred Mel Gibson as the mutinous Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh; it also featured lovely maiden Tevaite Vernette as Christian's free-spirited tropical island native girlfriend/lover Mauatua - the Tahitian King's daughter; in this modern PG-rated version, the Polynesian native inhabitants were frequently bare-breasted, unlike in the two previous versions, as they interacted with the British sailors
Crimes of Passion (1984)	British director Ken Russell's neon-lit, dark, "guilty pleasure" cult tale and erotic thriller told about lonely, private investigator and security expert Bobby Grady's (John Laughlin) escape from a dull marriage into an obsessive, bump 'n grind relationship with a moonlighting, kinky LA prostitute named China Blue (Kathleen Turner); she wore a platinum wig and by day worked as a prim but workaholic fashion designer named Joanna Crane; in one scene, she sucked on his bare toes and moved up his body toward his crotch; the film also featured a deranged, stalking, perversely psychotic preacher named Reverend Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins) - with a chrome-steel dildo - who believed he was China Blue's savior; the unrated-uncensored video version contained non-theatrical (semi-pornographic) extras and deleted scenes - including a dominatrix S & M scene in which Grady was handcuffed to a bed and then sodomized with his own nightstick
Irreconcilable Differences (1984)	In her earliest major film role, 26 year-old Sharon Stone starred as an aspiring actress, conniving homewrecker and maid named Blake Chandler (aka Amanda) in this dramatic comedy about precocious young Casey Brodsky (Drew Barrymore) suing her Hollywood industry parents (Shelley Long and Ryan O'Neal) for divorce!
Love Letters (1984) (aka Passion Play)	In director Amy Holden Jones' R-rated romance drama (a Roger Corman production) about obsession ("I want you to want me") and adultery (the tagline: "Sometimes It's Right To Do the Wrong Thing"), Jamie Lee Curtis starred in a serious role as unmarried San Francisco DJ Anna Winter who was encouraged to pursue a passionate affair with an older married, wealthy photographer Oliver Andrews (James Keach) after reading about the 'double life' of her mother's extra-marital affair in some poetic and emotional 'love letters' that she found
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984, UK)	Director Michael Radford's grim adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel expressed how Big Brother invaded the idyllic love affair of Winston Smith (John Hurt) and sensual and free-spirited Julia (Suzanna Hamilton, in several full-frontal nude scenes in the countryside before a tryst); after they made love and were discovered (betrayed) having an illicit sexual liaison in a rented room above a pawn shop, both were detained, questioned, tortured and brainwashed; Winston suffered an excruciating torture/brain-washing by O'Brien (Richard Burton in his final film role) in Room 101 - repudiating his former love for Julia and professing only a love for an image of Big Brother by film's end
Purple Rain (1984)	Albert Magnoli's loosely-autobiographical and wildly-popular concert film and musical drama was made at the height of singer Prince's popularity - it starred the sexy pop icon as The Kid, the leader of a Minneapolis pop rock band called The Revolution; the film's plot concerned the jealous rivalry that developed when The Kid's sexy, aspiring singer/girlfriend Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero) joined an all-girl group called Apollonia 6, backed by house band leader Morris Day (as Himself); the film was noted for the scene of Apollonia riding on a motorcycle into the countryside with Prince, and then being persuaded to dip and "purify" herself in the freezing cold waters of Lake Minnetonka - while Prince shockingly rode off, only to return, and finally letting her get on the bike and give him a kiss on the cheek; with double entendre, he commented that she must be 'wet' from the lake: "Don't get the seat wet"; in a sexually-explicit scene in his parents' basement, Prince caressed Apollonia who was wearing tiny red-thong underwear; during the sexually taunting, nasty and salacious song "Darling Nikki", the bare-chested Kid - bathed in reddish light - taunted Apollonia in the audience and basically implied that she was a nymphomaniac (a "sex-fiend" who liked to "grind"); as he performed, the high-heeled Kid gyrated and flopped around atop the amplifier-speaker; at the film's conclusion, he sang "I Would Die 4 U" while using the neck of his guitar to make masturbatory gestures
Sheena (1984)	Ex-Charlie's Angels TV star (in its final season in the mid-70s) Tanya Roberts starred in The Beastmaster (1982) and then in this poorly-acted 'turkey' of a film to capitalize on her recent fame and sexuality; she portrayed the title character, loin-clothed Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, based on the famous comic strip, who showered in a waterfall and bathed in a lake; most of her subsequent films, except for an appearance in the James Bond A View to a Kill (1985) (marking Roger Moore's last appearance) were direct-to-video and cable releases
The Terminator (1984)	This was an early James Cameron action film about a bleak future run by cyborgs, but with a touching love scene in a hotel room (with background piano music) between the strong female character Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) who has journeyed back through time, to love her ("I love you. I've always loved you"), protect her and to procreate with her and produce a son (the future leader of the rebellion of man against the robots) - during their passionate love-making, the camera cut to a metaphoric visual closeup of their two hands locked together, gripping and squeezing each other
Until September (1984)	In this soapy romantic drama directed by Richard Marquand (known just a year earlier for Return of the Jedi), 'good girl next door' Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) lead actress Karen Allen shed her inhibitions as a lonely American tour guide named Mo Alexander who was stranded in Paris for three weeks, during which time she engaged in an affiar to married and suave French international banker Xavier de la Perouse (Thierry Lhermitte)
Cocoon (1985)	Ron Howard's science fiction parable about friendly aliens included a sexy scene in which Kitty (Tahnee Welch, Raquel Welch's daughter) was spied upon by charter boat operator Jack Bonner (Steve Guttenberg) as she undressed - and to his amazement removed her human skin mask revealing that she was an alien from the planet Antarean; also in one scene in the life-giving swimming pool, Kitty demonstrated how Antareans express their affection ("we show ourselves...it's very fulfilling") - without touching - by sending their energized orgasmic light toward someone else
Desert Hearts (1985)	This ground-breaking low-budget film was a seminal gay film from first-time director Donna Deitch - it was the first full-length lesbian-themed feature film written and directed by a woman; it told about a thirty-ish prim and meek literature professor from NYC named Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) in the late 50s who was seeking residency for a quickie divorce outside of Reno at a ranch run by gruff alcoholic Frances Parker (Audra Lindley); there, she slowly explored a very unlikely yet romantic and intimate lesbian relationship with the ranch owner's beautiful step-daughter - a lusty, free-spirited casino worker named Cay Rivvers (Patricia Charbonneau in her first film role); this led to their first kiss in a rainstorm, and later a non exploitatively-filmed, extended love scene in a hotel room that was shot in real-time, in which their breasts came together in a symbolic mirror image of their mutual love for each other; reportedly, it was the first mainstream lesbian movie to have a positive outcome; this film won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1986
The Emerald Forest (1985, UK)	Director John Boorman's naturalistic R-rated tale told about the coming of age of a white engineer's son Tommy (played by Charley Boorman, the director's son) among the Invisible People tribe in the rainforests of the Amazon Basin; the film contained considerable nudity, for authenticity's sake, of the indigenous tribes and of Tommy's love interest Kachiri (Dira Paes, right in first picture) and other native girls who were kidnapped by white slave traders for prostitution - but then rescued
Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985) (aka Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch, UK)	This inferior sequel featured vampy Sybil Danning as bisexual werewolf queen Stirba, and various unusual hairy werewolf sex scenes; in one memorable pre-orgy scene, Stirba dramatically ripped off her bodice to reveal her curvaceous breasts -- this unveiling was memorably and humorously repeated on a loop no less than 17 times during the musical end credits!
James Joyce's Women (1985)	Director Michael Pearce's R-rated film was advertised as an intimate, passionately-told "erotic masterpiece" - it was the film version of the acclaimed play which classical Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan herself wrote and produced; in the lead role, she portrayed the many 'women' in James Joyce's (Chris O'Neill) real and imaginary worlds, including his wife Nora, his publisher Sylvia Beach, his benefactress and three fictional characters from Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake (including Molly Bloom's lengthy masturbatory monologue-reverie filmed in real-time); the film was notable for female frontal nudity and masturbation in full view of the camera
Je vous salue, Marie (1985, Fr.) (aka Hail, Mary)	Director Jean-Luc Godard's controversial and upsetting film (condemned by the Pope at one time as blasphemous and picketed at theatres) retold the story of the virgin birth and Mary, for modern times; Moroccan-born Myriem Roussel starred as a young teenaged Swiss basketball player named Marie who worked as an attendant in her father's garage; her petulant boyfriend was Joseph (Thierry Rode), a taxi-cab driver - who has only a chaste relationship with her; one of Joseph's fares was the angel Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste) who told Marie that she was mysteriously pregnant and would give birth to the resurrected Jesus Christ; a visit to the gynecologist confirmed that she was indeed pregnant without having had sex; outrage came over the reinterpretation of the Immaculate Conception and the fact that Roussel was often in various states of objectively-viewed, non-prurient undress throughout the film (i.e., in one scene, she struggled with herself over her human desire to masturbate)
Just One of the Guys (1985)	Female director Lisa Gottlieb's intelligent, PG-13 rated teen sex 'comedy of errors' (about gender switching and cross-dressing) was about a frustrated aspiring high school journalism senior named Theresa Griffith (busty Joyce Hyser) who switched high schools and went undercover as Terry, a freshman boy, in order to write a serious article on gender discrimination; in one scene, she was instructed on how to act like a boy by her horny, wise-cracking younger brother Buddy (Billy Jayne) (with instruction on swaggering, crotch-adjustment and scratching: "All balls itch! It's a fact!"); complications ensued when she had to enter a male locker room and bathroom (when the coach yelled "Shirts...Skins"), when she attracted the attention of a sultry and popular Sandy (Sherilyn Fenn), and when she/he developed an awkward interest in Rick (Clayton Rohner) -- leading to the climactic 'realization' scene in which Terry finally ripped open her shirt to reveal her breasts, with Rick's stunned reaction: "Are those what I think they are?...Where do you get off having tits?"