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.

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:

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

Example

Amadeus (1984)
and
Amadeus (2002)

Angel (1984)

L'Annee des Meduses (1984, Fr.) (aka Year of the Jellyfish)

Another Country (1984)

Bachelor Party (1984)

Blame It On Rio (1984)

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)

Crimes of Passion (1984)

British director Ken Russell's neon-lit, dark, "guilty pleasure" cult tale and erotic thriller told about a moonlighting, kinky LA street-walking, pill-popping prostitute named China Blue (Kathleen Turner); in a grungy downtown area filled with XXX adult stores, bars, live nude and peep shows, she wore a platinum wig and light blue silky dress and frequented the Paradise Isle Hotel for tricks, while by day she worked as a prim but workaholic fashion designer named Joanna Crane; her entrance in the film was with a male client named Carl (John G. Scanlon) who insisted that she role-play for him a beauty pageant contestant named Miss Liberty 1984 - and then euphemistically blow his "instrument" - she tantalized him with her sex-talk while unzipping his pants: ("I'm very gentle. And then I run my little hand all over it. Up and down, and up and down. And then I-I fondle it so softly, so softly. Hmm, I love the look of it. Oh, I love the feel of it, so smooth and firm. Oh, I love to wrap my fingers around it and tenderly caress it. Well, I like to lift it to my mouth and wrap my lips around it. And then I just wait for that sweet, sweet music to come pouring out"); often while having sex, she would imagine Japanese erotic art prints or other exaggerated drawings of enlarged male genitals; her next client had a sexual fetish of pretending to stalk and attack her, before "raping" her in her room; China Blue was also repeatedly accosted and stalked by a deranged, perversely psychotic, amyl nitrate-sniffing, self-proclaimed preacher named Reverend Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins) calling himself a "messenger of God" - who carried a chrome-steel vibrating dildo - one of his sex toys in his doctor's bag (China Blue asked prophetically: "What are you gonna do? F--k someone to death? You'd like to, wouldn't you?"); he believed he was China Blue's savior ("Save your soul, whore!"); the preacher told her: "I'm bringing you something greater than a hard-on" - while she explained how her profession completely fulfilled her clients' fantasies: "This is a fantasy business, Reverend. You can have any truth you want....Why don't you f--k me? That'll save me...I'm healthy as a horse. I'm fit as a fiddle and ready for cock...I'm Cinderella, Cleopatra, Goldie Hawn, Eva Braun, I'm Little Miss Muffin, I'm Pocahontas, I'm whoever you want me to be, Reverend"; when investigating whether China Blue was selling patented design secrets, home electronics store owner and security expert Bobby Grady (John Laughlin) escaped from his own 12-year dull marriage to Amy (Annie Potts), who faked orgasms, into an obsessive, erotic relationship with China Blue; during their first intense sexual encounter (for $50) that she fantasy role-played as a flight attendant ("We're here to serve you. Please remember that although we may run out of Pan Am coffee, we'll never run out of T-W-A-Tea"), she sucked on his bare toe and then had sexual intercourse with him in multiple positions (viewed as silhouettes behind a gauzy curtain), while the reverend peeped on them from an adjoining room; the unrated-uncensored video version contained non-theatrical (semi-pornographic) extras and deleted scenes - including a dominatrix S & M scene in which a policeman (Randall Brady) was handcuffed to a bed by China Blue and then aggressively sodomized with his own nightstick during intercourse, as he bled from his restrained wrists and from her spiked stiletto heels; in the startling conclusion, an assault in Joanna's apartment by the reverend (claiming he was saving China Blue) resulted in his death (his last words were: "Goodbye, China Blue") after he was stabbed in the back by his own razor-tipped dildo/vibrator (dubbed "Superman") in a role-reversal and costume twist; the film ended with Grady attending a marital therapy group where he admitted he was in a new relationship with Joanna: "I was scared s--tless to come back here. I told Joanna, and she took me in her arms and she said, 'It's OK to be scared.' I felt stronger and freer and more like a man than I've ever felt before in my life. Then we f--ked our brains out"

Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter (1984)

The Friday the 13th films provided the premise that sex was punishable, and that one surviving Last Girl (virginal) would remain alive until the end, because she was most like the killer and had remained childlike. To live up to its reputation as a film series with randy, horny teens and copious amounts of sex and nudity (that required murderous retribution), the film featured two skinny-dipping scenes - one in broad daylight, and one at night; at Crystal Point next to the lake, a large group of teens decided to go swimming, but without a suit, Samantha (Judie Aronson) stripped down and joyfully dove in; two fraternal twins that the group had just met, Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More), jumped in with identical bikinis, but then removed their bathing attire underwater, and alternatingly bobbed up and down in the water to display themselves to the other males on shore, to entice them to also "come on in"; pretty soon, everyone was naked (there were some glimpses of bare-assed males too), except for embarrassed Sara (Barbara Howard) who lounged on the dock and refused to "strip and dip"; when Samantha asked the resistant Sara to join them, she tricked her by pretending to be drowning, and then pulled her friend into the water, revealing her topless self once again in a blur of motion; because Samantha seemed to be the most sexually-liberated female in the group (she earlier described that she had developed a reputation for herself in the 6th grade), she was the first of the teens at the rented house to be murdered -- in a second skinny-dipping scene at night, a miffed Samantha stripped naked after cursing her two-timing, unfaithful boyfriend Paul ("Screw you, Paulie"), swam out to a yellow/blue rubber raft floating in the lake, and as she was lying on her stomach in the bottom of the raft (after calling out: "Come on, Paul, I know you're out there"), the hand of an unseen killer held her left shoulder down as she was stabbed (from underneath the raft) through her abdomen, with the bowie knife piercing out the center of her back through her spine; Paul received sexual justice shortly after -- he was shot in the crotch with a spear-gun; other deaths were directly paired to sexual activity: in the medical center, crass morgue attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler) made out with naughty Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman) accompanied by an erotic aerobics video - he lost his life with a bone hacksaw to his neck, while she was cut down the length of her chest with a scalpel; a fat hippie hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman) who was eating (fellating) a banana was stabbed through the back of her neck; both Sara and sex partner Doug (Peter Barton) died shortly after she surrendered her virginity to him in the shower - his face and skull were crushed, while she was killed by an axe to the chest; the only other significant instances of nudity in the film occurred in a "film within-a film" - when a group of the teens were watching a vintage black/white stag movie on a reel-projector in the living room, and the images of nude females in the old film were juxtaposed with various scenes of sex and violence in the real-world around them; when one sole male named Ted (Lawrence Monoson) was left watching the flick, he enticingly asked one of the nude screen images: "So you wanna give the ol' Teddy Bear a kiss?" (a masturbatory comment) - immediately, he was phallically impaled through the screen itself; the party that the teens held in the rented house was literally a "dead f--k" party - a phrase used repeatedly in the film

Irreconcilable Differences (1984)

Love Letters (1984) (aka Passion Play)

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)

The Terminator (1984)

Until September (1984)