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) - 1985 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 |
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Cocoon (1985)
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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 |   
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Desert Hearts (1985)
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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 |
    
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The Emerald Forest (1985, UK)
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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 |   
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Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
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Although hockey-masked mass murderer Jason Voorhees did not appear in this fifth installment of the franchise (except as part of the prologue's nightmare or as Tommy Jarvis's haunting hallucination), it was evident that the bloodletting was mounting (there was a record number of killings of peripheral characters in this film - almost two dozen), and longer glimpses of female topless nudity of soon-to-be female victims. (1) in the first instance, long-haired, blonde waitress girlfriend Lana (Rebecca Wood) was anticipating a night of partying and cocaine-snorting with her mental health worker boyfriend Billy (Bob DeSimone); as she changed in the restroom before joining him outside, she unzipped the front of her waitress outfit in front of the mirror, revealed both breasts gratuitously as she preened at herself, and shouted out: "It's showtime!" (She then told herself: "Girl, you are so hot!"). When she went to Billy's car (he had been snorting coke while waiting for her), she noticed that he was missing (he had been murdered with an axe swung into the top of his head), but sighted the feet of an axe-murderer with his weapon dripping blood onto the pavement; as she lept from the passenger side door, the same axe bludgeoned her in the torso (2) the next victims were two troubled (sex-hungry) young people, Eddie (John Robert Dixon) and busty Tina (Debi Sue Voorhees -- NO relation to Jason) - residents of Pinehurst halfway house; the horny couple raced off into the woods to make love after a memorable exchange of dialogue: (Eddie: "You loved it. You want more?" Tina: "Eddie, we can't. Matt will kill us." Eddie: "F--k him!" Tina: "F--k you." Eddie: "Exactly. F--k me. Come on."). After placing a blanket on the ground, they smoked a joint, and then undressed, as they were spied upon from nearby bushes by a homeless drifter (the voyeuristic Peeping Tom was stabbed in the stomach with a hunting knife as Tina ecstatically moaned in the background). When the lovers were finished having sex and Eddie went to "wash up," Tina urged him to "hurry back." As she laid back naked on the blanket, providing an unobstructed view of her full breasts as she looked up at the trees, she screamed as long-handled, opened hedge shears were thrust into her face and then closed shut - mutilating her eyes. When Eddie returned and found her lying on her side, he turned her over and was horrified by the sight. As he backed up to a tree, his own head was crushed against the trunk with a tightened leather strap bound across his eyes (3) the third victim was another Pinehurst teen, red-headed Robin (Juliette Cummins), who had just rejected the romantic advances of a fellow resident, a nervous stutterer named Jake Patterson (Jerry Pavlon); after he implied that he wanted to have sex with her: "I-I-I want to be with you...I-I-I wanna make love with you," she demonstrated her disinterest by insensitively smiling and laughing at him; hurt and dejected, he headed upstairs, where he was murdered with an upraised meat cleaver; when Robin went upstairs, and stood topless before the bathroom mirror (revealing her small breasts), she blamed herself for hurting Jake's feelings: "Jake, I'm sorry. You know, sometimes Robin, you are just so stupid" - but it was too late for her; as she climbed into her top bunk, she turned and saw Jake's bloody corpse and face next to her in bed. Then, a large fist grabbed her neck and held her down as she was stabbed with a machete from underneath her mattress; later the stacked, bloodied, and murdered bodies of Jake, Robin, and Violet (a third resident) were revealed in bright flashes of lightning in one of the bedrooms |
      
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Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985) (aka Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch, UK)
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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! |  
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James Joyce's Women (1985)
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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 |
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Je vous salue, Marie (1985, Fr.) (aka Hail, Mary)
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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) |     
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Just One of the Guys (1985)
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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; before she took the challenge, she was with her horny, wise-cracking younger brother Buddy (Billy Jayne) in his room decorated with Playboy centerfolds, and she told him about her problems with gender discrimination - she was cute and no one took her seriously: "Sometimes I just wish I were a guy" - he tried to dissuade her: "The male body needs sex at all times. It's a living hell"; shortly later, she fooled him when she dressed up as a guy (she thought to herself: "I think I can pull this off"), and he helpfully instructed her on how to act and walk like a swaggering boy to look tougher, with specific instruction on crotch-shifting adjustment and scratching: ("Something every guy does...lemme see you scratch your balls. Come on, try it!...Watch the master. Now first, here's your basic shift. But that's not always enough. Sometimes you gotta get inside, dig a little. Let some air in. Move things around"); when she retorted, "Yeah, well, maybe my balls don't itch," he shouted back: "All balls itch! It's a fact!"; she went through with her plan and infiltrated into Sturgis-Wilder High School, where complications immediately ensued when she had to enter a male locker room and change into her gym clothes - she was forced to set off the fire alarm to clear out the place for privacy (but then the gym coach yelled: "Shirts...Skins" when determining sides for teams, and she fell down and feigned stomach pains to avoid taking off her shirt); further problems arose when she attracted the attention of a sultry and popular Sandy (Sherilyn Fenn); her greatest issue came because she/he developed an awkward interest in Rick (Clayton Rohner) -- leading to the climactic 'realization' scene outside the prom when Terry - to prove that he/she wasn't gay to Rick, confessed "I'm a girl, I'm a woman...I'm a female, I swear", and had to conclusively rip open her shirt to reveal her full breasts, with Rick's stunned reaction: "Wait a minute. Are those what I think they are?...Where do you get off having tits?...S--t. I can't believe this" |
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Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
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With his Best Actor Oscar award, William Hurt became the first actor in a gay role to win the honor (later this happened again for Tom Hanks for his role as AIDS sufferer in Philadelphia (1993)); he won for his role in director Hector Babenco's Brazilian/American co-produced film as flamboyant homosexual sex offender Luis Molina incarcerated in the 70s in a South American prison cell with his cellmate - cynical political prisoner and revolutionary Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia) |  
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Lifeforce (1985)
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Director Tobe Hooper's science-fiction horror/adventure tale (and 'guilty-pleasure' film) told about a international space shuttle mission to explore Halley's Comet, featuring a beautiful naked vampire named Space Girl (Mathilda May) from outer space -- spectacularly nude for most of the film -- she was capable of sucking the 'lifeforce' out of her victims when brought back to London for examination, with the warning: "She's not a woman, she'll destroy you!" |   
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Andy Sidaris' Films of the 80s (and after)
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Malibu Express (1985): this sleazy, exploitative, trashy T&A extravaganza (pictured to the right) was the best (and first) of ex-sports producer and director/writer Andy Sidaris' films in the 80s; it was taglined: "Packing Heat from Texas to Malibu Beach"; the James Bond spoof contained all the requisite Triple B elements: action, comedy and gratuitous nudity in the form of Bullets, Bombs, & Babes (with lots of former Playboy and Penthouse models and soap opera stars); this cheesy B-film featured good ol'boy, mustached, Chuck Norris-lookalike private detective Cody Abilene (Darby Hinton) in a plot about illegal sales of computers to Communist countries; Cody's yacht was named Malibu Express which was moored at the Santa Barbara Marina in California - the film's title; the film was showcased with numerous breast appearances by four half-naked Playboy Playmate centerfolds: Kimberly McArthur (Playmate January 1982), Lorraine Michaels (Playmate April 1981), Lynda Weismeier (Playmate July 1982), and Barbara Edwards (Playmate September 1983) as well as Lori Sutton as lusty police detective Beverly McAfee; Sampled dialogue: "We understand you're a private investigator -- and we want to know if you'll investigate our privates?!" As Sidaris' formulaic, straight-to-video film releases (twelve in total) progressed through 1998, they had thinner plots, more voyueristic nudity and giant, silicone surgically-enhanced centerfolds.
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 Barbara Edwards and Kimberly McArthur  Lynda Weismeier (as June Khnockers)  Barbara Edwards  Lorraine Michaels  Sybil Danning  Lori Sutton Malibu Express (1985) |
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Mischief (1985)
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This coming-of-age film and teen sex comedy -- typical of the mid-80s, was set in the mid-50s in Ohio, and most known for its nude scene of a young Kelly Preston; she appeared as beautiful classmate Marilyn McCauley, in a tale about a nerdy, virginal high school senior named Jonathan Bellah (Doug McKeon) who was in love with her from afar and dreamt of being with her, and then finally had his wish come true; in the same year, Preston would also star in the similar romantic comedy Secret Admirer (1985), a comedy of errors tale |   Mischief (1985)  Secret Admirer (1985)
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My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, UK)
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Director Stephen Frears' subversive drama (originally shot for TV and from author Hanif Kureishi's first screenplay) told of a cross-racial, homosexual relationship between two men in Thatcher's England -- South London laundry businessman Omar (Gordon Warnecke) from a Pakistani-immigrant family and his old Anglo-Saxon school friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), an ex-National Front member and blonde street punk; the film covered the themes of bold sexuality, race, prejudice, immigration, class and generational difference as it showed the development of their forbidden gay friendship, although Omar was encouraged to marry his hedonistic uncle Nasser's (Saeed Jeffrey) feisty daughter Tania (Rita Wolf); in the film's most matter-of-fact erotic love scene, the two embraced each other in the back manager's room of the laundromat (Johnny slipped his hand beneath Omar's necktied shirt and dribbled champagne from his mouth into Omar's mouth) while Nasser and his British mistress Rachel (Shirley Anne Field) danced out front just before a celebration marking the laundromat's grand opening |  
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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
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Extensive evidence existed regarding this horror slasher film's homosexual subtext, i.e., the sexually-repressed, effeminate homosexual character of Jesse (Mark Patton), Jesse's smooth bare-chested body and frequent awakening accompanied by high-pitched screaming and soaking perspiration (symbolic of AIDS-related night sweats?), the depantsing wrestling scene with jock Ron Grady (Robert Rusler) on a softball field, the many S&M references, the phallic snake wrapped around Jesse's neck in Biology class, the prominent sign on Jesse's bedroom door that at first glance read: "NO CHICKS," the pelvic thrusting dance scene with a phallic popgun thrust into Jesse's crotch as he cleaned his room wearing Elton John-style gold-glittering sunglasses, the board-game PROBE and a diary both hidden in his closet, the scene at the gay leather bar, the unusual murder of the sadistic and macho gym coach Schneider (Marshall Bell) - after being assaulted by sports balls and whipped by towels on his naked butt, the fact of Freddy's 'bad' nature coming out of Jesse's body, Jesse's lack of libido and performance anxiety with his red-headed girlfriend Lisa Webber (Kim Myers), his request of Grady to sleep at his house after becoming briefly heterosexually passionate with Lisa in a pool house cabana (although he quickly retracted his protruding tongue from between Lisa's breasts while kissing her) - with Grady's obvious assertion that Jesse was heterosexually dysfunctional, and fancied him instead: "Yeah, and she's female, and she's waiting for you in the cabana, and you wanna sleep with me," the exploding hot dogs at the pool party, and more. |     
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Out of Africa (1985)
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In Sydney Pollack's Best Picture-winning love story told against the gorgeous cinematographic backdrop of Kenya, there was one sexy, but sex-less romantic scene of English adventurer Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) lovingly shampooing and rinsing - from behind - the hair of Danish writer Karen Blixen-Finecke (Meryl Streep) while on safari, followed by the recitation of the end of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner |  
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Re-Animator (1985)
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Director Stuart Gordon's directorial debut film was a grisly horror tale with unbelievable zombie sex that was based on a tale by H. P. Lovecraft; the popular cult film included an outrageously humorous - perverted - horrifying scene all at once - the film's most famous over-the-top sequence - of university scientist Dr. Herbert West's (Jeffrey Combs) experiments (with a serum that glowed an obnoxious flourescent green) with recently-dead and decapitated competitor Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), whose disembodied 'head' provided oral sex to partner Dean Cain's (Bruce Abbott) girlfriend Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton, who was almost continuously nude in this film) who was restrained on a laboratory table |  
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Red Heat (1985)
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After her topless debut in Chained Heat (1983), The Exorcist's Linda Blair also starred in this R-rated exploitation sequel as innocent, wrongly-accused American tourist Christine Carlson who was incarcerated in an East German prison headed by tormenting, orange-wigged inmate Sofia (Sylvia Kristel of Emmanuelle fame) | 
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Rendez-vous (1985, Fr.)
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In director André Téchiné's (Best Director winner at the Cannes Film Festival) erotic, unrated French drama involving a love triangle and sexual/artistic passion and desire, aspiring and sexually-free-spirited actress Nina (Juliette Binoche in her first major feature film starring role) was newly arrived in Paris to live her life more fully; she quickly became involved in intense relationships with two very different men who were roommates: timid and infatuated real estate agent Paulot (Wadeck Stanckzac) and tormented, self-centered, and aggressive sex theatre actor named Quentin (Lambert Wilson); in one striking scene, she boldly stripped off the top of her red dress and offered herself, begging piteously: "F--k me. F--k me" (subtitles) |
 
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Return of the Living Dead (1985)
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Writer/director Dan O'Bannon's directorial debut film (with direct allusions to its original predecessor Night of the Living Dead (1968)) was about the unleashing of 2-4-5 Trioxin gas that rained down on a cemetery and caused the dead to rise as zombies who sought human brains to stop the pain of death; it included a star-making role for so-called, quintessential "Scream Queen" B-movie star Linnea Quigley as a red-haired, sex- and death-obsessed punk character named Trash, who appeared almost fully nude in this film and in many others -- in this one in a lengthy scene, she rose up from the mud, was washed nude by the rain, emerged from the fog, and performed a memorable full-frontal striptease (but with thigh-high leg-warmers) atop a graveyard's tombstone to the tune of SSQ's Tonight (We'll Make Love Until We Die) on a boom box -- but was required to wear a skin-colored bikini-shaped body covering (or "prosthetic crotch") by the producers, thereby making her appear like a hairless Barbie doll |   
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SmoothTalk (1985)
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Writer/director Joyce Chopra's brilliant coming-of-age drama won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (then called the U.S. Film Festival) in 1986; based on Joyce Carol Oates' 1966 short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", it told about a rebellious and confused 15 year-old blonde girl named Connie (18 year-old Laura Dern in her first lead role) on the verge of womanhood, whose mother Katherine (Mary Kay Place) feared that her daughter had only "trashy daydreams"; in one of the film's earliest scenes, she joined her girlfriends Laura (Margaret Welsh) and Jill (Sara Inglis) at the mall, where they immediately went into the ladies' room to put on makeup and change into more revealing clothing, in order to attract attention (often unwanted); in the film's most effective scenes at her empty home on a Sunday afternoon while her family was away, she was intrigued and mesmerized by mysterious, seductive 30-ish Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) who pulled up in a yellow convertible and provocatively flirted with her outside her screen door - a metaphoric, smooth-talking representation of sexual experience, corruption, and sin -- and was intimidated by him when he forcefully and antagonistically told her: "You're my date. I'm your lover, Connie...Yes, I'm your lover," and insisted on taking her for a ride |   
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Weird Science (1985)
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In this John Hughes' teen comedy classic, unpopular teenaged nerds Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), out of pure hormonal/sexual frustration, decide to use Wyatt's computer to create a "perfect" woman after watching a colorized print of The Bride of Frankenstein (1935); at one point, Wyatt initially gives their creation mammoth breasts, to which Gary remarks: "Anything bigger than a handful, you're risking a sprained tongue"; connected by a phone modem, they start feeding the computer cut-out magazine images of supermodels, Albert Einstein, and art/music skills while wearing brassieres on their heads ("It's ceremonial," explains Gary) while they connect electrodes to a plastic Barbie-doll figure; the computer starts to act on its own while connecting into a government mainframe as it assembles the data - and an electrical storm activates the doll; suddenly after lots of explosions and wind, everything stops and the door to Wyatt's room begins to bulge inward, before finally exploding; out of the red-lit, foggy hallway enters a sexy, leggy red-headed woman later named Lisa (supermodel Kelly LeBrock), wearing nothing but micro-panties and a small white muscle-shirt top; she stands in the doorway, as Dr. Frankenstein shouts from their television: "She's alive! Alive!" Their creation coos with a mischievious twinkle in her eyes: "So... what would you little maniacs like to do first?"; in the subsequent scene, the two wide-eyed boys ogle her as they share a shower with her, as the camera pans up and down her naked body and she comments: "By the way, you did an excellent job, thank you" |     
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Witness (1985)
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Peter Weir's romance thriller showcased a beautifully-realized illicit love affair between widowed Amish woman Rachel Lapp (Kelly McGillis) and Philadelphia police detective John Book (Harrison Ford) of two opposite cultures - it was signaled by her lingering appearance in a doorway while bathing and realizing she was being watched by Book; also they danced to the radio (to the tune of Sam Cooke's "(What A) Wonderful World") in an "evening serenade" barn scene illuminated by the lights of a car, and also had an encounter in a hayloft | 
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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
