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

The Common Law (1931)

Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)

Dracula (1931)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Director Rouben Mamoulian's horror rendition of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale starred Oscar-winning Fredric March as the doctor/monster; the heavily-censored film with themes of sexual abuse, man's dual nature, and repression was criticized for sexy scenes with Cockney slut "Champagne Ivy" Pearson (Miriam Hopkins) and Hyde's sordid, sexually-decadent and sadistic behavior; after rescuing Ivy from one of her brutal 'callers', Jekyll took her up to her room and insisted on a medical inspection of her bruised leg - he told her suggestively: "By the way, you musn’t wear such tight a garter. It's bad for you. It impedes the circulation"; the tempting prostitute then insisted that he check out her hurt ribs, and prepared to undress to rest in her bed, asking him flirtatiously to "turn your eyes away now"; facing the camera, she hiked up her dress, removed her stockings and garters from each leg, flung the garters at his feet and giggled; she then reclined on her bed totally nude, covering herself with her bedspread and bedsheets; when he came over to her and asked: "How is the pain now?", she quickly embraced and kissed him, but they were interrupted by the appearance of Jekyll's upright colleague Dr. John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert) at the door who was appalled at his behavior; Jekyll told Ivy as he was leaving: "I'm a doctor, you know, and I'll call that kiss your fee"; as he exited, Ivy seductively and rhythmically swung her leg back and forth next to the bed (with her garter and bare leg seen in closeup) -- to further entice Dr. Jekyll, as she entreated and invited him to return quickly: "Come back soon, won't you?....Soon...Come back"; as he left, a superimposed overlay of her swinging leg (with her whispered words) was seen over his descent of the stairs; although he was reminded by Lanyon that he was engaged to virtuous Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart), he explained how he was only expressing his impulses - and how sex-starved he was: "Can a man dying of thirst forget water? Do you know what would happen to that thirst if it were denied water?"; subsequent reissues of the film in 1938 were heavily censored and cut, and the same scene was shot with different versions (some longer and in different states of undress)

The Easiest Way (1931)

A Free Soul (1931)

After The Divorcee (1930), this was Norma Shearer's next taboo-breaking, racy pre-Code film that challenged the morals and manners of the times, with the Oscar-nominated actress cast as a free-spirited San Francisco socialite; she was portrayed as non-conformist, rebellious, liberated diva Jan Ashe, the daughter of prominent lawyer Stephen Ashe (Best Actor-winning Lionel Barrymore), an alcoholic criminal defense attorney; the independent, headstrong woman liked to smoke, drink, experience pre-marital sex, and have fun; in the film's opening, she was engaged to a devoted and distinguished polo player Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), but broke it off (by stating: "I don't want life to settle down around me like a pan of sourdough") after meeting underworld speakeasy/pool hall manager/gangster Ace Wilfong (a virile Clark Gable in his first breakthrough, star-making role with MGM), a hunky client acquitted of murder by her father; Jan drove off with Ace in his fast-driving open roadster after being snubbed at a stuffy family birthday party, and proclaimed to him: "You're the first really exciting man I've ever met," just before their windshield was sprayed with machine-gun fire by rivals; at his penthouse apartment, she wore a very thin, seductive, bra-less, white silky dress and told him she loved his lifestyle and wasn't frightened at all: "I love it...it's just a new kind of man in a new kind of world...with a very unusual man" [Note: off-screen, Gable commented about Shearer's slinky, form-fitting apparel -- "the dame doesn't wear any underwear in her scenes"]; when Ace asked Jan's father for her hand in marriage, Stephen told off the low-life gangster: "The only time I hate democracy is when one of you mongrels forget where you belong. A few illegal dollars and a clean shirt, and you move across the railroad tracks," but Jan continued to secretly pursue sexual ravishment and rough love-play with 'bad-boy' Ace, staying over at his place for several months; she told him she was madly in love with him and wanted him to show his love rather than talk: "Men of action are better in action. They don't talk well...Why, I take it on the run right into your arms, don't I, darling?...Ace, darling, I'm head over heels mad about you, but what's in the future I don't know..." - she refused to marry him, realizing the possible consequences for her life, but with the film's most famous line (that was threatened by censorship), she invited him to embrace her as she sensuously stretched back and aggressively entreated him: "Come on, put 'em around me" - he obliged; her father vehemently disapproved of her "backstairs affair with a rat," calling her "cheap, common, contemptible" - and he dragged her away; when she returned to Ace after a three-month camping trip with her father, the insensitive gambler attempted to boss her around, brutalize her and force her to marry him, while suggesting that she forget her father: ("You left me flat, explained nothing. And you got a drunken, washed-out tramp who said I wasn't good enough for ya...(he shoved her back onto the couch) Aw, sit down, and take it and like it!...You make no more bargains, sweetheart, with anybody but me. We get married in the morning...You can't live without me. That's why you came back here. You had to. And that's all marriage is, just two people that want to live together. You can call the rest just nothing. You're through. You're mine and I want ya...From now on, you listen to me. We get married in the morning"); fearing his beastly villainy (and sensing the "filthy mark" he left on her soul), Jan abruptly left him and housed herself temporarily at the St. Francis Hotel in the city, where Ace found her the next day and threatened both Jan and Dwight's possible romantic reconciliation by disclosing her spoiled womanhood and threatening to ruin her high-society reputation: "When I get through, you won't have the guts to marry her. Now, let me lay it on the line for ya. She tossed all her ritz overboard months ago. She came to my place and she stayed there. You get that? She's mine. She belongs to me...Well, I'll spread the news to high, wide, and handsome you don't dare marry her. (To Jan) And you'll come crawling back like you did last night. Maybe I'll step out of my class and give ya a break. (To Dwight) Listen, buddy. Take a tip. Back out, right now. If you don't, you won't live long enough to start the honeymoon. And I'm not kidding"; to preserve Jan's honor, Dwight shot Ace dead in his gambling office and was placed on trial for murder (he claimed non-payment of a gambling debt as the reason); he was defended by Jan's father on the grounds of temporary insanity (due to Ace's lethal threats), and acquitted of the murder; at the end of his eloquent appeal, Stephen collapsed of a heart-attack, and Jan and Dwight were destined to be together as the film concluded; the film was remade as The Girl Who Had Everything (1953) with Elizabeth Taylor

Illicit (1931)

Mädchen in Uniform (Germany, 1931), aka Girls in Uniform

Mata Hari (1931)

Monkey Business (1931)

Night Nurse (1931)

Possessed (1931)

Director Clarence Brown's and MGM's film-noirish drama demonstrated the unfairness of the double standard for a single woman engaged in a years-long affair without marital vows; Joan Crawford starred as lowly paper-box factory worker Marian Martin in Erie, Pennsylvania who was defiantly independent, telling her hometown suitor and fellow worker Al Manning (Wallace Ford): "You don't own me...Nobody does. My life belongs to me"; she also told her mother (Clara Blandick): "If I were a man, it wouldn't frighten you. You'd think it was right for me to go out and get anything I could out of life, and use anything I had to get it. Why should men be so different? All they've got are their brains and they're not afraid to use them. Well, neither am I!"; she ascended out of poverty by associating with wealthy attorney Mark Whitney (Clark Gable), now separated from his wife - she became his self-sacrificing mistress outside of marriage in a Park Avenue apartment ("A woman can do anything and get anywhere as long as she doesn't fall in love"), but he refused to marry due to his scandalous first marriage; in the film's most notable scene, the two beautifully-attired stars kissed as Marian's white fur shoulder drape dropped to the ground - causing them to arrive late at a party; when he ran for governor, she had to change her name to Mrs. Moreland and pose as a rich divorcee for respectability's sake ("Well, it's a harmless way to make your position a little more pleasant"), while Mark was advised to drop her; as an "honest woman" expressing her love and noble sentiment for Mark so that his political career wouldn't be jeopardized, she told him that she had used him, and was going to marry Al - she expressed how her low-status ("common, smelling of sweat and glue") was a hindrance, and that she would return to the "level that I came from"; by film's end, Mark realized her devotion to him (and vowed to be with her forever) after she publically confessed (at his election rally) in an impassioned speech that her love for him was real, but that she had walked out of his life so that he could effectively serve the people

Public Enemy (1931)

Released before the Code was strictly enforced, this seminal gangster film portrayed the lead anti-hero character Tom Powers (James Cagney) as a sexually magnetic, cocky, completely amoral, emotionally brutal, ruthless, and terribly lethal individual - a two-fisted bootlegger; he was successful in materialistic ways, acquiring notoriety, power, wealth, and dames, including flashy and glamorous but mysteriously cool blonde Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow); while wearing expensive clothes in her apartment at The Congress Hotel, she told him in a steamy and seductive love scene, to the tune of I Surrender Dear on the radio, why she was attracted to him, as she cradled his head to her breasts: "Oh, my bashful boy. You are different, Tommy, very different. And I've discovered it isn't only a difference in manner and outward appearances, it's a difference in basic character. The men I know, and I've known dozens of them, oh, they're so nice, so polished, so considerate. Most women like that type. I guess they're afraid of the other kind. I thought I was, too. But you're so strong. You don't give. You take. Oh, Tommy, I could love you to death"; its most famous scene, however, was the startling misogynistic grapefruit-in-the-face scene earlier with moll girlfriend Kitty (Mae Clarke) - crudely transforming all previous norms; when he came to the breakfast table in a grouchy and irritable mood, he asked: "Ain't you got a drink in the house?" and when rebuffed with her reply: "Well, not before breakfast, dear", he felt insulted: "I didn't ask you for any lip. I asked you if you had a drink"; then after she told him: "I know, Tom, but I-I wish that...," he became even more grouchy: "There you go with that wishin' stuff again. I wish you was a wishing well, so that I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya"; she provoked him with: "Maybe you've found someone you like better," causing him to impulsively pick up a grapefruit half from his plate and contemptuously push it into her face to end their relationship; the studio added this cautionary yet ineffective postscript to punish the anti-hero's transgressions: "The end of Tom Powers is the end of every hoodlum...."

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

This early, pre-Code Ernst Lubitsch musical set in Vienna, about a love triangle, provided an apres-sex breakfast scene on an outdoor terrace between Maurice Chevalier (as Niki, an officer in the Royal Guard) and Claudette Colbert (as violinist and bandleader Franzi) when they sang "Breakfast Table Love" - preceded by a scene of their amorous intentions the night before (in which the couple hungrily exchanged double entendres) - the scene faded to black (for an off-screen night of love-making) after he convinced Franzi to stay for the night through breakfast (he told her: "Don't make me wait 24 hours. I'm so hungry...Why not breakfast tomorrow morning?" although she vainly replied: "First tea, and then dinner, and then we'll see, maybe breakfast"); in the film's final scene, after the Lieutenant had married the sexually-repressed Princess Anna (Miriam Hopkins) and Franzi had given her a lesson on wearing modern lingerie and fashions ("You listen to me, you foolish little thing. If you don't watch out, some day a girl will come along and take him away from you..." and then played on the piano instructions on: "Jazz up your lingerie!" before they burned her old-fashioned underwear and clothing), the randy Lieutenant sang suggestively toward the film audience before he closed his bedroom door; he signified his saved marriage and renewed love-making interest for the Princess (singing "I must report for duty right away") after he tossed their checkboard onto the bed, signaling that he would rather be in bed with her than just playing a board game (a substitute for marital sex)

Strangers May Kiss (1931)

In this pre-Code MGM melodrama, free-spirited modern woman Lisbeth Corbin (Norma Shearer) was jilted by her lover, foreign correspondent Alan Harlow (Neil Hamilton) who disclosed he had a wife in Paris while in Mexico with her; when he left for China on a job assignment and they broke up, she engaged in short-term, promiscuous love affairs with men all over Europe, and told her good-natured, platonic friend Steve (Robert Montgomery): "I'm no longer the good woman in your life, Steve... I'm in an orgy, wallowing, and I love it"; in Spain, he had heard rumors of her loose and immoral ways in Paris, to which she replied: "And, of course, like a true knight, you refused to believe it?" - with his answer: "Well, the first six or seven hundred times I did"; she endangered her prospects of engagement/marriage to Alan, her true love, when he returned after divorcing his wife, but then learned of her promiscuous indiscretions (it was rumored that "she changes her men with her lingerie, that girl"); although the film ended happily (unbelievably), it was changed from the plot of the original Ursula Parrot novel upon which it was adapted by John Meehan, with Lisbeth committing suicide after years of waiting in vain

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

F.W. Murnau's lush tale (documentary-style drama) of ill-fated (star-crossed a la Romeo and Juliet style) native South Seas love and island life (and the breaking of a sacred tabu) included a sequence of girls swimming partly naked, and of flower-garlanded, bare-breasted native dancers

Many other films followed in the wake of Murnau's Tabu in this popular and lucrative 'bare native' film sub-genre - there were a number of exotic Bali pictures released as exploitation films in the early-to-mid-30s, such as Balinese Love (1931), Goona Goona (1932) (aka Kriss), Isle of Paradise (1932), Virgins of Bali (Land of Love and Romance) (1932), Wajan (1933), and Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935).