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 Girl of Your Dreams (1998) (aka La Niña de Tus Ojos, Sp.)

Great Expectations (1998)

Happiness (1998)

Controversial film-maker Todd Solondz's infamous and subversive unrated film about pedophilia was a black satire on middle-class suburban dysfunctionality; the film portrayed an unlikeable suburban dad and psychiatrist - Dr. Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker), who was a predatory pedophile, exhibited in the scene at a little league game, in the backseat of his car (where he masturbated to a teen magazine), and during sleepovers hosted by his adolescent son Billy (Rufus Read) when he drugged and molested his son's schoolpal and teammate; also it included the scene of the honest conversation between father and son regarding the father being a "serial rapist" and "pervert" (the son asked: "Would you ever f--k me?" with his father's reply: "No, I'd jerk off instead"); also the famous ending scene of Billy admitting: "I came" (masturbating while spying on a buxom sunbather from the balcony); the film won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998, but was considered repulsive by the MPAA -- it received an NC-17 rating, even without explicit intercourse or violence

High Art (1998)

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)

The Idiots (1998, Denmark) (aka Idioterne, Les Idiots)

Danish filmmaker Lars Von Triers filmed this stark black comedy with a hand-held camera - it was the second film made under the rules of Dogme '95; the subversive and unconventional film was made to protest bourgeois principles and conventions, in its story about a Copenhagen commune of middle-class individuals who pretended to be "spazzing" - or finding one's 'inner idiot' as if they were retarded or mentally challenged, to liberate themselves from social restrictions; it was an extremely controversial film due to nudity, group sex, and graphic unsimulated penetrative sex - the extended orgy sequence of the R-rated film was censored for U.S. audiences with black bars blocking images of male genitalia

Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998, Fr/Senegal, 2003 US)

New Rose Hotel (1998)

Out of Sight (1998)

Director Steven Soderbergh's crime caper contained a well-known cat-and-mouse, romantic love-making scene between convicted bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) and kidnapped deputy federal agent/marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez); their first meeting was their celebrated locked-in-a-car trunk scene in a getaway car when they exchanged sexy quips and banter (about Faye Dunaway's films such as Bonnie and Clyde and Three Days of the Condor) and he stroked her thigh (she later recalled: "You kept touching me, feeling my thigh" and he added: "But in a nice way"); later in a teasingly-filmed, cross-cutting sequence, they flirtatiously called each other different alias names, Gary and Celeste, while conversing in a Detroit hotel bar-lounge and sharing a drink ("I like your hair, I like your outfit") and then he explained how they were destined to be together ("It's just something that happens. It's like seeing someone for the first time. You can be passing on the street and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of a recognition, like you both know something. The next moment, the person's gone, and, and it's too late to do anything about it. And you always remember it because it was there and you let it go and you think to yourself 'what if' I had stopped, if I had said something. What if. What if. It may only happen a few times in your life...or once"). Minutes later (after she knowingly invited: "Let's get out of here"), they were undressing in front of penthouse room windows, with a view of snow falling outside amidst the lights of the city, and then kissing and getting into bed to make love

Pleasantville (1998)

Director Gary Ross' PG-13 fantasy comedy (his directorial debut film) included colorful scenes of Lover's Lane where teenaged couples went to have sex in their perfect, black-and-white 1950s, sexless sitcom town; in one scene, strait-laced and repressed wife Betty Parker (Joan Allen) experienced her first orgasmic, masturbatory, pleasurable climax of self-discovery during a solitary, sensual bath (magically, the tree in the front yard of the white picket-fence home also burst into flames); and later newly-independent Betty declared her newfound emotive-color to her traditionalist husband George (William Macy): "I don't want it to go away" - and then boldly posed nude for artistic soda shop proprietor Mr. Johnson (Jeff Daniels) - and had the portrait displayed in the store window

Shakespeare in Love (1998, US/UK)

John Madden's R-rated, Best Picture-winning romance/period drama featured a scene in which writers-block suffering bard/playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) lovingly unwrapped the bound torso of a scandalous, disguised, cross-dressed female Lady Viola De Lesseps (Oscar-winning Gwyneth Paltrow) as she twirled around, until her nakedness was revealed; the rhythmic creaking of their lovemaking was cleverly masked by the Nurse's rocking in a chair outside their door; afterwards, Viola told Will as they laid together in bed: "I would not have thought it. There is something better than a play...Even your play... And that was only my first try"; she became his inspiration for his new work, titled "Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate's Daughter" ("the greatest love story almost never told" according to the film's tagline) in a scene that cross-cut between further sexual intercourse between them and a practice-performance of Shakespeare's new play - with well-timed words ("Good night, as sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast. Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?...My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love is deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite... Stay but a little. I will come again")

Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)

There's Something About Mary (1998)

Twilight (1998)