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Sex in Cinema: |
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Sex in Cinema: |
 
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 | |
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| 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 |
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| Movie Title |
Brief Scene Description | Example |
| Mulholland Dr. (2001)
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Best Director-nominated David Lynch's surreal, mystifying, dream-like work about Hollywood fame told about two female characters: dark-haired, full-bodied amnesiac and mysterious femme fatale 'Rita' (Laura Elena Harring, the first Latina to win the Miss USA title in 1985) and wholesome, naive, pert blonde wannabe starlet Betty (Naomi Watts) newly arrived in Los Angeles; they engaged in two steamy, topless, hesitant and exploratory lesbian love scenes; in the first early scene, 'Rita' removed her robe, slipped into Betty's bed - and was asked the question: "Have you ever done this before?" followed by a kiss on the lips; in a second more explicit scene, a topless Betty (with denim cutoffs) joined a half-naked 'Rita' on a couch, until 'Rita' advised "We shouldn't do this anymore"; also Betty acted in a creepy but masterfully-acted audition scene in which she delivered a sexually-tainted script with a tanned and aging lothario Jimmy (Chad Everett) - as she whispered in his ear and bit his lip; she also engaged in a non-explicit scene of masturbation (dry and painful) inside her jeans pants |     
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Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
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Director Joel Gallen's debut film, an R-rated prurient teen comedy (along the lines of the romantic comedy She's All That (1999) with Freddie Prinze and Rachael Leigh-Cook) contained plenty of nudity - it was designed as a satirical, low-brow parody of high-school teen coming-of-age films mostly from recent years, but also from the 80s and 90s; the running gag was a perpetually-naked high school foreign exchange student provocatively named Areola (Cerina Vincent), who appeared unnecessarily naked in every scene she was in, and proclaimed to John Hughes High School principal Mr. Cornish (George Wyner) that she was the "object of lust for poor nerds who cannot get American pussy" - while she spoke (with an ever-changing accent throughout the film), the subtitles were deliberately moved to avoid obscuring her breasts; her character was a spoof of Shannon Elizabeth's Nadia in American Pie (1999); in one scene set at a party, another bare-breasted girl (Jesse Capelli/Jennifer Leone) observed angrily that Areola - who strolled by naked - had on the same outfit as she did, while her friend responded to console her: "It looks much better on you"; during an anticipatory prom musical number "Prom Tonight," Areola stood naked at her open window as an animated blue bird landed on her chest as she sang: "Look at me. My breasts are perky, yes?"; the film opened with an outrageous giant dildo scene with bookish outcast and female lead Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) that set the tone for the rest of the film |       
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| Original Sin (2001)
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Director Michael Cristofer's steamy, R-rated romantic mystery thriller featured two attractive superstars: a 19th century Cuban coffee plantation owner Luis Antonio Vargas (Antonio Banderas) and his sexy, ravishing, beautiful mail-order bride Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie) from the US - both passionate and duplicitous, and often undressed; she turned out to be an imposter to defraud him of his money, although she engaged him in numerous steamy sex scenes in the bedroom and a metal bathtub to win his heart; the film was released in two versions (one steamier than the other) |    |
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Director Michael Haneke's provocative, harsh and disturbing film (originally titled "Let It Bleed"), although non-exploitative, won top honors as the Cannes Grand Jury Prize-winner; it told about a love-starved, sexually-repressed, and masochistic Vienna Conservatory piano teacher Prof. Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) in her late 30s who admitted: "The urge to be beaten has been in me for years"; she dressed androgynously and acted harshly toward her students; in one sequence, she visited a porn cinema peepshow (displaying a choice of four videos of hard-core fellatio and intercourse - blurred out) where she held a used, masturbatory tissue from a previous customer to her nose during viewing; in another shocking self-destructive scene of self-mutilation in her bathroom, she sat in a stark white bathtub - naked under her robe - and used a disposable razor on her vagina (viewed with an angled mirror between her legs) to cut herself; she ultimately developed an intensifying relationship (amour fou) with her admiring, unsuspecting pupil Walter Klemmer (Benot Magimel), in which she engaged in deviant sexual role-playing and sado-masochistic fantasies ("If you want to hit me, hit me"), macabre rituals, and dependency; her transmittals of depraved, arousing, sexual taunting, hand-written letters of unspeakable acts (or "instructions") to him led to an encounter in the school's restroom - then frustration when she masturbated him almost to climax and then stopped - and forbid him to climax; when he angrily confronted her at home about her sickness and her domineering mother (Annie Girardot) and delivered several blows to Erika's bloodied face, he also displayed some tenderness to her to atone for his punishing blows by attempting love-making - to which she responded disgustedly and emotionlessly; the film was released unrated, rather than with an NC-17 rating, and its US release was delayed due to its difficult subject matter |
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French director Bertrand Bonello's self-important film was an arthouse-style look at the French pornography industry; amidst the pretentious drama and storyline about reconnection with an estranged son, it contained one graphic sex scene in its story about a semi-retired porn film director named Jacques (Jean-Pierre Leaud) who returned to making a hard-core film (only because it was profitable, but lacking emotional depth) with two real-life French porn stars (Ovidie (as Jenny) and Titof (as Franck)); it included an 11-second climax-ejaculation 'money shot' that had to be censored before distribution |  
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| Prozac Nation (2001)
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Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjaerg's coming-of-age film, his first English-language feature, starred Christina Ricci, who was known more for her early role as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family movies (1991 and 1993); she starred as self-destructive Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wurtzel - the gifted, alienated and unhappy author of an autobiographical best-selling book about her own bout with depression while an aspiring, intense mid-80s Harvard student writer; this downer film experienced a delayed release, and was only widely available after its 2005 debut showing on the Starz! network and its release on DVD; the controversial Miramax film gained further attention by featuring Ricci's first feature-film topless scenes as the sexually-promiscuous and drug/alcohol abusing heroine |  |
| Sex and Lucia (2001, Sp.) (aka Lucía y el Sexo)
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Julio Medem's unabashedly sexy, erotic, intriguing and poetic arthouse film (told with a twisting plot) was a story about the passionate but ill-fated involvement between a lusciously beautiful, but devastated Madrid waitress (Paz Vega) and her tragically killed young lover with a secret past - a suicidal novelist named Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa), whom she sought to know more about on a sun-washed Mediterranean island after his death; the film included abundant and playful nudity, masturbation, a sexy strip-tease scene, an explicit, unabashed and sensual love-making scene during which the couple took polaroids of each other, and graphic full-screen frontal images (including a split-second view of Lucia holding his male erection in closeup in the unrated version) |
      
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| Spider-Man (2001)
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Director Sam Raimi's comic-book blockbuster included a much-imitated and spoofed upside-down kiss between masked superhero Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) in the downpour rain, after she has been saved by muggers in an alleyway - he allowed her to peel back the lower part of his mask for their prolonged kiss |  |
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Controversial film-maker Todd Solondz's third feature film was rated "R" instead of NC-17 only after the director agreed to visually 'censor' an explicit, discomforting sodomy scene with numerous and vigorous thrusts during rear-entry intercourse; in the scene, nude white female university student Vi (Selma Blair) with pinkish-blonde hair was instructed to "turn around" - she faced a wall when her black, Pulitzer Prize-winning creative arts professor Mr. Gary Scott (Robert Wisdom) pulled down his underwear and entered her from behind; during intercourse, he repeatedly forced her to yell the N-word: ("Say N---er, f--k me hard") which she reluctantly obeyed, with each word accentuated by his physical thrusting and increasing in tempo and volume; when they were finished, she dressed and told him: "I'm tired, that's all"; the image in the scene was blocked out with a prominent red box in the US release - the scene was un-censored in foreign prints and in the DVD |   
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| Swordfish (2001)
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Director Dominic Sena's R-rated, plot-twisting crime story and action film was noted mostly for super-star Halle Berry's gratuitous, expensive topless revelation (reportedly for which she was contractually paid $500,000) from behind a book while topless sunbathing at poolside - she played the sexy character of temptress Ginger opposite once-jailed computer hacker Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) and ruthless maniac bank thief/spy Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) |  |
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001, Jp/Fr.) (aka Akai hashi no shita no nurui mizu)
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In this fanciful and eccentric tale (a sexual allegory), a remarkable woman named Saeko Aizawa (Misa Shimizu), who lived in an old wooden house by the Noto Peninsula that overlooked a red bridge spanning a river, had an unusual sexual power -- when water built up inside of her in a magical spring, she could only release or vent it by doing something wickedly immoral, like stealing (shoplifting), or more fully through a climaxing orgasm; this caused a gushing flood and amazed her lustful male partner Yosuke (Koji Yakusho); the water actually flowed into the river, where it sustained life and attracted a special kind of fish (and fishermen) and seagulls | 
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| Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001, Mex.) (aka And Your Mother Too)
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Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón's unrated tale of sexual discovery included multiple explicit scenes of both male and female nudity and sexuality in a coming-of-age, sensual journey film; it told about a road trip by two hormone-challenged 17 year-old Mexican boys (Gael Garcia Bernal as Zapata, and Diego Luna as Tenoch Iturbide) with sexy and wise 28 year-old Spanish beauty and estranged wife Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdu) to find a make-believe, idyllic beach named Heaven's Mouth; she taught the two vulgar lads lessons about life, enticed and had sex with both of them - separately and together, although they expressed jealous sexual rivalry; in one three-way scene in a hotel room after she danced with them in a cantina to the sound of a jukebox, she provided the catalyst for them to experience something entirely different between themselves; as they eagerly stripped her down and kissed her, she reciprocated with oral sex - as they both kissed and embraced each other |    |
| About Schmidt (2002)
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Director Alexander Payne's R-rated drama included a landmark, infamous, much-talked about nude hot tub scene in which divorced, sexually liberated, free-spirited, middle-aged, and overweight Roberta Hertzel (Kathy Bates) - retired actuary Warren Schmidt's (Jack Nicholson) daughter’s future mother-in-law, casually stepped into a hot tub with him -- her real-life, plump, 'earth mother' body type was a strong and courageous contrast to the slim young ones usually exhibited on the screen |  |
Adaptation (2002)
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Director Spike Jonz' brilliant but often bewildering, twisting and turning comedy/drama opened with the sped-up scene of the evolutionary creation of the cosmos and man from Hollywood (from Four Billion And Forty Years Earlier) to the present which concluded with the close-up of a childbirth; also in a fantasy scene, struggling screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) had the key-lime pie waitress Alice (Judy Greer) open her top for him out behind the restaurant; also in another scene, insomniac Kaufman masturbated while imagining having sex with New Yorker writer Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) from her picture on her book cover (while adapting her book for the screen) and taking her advice ("I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size"); and the obviously-doctored (and imagined?) topless photograph of Susan Orlean appearing on the pornography website of orchid thief John Laroche (Chris Cooper); and Meryl Streep's against-type character snorting lines of mind-altering, ghost-orchid green extract, getting high and committing adultery with Laroche in his Florida Everglades home, and at one point screaming at Charlie: "YOU FAT PIECE OF S--T!...YOU LOSER. You've ruined my life, YOU FAT F--K" with his reply: "F--K YOU, LADY. You're just a lonely, old, desperate, pathetic DRUG ADDICT" |
    
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| Auto Focus (2002)
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Greg Kinnear starred in director Paul Schrader's compelling dramatic biography and cautionary tale of mid-60s "Hogan's Heroes" TV star Bob Crane, whose life spiraled out of control due to his rapid stardom and a compulsive addiction to sex, leading in part to his unsolved murder in 1978; in one scene, Crane photographed a sexual encounter with a young fan (Kitana Baker) at a hippie party, taking her picture and saying "Schmile!" as she lifted her blouse to reveal herself to him; the film was edited in post-production to avoid an NC-17 rating; one of the film's memorable quotes expressed Crane's obsession with breasts: "I'm a normal, red-blooded American man. I like to look at naked women. I love breasts, any kind. I love 'em! Boobs, bazooms, balloons, bags, bazongas. The bigger, the better. Nipples like udders, nipples like saucers, big pale rosy-brown nipples. Little bitty baby nipples. Real or fake, what's the difference? I like tits. Who's kidding who? Tits are great!" |  |
8 Mile (2002)
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Curtis Hanson's gritty semi-autobiographical biopic told about a struggling rapper in the Detroit area named Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith, Jr. (white song artist Eminem); in the film's extremely graphic sex scene, Rabbit and aspiring model Alex (Brittany Murphy) found themselves at lunchtime in his deserted auto factory plant - although clothed, she opened up her blouse to show her black bra and panties - and they engaged in sex standing up, with plenty of hot kissing and other action; as part of the preparation, Alex licked her hand and then locked her hips with his |   
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| 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
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A notable erotic scene in this flat and mostly unfunny film was the one in which web designer Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett), who had vowed to abstain from sexual activity for 40 days and nights for Lent, blew flower petals across the naked body (down her stomach and then across her panties) of laundromat dream girl Erica (Shannyn Sossamon) lying on her back - causing her to writhe with pleasure and experience an "immaculate" orgasm without being touched - although it seemed highly improbable; in other scenes during his abstinence period, he imagined various women semi-nude (on a bus and in a street scene) |    |
| The Heart of Me (2002, UK/Germany)
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This richly-appointed BBC drama by director Thaddeus O'Sullivan was based on Rosamond Lehmann's 1953 novel The Echoing Grove, and set in mid-30s London; it starred Helena Bonham Carter as Dinah - the sensual, free-spirited and eccentric sister of the prim, dispassionate and proper Madeleine (Olivia Williams), who began a sizzling, volatile, all-consuming and destructive affair over a decade's time (told in flashback) with her sister's handsome husband Rickie (Paul Bettany) - her brother-in-law |  |
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Frenchman Gaspar Noe's hard-hitting, graphic and violent film about rape revenge, was told in reverse-order - it was noted for its excruciatingly-long, shrieking, painful-to-watch nine-minute real-time beating and anal-rape sequence of beautiful Alex (Monica Bellucci) in a Parisian underpass tunnel lit by a reddish glow, by rapist/pimp Le Tenia/Tapeworm (Jo Prestia), in which she begged: "Let me go, please"; as he raped her, he threatened with a knife: "You gonna shut up, little whore?", and afterwards beat her into a coma; later, the scene showed preceding flirtations by Alex in a sexy dress while dancing, renewing the question of her perceived erotic sexuality; also earlier in the chronology was a love-making scene of Alex with boyfriend Marcus (Vincent Cassel, Bellucci's real-life husband); besides that, there was the horrific, violent and vengeful scene of a man getting his head beaten to a pulp with a fire extinguisher in a gay S&M night-club bar called The Rectum |
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This was another controversial film from co-director Larry Clark, in which the director was accused of exploiting young teens and filming unsimulated sex - it was banned in Australia, and never issued in wide release in the US; its plot was about four dysfunctional, abusive families in Visalia, California and their teenaged skateboarders; it included graphic oral and masturbatory sex and nudity, violence, suicide and incest, with a final idyllic sex orgy scene between a trio of teenagers (Tiffany Limos, Stephen Jasso and James Bullard) in which they were in both give-and-take positions; in one controversially-graphic scene of auto-erotic self-asphyxiation designed to increase sexual arousal, death-obsessed masturbation-addicted teenager Tate (James Ransone), who wore a T-shirt saying "Keep it Simple," choked himself with a long green scarf tied to a doorknob while he pleasured himself watching Anna Kournikova playing tennis |      
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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 |
Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
