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) - 1994 - 2 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 |
Nell (1994)
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Academy-Award nominated Jodie Foster starred as the title character Nell Kellty in this engrossing drama about a 30 year-old woman who was isolated her entire life in a remote cabin in North Carolina with her partially-paralyzed mother due to a stroke; this made her appear to be a 'feral' or 'wild child', because her unusual and almost incoherent speech was due to her conversations with a deceased twin sister until she was 6 years old, and her mother's garbled words; once Dr. Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson) and therapist Paula Olsen (Natasha Richardson) came upon Nell, there was conflict over sending her to an institution or letting her remain in her familiar surroundings; in one scene, the untamed woman stripped down to go swimming in a moonlit lake (with the doctor joining her to reassure her), and in another, Nell lifted up her top in a poolroom-bar when a local redneck took advantage of her naivete about civilization |  
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This volatile, daring, provocative and controversial British drama from director Antonia Bird was accused of attacking the Roman Catholic Church's official views on homosexuality (or chaste celibacy of any kind by priests), and the sanctity of privacy in the confessional; the film was about a conservative, gay Roman Catholic priest in Liverpool -- Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) who broke his vows by engaging in homosexual sex with a man named Graham (Robert Carlyle), while also being tormented by a confessional from a young 14 year-old girl named Lisa Unsworth (Christine Tremarco) about incestual abuse from her father; the film was forced to be re-edited for its US R-rated theatrical release |  
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Rapa Nui (1994)
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Director Kevin Reynolds' (and producer Kevin Costner) historically-questionable film about civil war on early Easter Island (known as Rapa Nui) in the remote SE Pacific told about a forbidden (and preposterous) 'Hollywoodish' star-crossed 'Romeo and Juliet' love story (mishandled and miscast featuring Sandrine Holt as plebian "Short Ear" native girl Ramana in love with the aristocratic "Long Ear" Noro, played by Jason Scott Lee); throughout the melodrama, there were many scantily-clad natives |
  
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Ready to Wear (1994) (aka Pret-a-Porter)
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Robert Altman's two-hour ensemble comedy that satirized the fashion industry featured dozens of characters and cameo appearances (Lauren Bacall, Harry Belafonte, Teri Garr, Forest Whitaker, Naomi Campbell, Lyle Lovett, Christy Turlington, Cher and others) in his look at the fashion world of Paris through the interweaving plot lines of the lives of models, designers (Richard E. Grant), fashion magazine editors (Sally Kellerman, Tracey Ullman, and Linda Hunt), and journalists (Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts, and Lili Taylor); its most memorable scene was its eye-popping finale -- a sensational, all-nude fashion show featuring over one dozen slim models, displayed by both real-life models (Georgianna Robertson as Dane Simpson, Eve Salvail as Herself, and Tara Leon as Kiki Simpson) and actresses (Rossy de Palma as black-haired Pilar, and German singer Ute Lemper as very pregnant Albertine) |
   
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Red Shoe Diaries: The Movie (1992) (aka Wild Orchid III: Red Shoe Diaries) Showtime Episodes (1992-1999)
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These are just a few of many examples of Zalman King's long-running, late-night Showtime series of glossy, soft-core films blending erotica and fantasy that aired from 1992 - 1999; King was the leading creator of erotic/romantic programming for his time; each of the 'women's-oriented' episodes (66 in total) was taken from a woman’s secret diary that was narrated by David Duchovny (of TV's The X-Files). (1) Red Shoe Diaries: The Movie (1992) - the
debut pilot movie (in R and unrated versions), Brigitte Bako starred
as Alex - a woman who was involved with two men - fiancee David Duchovny
and blue-collar worker Billy Wirth - revealed only after her suicide Red Shoe Diaries episodes: Other B-level stars enacted their affairs on-screen in the Red Shoe Diaries episodes, including Ally Sheedy, Sheryl Lee, Denise Crosby, Joan Severance, and Nina Siemaszko |
 Brigitte Bako  Audie England  Denise Crosby  Nina Siemaszko  Joan Severance |
The Road to Wellville (1994)
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Writer/director Alan Parker's satirical adaptation of T. Coraghessan Boyle's 1993 novel of the same name told about the early 20th Century Reform movement for health self-improvement; it featured many big-name stars, including Anthony Hopkins as buck-toothed Corn Flakes developer/health guru Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, Broderick Crawford as William Lightbody and Bridget Fonda as his wife Eleanor; the satirical sex comedy chronicled the fanatical treatments at Kellogg's fictional Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, where affluent guests were rejuvenated by being subjected to daily colon cleansings and enemas, the eating of roughage (and denial of meat), electric shock baths, flagellation and other shock therapies and battery-powered treatments applied to the genitals, womb manipulation massages, and sex abstinence; even so, the film was filled with scatalogical references and frequent nudity; due to William's forced separation from his wife Eleanor (who engaged in milk baths), he found himself libidinously attracted to his sexy and pretty nurse Irene Graves (Traci Lind) who administered his enemas (and who he often imagined undressed) and to sickly and consumptive Ida Muntz (Lara Flynn Boyle) across the hall |   
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Sirens (1994, Aust./UK/Ger.)
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John Duigan's free-wheeling, erotic drama (based on a true story) with the tagline: "Be Seduced", was noted for its generous, free-spirited models (including Sports Illustrated supermodel Elle Macpherson as Sheela in her film debut, blonde Giddy (Portia de Rossi), and Pru (Kate Fischer)) in a sensual paradise who posed 'au naturel' for controversial Australian painter-artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) at his Blue Mountain estate; in addition, a blind handyman made a full-frontal nude appearance, and the sensual beauties swam naked to sexually awaken English minister Rev. Anthony Campion's (Hugh Grant) repressed wife Estella (Tara Fitzgerald); the final image of the film was a long-shot of the naked sirens on an outcropping of rock |      
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Spanking the Monkey (1994)
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David O. Russell's debut directorial film was this black comedy - the film's title was another term for "masturbation"; the independent feature film told about a self-abusing, introverted college freshman named Ray Aibelli (Jeremy Davies) who was forced by his philandering, acerbic and domineering father Tom (Benjamin Hendrickson) to care for his recuperating, emotionally-dependent, and bed-ridden depressed mother Susan (Alberta Watson) with a broken leg during a hot summer; during their close time together (helping her shower, etc.), they developed an off-limits, mother-son relationship (the most controversial scene was one late at night in which he rubbed massage lotion into her upper thigh and they commenced love-making) - after he was continually interrupted touching himself in the bathroom by the whining family dog, and he experienced a rocky relationship with his neighborhood girlfriend Toni Peck (Carla Galio) due to his graceless and rough manner; due to his spiraling depression and guilt over the forbidden love with his mother, he suicidally jumped off a cliff | 
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The Specialist (1994)
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Two supposedly sexy box-office superstars were featured in this body-conscious, 'guilty pleasure' thriller-tale of murder and revenge against the underworld set against the neon backdrop of Miami; the two ultra-buffed stars were Sharon Stone as femme fatale May Munro/Adrian Hastings and Sylvester Stallone as former CIA explosives expert Ray Quick who appeared in a number of sex scenes, including a lengthy, exhibitionist shower scene that featured their taut and toned bodies; their dialogue was unintentionally funny and unsexy, as for instance this line as she soaped up his chest from behind: "I know you always focused your detonations" and they ultimately made love on the shower floor |   
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Threesome (1994)
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Writer-director Andrew Fleming's debut feature - an R-rated fairly crude, blatantly-stereotypical romantic sex comedy about a coed triangle, took the unlikely premise that there was a mix-up in Freemont University (UCLA?) dorm assignments that placed female Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) (with a gender-ambiguous name) in a dorm suite with studious, sensitive, intellectual junior transfer student Eddy Howe (Josh Charles) and boorish jock Stuart (Stephen Baldwin). Neanderthal-like Stuart was obviously sex-crazed and heterosexual (in an early scene in their cramped quarters, Stuart was given time to "socialize with friends" -- he was seen removing the purple bra from friendly dorm laundry girl (Katherine Kousi) and kissing her breast). Their "delicate equilibrium" was quickly upset when Eddy found Alex showering in the suite's bathroom - and she announced herself as their new roommate. The teasing and prudish post-modern coming-of-age film dabbled with whether Alex's reluctant, stand-offish and "sexually-ambivalent" love interest Eddy might be gay ("I like them (girls), I just don't want to have sex with them"), while Stuart was ardently pursuing her (the film's basic plot was summed up early on by Alex: "You have the hots for me, I have the hots for him, and sooner or later he's gonna have the hots for you"). Although they made a "sacred vow" together to remain only friends, that line was soon crossed. Dialogue was exemplified by lines such as this, mostly from Stuart: "For me, sex, it's like pizza. Even if it's bad, it's still pretty good," and "If you don't have sex soon, your dick is going to shrivel up and go inside your body. Then what do you have? A vagina." The film displayed Alex having an orgasm fully dressed as she seductively squirmed around on a library table in front of Eddy, and oral sex was delivered by Stuart to Alex under a blanket while she spoke on the phone to Eddy; in a skinny-dip scene, the three were naked and kissing until interrupted by a group of young hikers led by a priest who saw them and then began laughing - afterwards, Eddy (in voice-over) described the significance of their kissing: "Alex said that the priest symbolized God, the children - lost innocence, and the three of us - a post-modern Eve with two Adams banished from the sacred garden to wander in the wilderness for eternity because we had sinned. We had acknowledged our own nakedness and partaken of the forbidden fruit. Though it amounted to only a kiss, a touch, it changed everything. Pandora's proverbial box had been opened, but more interestingly, I'm not sure any of us wanted to close it again"; the film eventually included a soft-core three-some sex-sandwich bedroom scene in which Alex was naked between the two men, with Alex interested in Eddy, while he was interested in Stuart, and Stuart was interested in Alex; at the end, Eddy's musings in voice-over, accompanied by a few flashback images, summed up: "My college experience wasn't what I had planned. It bore no resemblence to the pictures in the brochure. But I'm not unhappy. I don't think any of us are. We got what we needed out of it. It's kind of like when you go on vacation. You plan everything out but then one day you make a wrong turn or take a detour and you end up in some crazy place you can't even find on the map, doing something you never thought you'd do. Maybe you feel a little lost while it's happening, but later you realize it was the best part of the whole trip" |     
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True Lies (1994)
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James Cameron's expensive, cross-genre film included a scene in which the bored traditionalist, unsuspecting wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) of US secret agent Harry Renquist (Arnold Schwarzenegger) pretended to be a prostitute and performed an arousing striptease (as a punishment and test by her husband) for him in a hotel room - thinking she was on a "mission" to seduce a double-agent | 
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Uncovered (1994, Sp./UK)
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Based on the book "The Flanders Panel" and filmed on location in Barcelona by directors Jack Baran and Jim McBride, this neglected murder mystery (with the tagline: "To Some - Murder Is an Art") starred Kate Beckinsale (in an early, short-haired role before starring in Pearl Harbor (2001), Van Helsing (2004) and The Aviator (2004)) as Julia, an art restorer who thought she discovered clues to a centuries-old murder and a modern-day succession of murders in an 'uncovered' inscription of a 15th century Flemish master painting of a chess game, reading "Who killed the knight?" - while she also uncovered herself as she drank a glass of wine, approached the painting and studied it in a topless reflection |
  
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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