Lovely & Amazing (2001)

In this dramatic comedy by Nicole Holofcener, Emily Mortimer starred as timid and insecure Elizabeth Marks - one of three daughters in a dysfunctional family.

In one memorable scene, the body-obsessed aspiring actress left her shared bed naked and deliberately posed in front of egotistical, narcissistic, and callous fellow actor/boyfriend named Kevin (Dermot Mulroney).

As she turned slowly and asked for a candid evaluation and critiquing of the imperfections of her lithe body, he told her, reluctantly: "You ain't bad."

Monster's Ball (2001)

Director Marc Forster's mainstream Oscar-winning film was remarkable for its sexual candor and intensity, displayed through sexual couplings to ease life's pains.

Halle Berry won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of estranged African-American single-mom and waitress Leticia Musgrove, who became involved with hard-drinking, racist, emotionally-drained Georgia prison (death-row) guard Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton). He often had sex with prostitutes (Vera (Amber Rules) in an early scene), favoring his accustomed position from behind.

In a scene of volatile, raw and intense inter-racial sexuality, the emotionally-devastated widow engaged in an animalistic scene of love-making before she begged him: "Make ... me ... feel ... good," turned him around, and rearranged herself on top.

The "Make...Me...Feel...Good" Scene with Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry)

She also accepted cunnilingus in another later scene, as the camera remained focused on her top half.

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Best Director-nominated David Lynch's surreal, mystifying, dream-like work about Hollywood fame told about two female characters with twisting and turning dual personas:

• 'Rita' / Camilla Rhodes (Laura Elena Harring, the first Latina to win the Miss USA title in 1985), a dark-haired, full-bodied amnesiac and mysterious femme fatale
• Betty Elms / Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts), a wholesome, naive, pert blonde wannabe starlet newly arrived in Los Angeles

They engaged in two steamy, topless, hesitant and exploratory lesbian love scenes. In the first scene, 'Rita' removed her robe, slipped into Betty's bed naked - and was asked the question: "Have you ever done this before?" followed by a kiss on the lips. Betty then confessed: "I want to with you. I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you." This was accompanied by more kisses and the sexual touching of each of their breasts.

Rita (Laura Elena Harring) and Betty (Naomi Watts) - Their First Lesbian Encounter

In a second more explicit scene (disjointed due to an almost imperceptible switch in characters and setting), Betty (wearing a robe and carrying a cup of coffee) / Diane (topless and carrying a drink, and wearing denim cutoffs) joined a half-naked 'Rita' reclining on a couch. Betty/Diane caressed Rita's nipple and breast, and kissed her:

Diane: "What was that you were saying, beautiful?"
Rita: "I said, 'You drive me wild.' (pause) We shouldn't do this anymore."
Diane: (dismayed): "Don't say that. Don't ever say that."
Rita: (struggling with her) "Don't, Diane. Stop it! Diane, stop! I've tried to tell you this before."
Diane: (jealously suspect) "It's him, isn't it?"

Rita and Betty/Diane - Their Second Lesbian Encounter

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.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

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.

To set the tone for the remainder of the film, it opened with an outrageous giant dildo scene (non-nude, however) in which bookish outcast and female lead Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) was in her bedroom masturbating in privacy under the covers with a twisting pink vibrator, when her family and friends burst in to wish her a happy birthday - and witnessed her uncontrollable orgasm.

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).

Naked Foreign Exchange HS Student Areola (Cerina Vincent)

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?"

Original Sin (2001)

Director Michael Cristofer's steamy, R-rated romantic mystery thriller was released in two versions (one steamier than the other).

It featured two attractive superstars, who were both passionate and duplicitous, and often undressed:

• Luis Antonio Vargas (Antonio Banderas), a 19th century Cuban coffee plantation owner
• Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie), his sexy, ravishing, beautiful mail-order bride from the US

Original Sin

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 Piano Teacher (2001, Fr.) (aka La Pianiste)

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. The film was released unrated, rather than with an NC-17 rating, and its US release was delayed due to its difficult subject matter.

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 Pornographer (2001, Fr./Can) (aka Le Pornographe)

French director Bertrand Bonello's self-important film was an arthouse-style look at the French pornography industry. It included an 11-second climax-ejaculation 'money shot' that had to be censored before distribution.

Amidst the pretentious drama and storyline about reconnection with an estranged son named Joseph (Jeremie Renier), 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)
• Titof (as Franck)

Prozac Nation (2001)

Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjaerg's coming-of-age film, his first English-language feature, was a downer film that experienced a delayed release, and was only widely available after its 2005 debut showing on the Starz! network and its release on DVD.

It starred Christina Ricci, who was known more for her early role as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family movies (1991 and 1993). 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.

She portrayed 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.

Sex and Lucia (2001, Sp.) (aka Lucía y el Sexo)

Julio Medem's unabashedly sexy, erotic, intriguing and poetic art-house film (told with a twisting plot) was mostly a story about the passionate involvement between two individuals:

• Lucia (Paz Vega), a lusciously beautiful Madrid waitress
• Lorenzo Alvarez (Tristan Ulloa) a suicidal novelist with writer's block who had a secret past

When they first met in a public restaurant, told in a long flashback sequence, she told him how she was an adoring fan of his first novel and proposed:

"The person I really want to live with is you...I'm completely in love with you. Madly, as you can see...With time, living together, you'll end up falling in love with me, of course."

He responded: "I think I just did. Let's go get drunk and celebrate." When he took her back to his place later that evening, she encouraged him as she laid back: "Go ahead and undress me. Do whatever you want to me" although they both fell asleep.

After she wandered naked around his apartment the next morning, she showered and thought: "A ray of sunshine Brought your love to me," and then began to caress the sleeping writer, even touching his aroused genitals (including a split-second view of Lucia holding his male erection in close-up in the unrated version), telling him:

"Slowly. With love. We're just starting. Like that. So it lasts longer."

As they had intercourse, she screamed as she orgasmed: "I'm dying. I'm dying! My love. I'm gonna die!" They took very intimate, sexy Polaroid pictures of each other during more unabashed, sensual love-making that they used to inflame their passion at an outdoor cafe.

On a dare to do a striptease, she removed her black panties in public, and then playfully performed the panty-less, sexy strip back at his apartment singing: "I've got just what you want."

During more love-making games, he was blind-folded as she touched her finger, her elbow, her lips, her shoulder, and her breast's nipple to his lips, and then French-kissed him - then she got on her knees and straddled herself naked above his mouth and received tongue-flicks as she thrust her genital lips back and forth over him.

Then she was blindfolded as they made love, and told him: "Lorenzo, my love. I can't take anymore. So much love will kill me. I'm dying. I'm dying!"

Lucia: "Have you ever with another girl had better sex?...Which do you prefer? Wild sex with a stranger? Or sex with someone you know, someone you love, but also wild?...You have to choose."
Lorenzo: "With you. I'd never imagined being so lucky. Girls like you never like guys like me. You're a gift."

The Sexy Lucia (Paz Vega) - The Love Making and Stripping Scenes

Spider-Man (2001)

Director Sam Raimi's comic-book blockbuster Spider-Man (2001) 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.

Storytelling (2001)

Controversial film-maker Todd Solondz's third feature film was divided into two parts, one titled "Fiction" and the other "Non-Fiction."

The dramatic film was rated "R" - instead of NC-17 - only after the director agreed to visually 'censor' an explicit, discomforting sodomy scene in "Fiction." It had numerous and vigorous thrusts during rear-entry intercourse between an older black man and a younger white female-student. 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.

In the sex scene under question, 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."

Swordfish (2001)

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.

Berry 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).

Vanilla Sky (2001)

Writer/director Cameron Crowe's film was a Hollywoodized remake of Open Your Eyes/Abre los Ojos (1997, Sp.) by Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar.

The story told about formerly handsome, 32 year-old wealthy playboy David Aames (Tom Cruise), a publishing firm heir, who was charged with the crime of murder. He wore a latex facial mask to cover a disfigurement as he related his dreams and life story to psychologist McCabe (Kurt Russell). In flashback, the film showed how he became acquainted with his best friend Brian Shelby's (Jason Lee) recent acquaintance - a beautiful brunette named Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz), who warned: "We'd better watch out" but then kissed him.

David was attempting to ditch his possessive blonde lover Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) at the same time. Enraged and jilted, she revealed her obsessive jealousy to him: "You f--ked me four times the other night, David. You've been inside me...I swallowed your cum. That means something" and then asked: "Do you believe in God?" before she deliberately caused an automobile accident, killing herself and severely injuring David as a result.

In this plot-twisting film about the nature of reality, he 'awoke' from a drunken night lying in a New York City street (from here on, the film was an "artificial perception" or dream provided by a cryogenics company following his suicidal death) - awakened by Sofia's whispered words "Open your eyes."

She quickly became his lover and they made love in a fantasy love scene after she removed his post-operative mask and told him his face was "perfect." She asked: "Do you love me? I mean, do you really love me? Because if you don't, I'll just have to kill you." In a silly sequence of dialogue, he pointed to a mole between her breasts and suggested living there. She also asked, tellingly: "Is this a dream?" and he answered: "Absolutely" as they kissed.

David (Tom Cruise) and Sofia (Penelope Cruz) in the 2001 Remake

Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001, Jp/Fr.) (aka Akai hashi no shita no nurui mizu)

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.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001, Mex.) (aka And Your Mother Too)

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 a trio to find a make-believe, idyllic beach named Heaven's Mouth:

• two hormone-challenged 17 year-old Mexican boys: Zapata (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch Iturbide (Diego Luna)
• Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdu), a sexy and wise 28 year-old Spanish beauty and estranged wife

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.

Their journey ended at an isolated beach where she decided to have an end-of-life experience, due to a terminal illness.