We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. From indie gems like Shortbus and Secretary to star-studded projects like Nymphomaniac , we've pulled together some excellent sex movies that are worth your time. The best erotic films of all time show how sex can be portrayed in exciting, sensual, provocative and fascinating ways on the big screen. We're not talking about adult films or pornography, but movies where sex is central to the plot and there is a captivating depiction of all kinds of intimacy.
Sex has had an ever-changing relationship with mainstream cinema, from the open-minded first decades of silent movies followed by the highly conservative Hays Code era, to the notorious erotic-thriller wave of the '90s. Today, there's an absence of sex scenes and real intimacy in Hollywood productions, although we can still find absorbing portrayals of sex in many independent productions for example, Ira Sachs' Passages.
Sure, there have been some notable sex comedies recently, like Jennifer Lawrence's No Hard Feelings , Joy Ride and Bottoms , but the kind of erotic movie we're looking for here is a bit different. In this list, we celebrate erotic movies which found artful, thought-provoking ways of exploring sexuality, whether they faked it for the camera or fell into the category of movies that feature unsimulated sex.
We don't get to enjoy well-narrated intimacy on screen that often these days, so here are some outstanding sex movies you should watch. Roger Kumble's deliciously camp retelling of Dangerous Liaisons is a teen classic, as well as an exploration of sex and power. Cruel Intentions follows two vicious step-siblings, Sebastian Valmont and Kathryn Merteuil played by teen icons Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar , who make a bet to entertain themselves β would Sebastian be capable of deflowering the new headmaster's daughter Reese Witherspoon before the start of term?
Beyond the famous kiss between Witherspoon and Selma Blair, which was quite scandalous at the time now, not so much , sex is at the movie's very foundation. Watch now : Prime Video. Boogie Nights is not only a movie about sex, but a movie about the porn industry in the '70s and '80s.
