We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. Welcome to a countdown of the greatest sex films ever made about the small but preoccupying part of the human experience known as sex - from coming-of-age lesbian dramas to gritty portrayals of sex addiction to, erm, loincloths. Put simply: these are the sex movies with the most to say about doing it, charting a history of how our attitudes towards sex and nudity on the big screen have shifted through the decades.
So get comfy — well, not too comfy — and enjoy. Art house movies. We get it. They do sex. That's their thing. From Swedish nudes in Summer with Monika to the butter-based penetration of Last Tango in Paris to crazy irascible beach-side sessions in Betty Blue , nothing screams "arthouse" more than a smartly directed and gamely acted sex scene.
Then came Blue is the Warmest Colour. The film, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in , wiped away everything that had gone before it. The hideous rape of Monica Bellucci in Irreversible ? The grimly determined humping from Japanese classic In the Realm of the Senses? All gone. Faded in comparison. Plus, it was gay sex. So it made the cutesy girl-on-girl action in Bound and Mulholland Drive seem dubious and cheap. Looks are exchanged, picnics are arranged, kisses are traded and then everything grinds to a halt at approximately one hour and 11 minutes into the movie, when director Kechiche and his two lead actresses deliver the type of jaw-to-the-floor sex scene that has subsequently raised the movie-sex bar to insane heights of verisimilitude and has pushed the literal definition of "simulated" to breaking point.
For here, over seven long breathy, sweaty, brightly-lit minutes, we run the unapologetic gamut of licking, sucking, squeezing, fingering, rimming, ramming, slamming, and general slithery, grindy, intercrural mayhem. The scene has many detractors including the actresses themselves, who famously rounded on their director: Seydoux said making it was "horrible" and she would "never" work with Kechiche again. Once the film began sweeping up during the awards season, however, they recanted and said that they were "happy" with it.
And yet, look at the scene now, within the movie, and away from the hype, and it doesn't play too well. It's crudely lit. It's brazen, and yet also crass. And what it says, in its many nipple shots, arse close-ups, and vaginal teases, is that perhaps all sex scenes, no matter how well-intended, or how groundbreaking and profound, are inherently, well, kind of sleazy.
