56 of the Most Insane Movie Sex Scenes
Do you remember the first time you were sexually excited by an image on a screen? (We do!) It might’ve been a music video to a teen-pop bop, or a particularly mushy episode of Buffy. Most likely, it was a movie of the PG-13 persuasion, which you snuck a viewing of far from the eyes of your parents when you were nowhere near the age of 13. Looking back, those scenes were cute. Harmless. Nowhere near the sex scenes you’ve seen in movies since you branched out into the R-rated category and beyond.
Sex scenes are nearly as old as movies themselves. In fact, one of the first films to be screened for the public debuted in 1896 and was called The Kiss. It was quite steamy for its time, featuring a full-on brushing of the lips, which, let us tell you, really riled up the modest-minded folks of the late 19th century. But these days, a movie sex scene has to accomplish a lot more to be memorable—especially when we’ve been so impressed by the earth-shattering sex scenes appearing in television shows of late (see: Normal People and Sex/Life). It has to be downright crazy.
“Crazy” can be broadly interpreted in the realm of onscreen sex. There’s the hot stuff that begs for repeated rewatchings. There are downright hilarious sexual interactions that involve comedic timing, musical numbers, awkward improv, and/or puppets. There are scenes from horror movies that make us recoil in disgust, and boundary-pushing scenes that inspire a trove of thought pieces. There’s most of what Micky Rourke touched in the ’80s. Here’s a selection of 50 such movie sex scenes, from the classics to recent releases, each one seemingly crazier than the next.
God’s Own Country
Released: 2017
Directed by: Francis Lee
Actors: Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu
Fun fact: O’Connor and Secăreanu worked on a farm for weeks to learn how to handle farm chores and animals…and presumably, how to roll around in the mud.
Watch on Hulu
White Tiger
Released: 2021
Directed by: Ramin Bahrani
Actors: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Rajkummar Rao, and Adarsh Gourav
Fun fact: Chopra Jonas is so famous in India that to facilitate the film’s shooting, most of her scenes (much like this voyeuristic one) take place inside a car instead of out in public settings.
Watch on Netflix
Blue Valentine
Released: 2010
Directed by: Derek Cianfrance
Actors: Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling
Fun fact: This film was originally slapped with an NC-17 rating because of its realistic oral sex scene, giving some interesting insight into how female pleasure on screen is critiqued. Gosling’s response: “You shouldn’t be penalized for doing a good job.”
Rent or Buy
Teeth
Released: 2007
Directed by: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Actor: Jess Weixler
Fun fact: This film, about a woman whose vagina bares teeth to horrifying mid-sex results, has a shocking 80 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Rent or Buy
Atonement
Released: 2007
Directed by: Joe Wright
Actors: Keira Knightley and James McAvoy
Fun fact: Though the library sex scene is now considered iconic, it is somewhat overshadowed by the downright legendary green dress Knightley wears in it.
Rent or Buy
Duck Butter
Released: 2018
Directed by: Miguel Arteta
Actors: Alia Shawkat and Laia Costa
Fun fact: The basic premise of this film as that two women attempt to have sex once an hour for 24 straight hours.
Rent or Buy
The Handmaiden
Released: 2016
Directed by: Park Chan-wook
Actors: Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee
Fun fact: To shoot the lesbian sex scene in a way that made his leads feel comfortable, Park gave the male crew members the day off, hired a female boom operator, and filmed the encounter with a remote controlled camera.
Rent or Buy
Call Me By Your Name
Released: 2017
Directed by: Luca Guadagnino
Actors: Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer
Fun fact: In the first and only rehearsal for this film, Guadagnino had his actors immediately act out the scene where they make out furiously. (This is also the film that launched a thousand peach memes.)
Rent or Buy
Monster’s Ball
Released: 2001
Directed by: Marc Forster
Actors: Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton
Fun fact: Halle Berry became the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for this movie. Twenty years later, she remains the only Black woman to have won it.
Rent or Buy
In the Realm of Senses
Released: 1976
Directed by: Nagisa Ōshima
Actors: Eiko Matsuda and Tatsuya Fuji
Fun fact: This erotic film featured unsimulated (a.k.a. very real) sex scenes between its actors, and thus kicked up a lot of controversy in 1976.
Rent or Buy
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Released: 2008
Directed by: Nicholas Stroller
Actors: Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Russell Brand
Fun fact: To promote the film, billboards were placed around big cities attacking the fictional Sarah Marshall. That bothered some real-life Sarah Marshalls.
Rent or Buy
Hancock
Released: 2008
Directed by: Peter Berg
Actors: Will Smith and Hayley Marie Norman
Fun fact: Hancock, an alcoholic superhero stuck in the modern day with severe amnesia and sexual frustrations, is supposedly the Greek god Zeus, and his love interest/sister, played by Charlize Theron, is supposedly the Greek goddess Hera.
Rent or Buy
Midsommar
Released: 2019
Directed by: Ari Aster
Actors: Jack Reynor, Isabelle Grill, and a lot of extras
Fun fact: It took two grueling weeks to film this nudity-filled, crazy-yet-terrifying ritualistic sex scene.
Rent or Buy
King Cobra
Released: 2016
Directed by: Justin Kelly
Actors: Garrett Clayton, Christian Slater, Keegan Allen, and James Franco
Fun fact: This film was based on a real-life murder plot within the gay porn industry.
Rent or Buy
Angel Heart
Released: 1987
Directed by: Alan Parker
Actors: Lisa Bonet and Mickey Rourke
Fun fact: A combination of rough sex, spurting blood, and Rourke’s buttocks got this horror movie an X rating, before the scene was trimmed to appeal to the MPAA.
Rent or Buy
Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy
Released: 2015-2018
Directed by: Sam Taylor-Johnson; James Foley
Actors: Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan
Fun fact: This soft-core take on BDSM pulled in over $1 billion at the box office across all three movies. The books they was based on were actually fan-fic for the Twilight tween series.
Rent or Buy
The Bronze
Released: 2015
Directed by: Bryan Buckley
Actors: Melissa Rauch and Sebastian Stan
Fun fact: Rauch used a body double for this movie’s acrobatic sex scene, but Stan did not. That’s flexibility.
Rent or Buy
Avatar
Released: 2009
Directed by: James Cameron
Actors: Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana
Fun fact: Cameron is planning to make four Avatar sequels. No word yet if any will feature CGI tail sex, though.
Rent or Buy
Sorry to Bother You
Released: 2018
Directed by: Boots Riley
Actors: Lakeith Stanfield and Armie Hammer
Fun fact: It wouldn’t be a movie about soulless corporate ladder-climbing without coke-fueled orgies. Stanfield said he wanted to go nude, but his character’s nudity was eventually cut from the script.
Rent or Buy
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Released: 1983
Directed by: Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam
Actor: John Cleese
Fun fact: The Monty Python troupe wrote a rousing musical number called “Every Sperm Is Sacred,” along with this live sex ed demonstration.
Rent or Buy
Jason’s Lyric
Released: 1993
Directed by: Doug McHenry
Actors: Jada Pinkett Smith and Allen Payne
Fun fact: The sex scenes in this movie had to be cut down to avoid an NC-17 rating.
Rent or Buy
Barbarella
Released: 1968
Directed by: Roger Vadim
Actors: Jane Fonda
Fun fact: The evil scientist Durand-Durand who puts Barbarella through the Excessive Machine was the inspiration behind the band Duran Duran’s name.
Rent or Buy
Destination Wedding
Released: 2018
Directed by: Victor Levin
Actors: Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves
Fun fact: The non-stop, high-velocity banter between Ryder and Reeves throughout Destination Wedding does not let up during this awkward sex scene.
Rent or Buy
The Piano Teacher
Released: 2001
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Actors: Isabelle Huppert and Benoît Magimel
Fun fact: The Piano Teacher explores themes of sadomasochism and sexuality in a way that makes Fifty Shades look like Saturday morning cartoons.
Rent or Buy
Under the Skin
Released: 2013
Directed by: Jonathan Glazer
Actors: Scarlett Johansson
Fun fact: Glazer hired people off the street, not actors, to portray the men who succumb to Johansson’s alien allure and ultimately die in bizarre, mesmerizing ways.
Rent or Buy
Boogie Nights
Released: 1997
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Actors: Julianne Moore and Mark Wahlberg
Fun fact: Originally, Mark Wahlberg’s prosthetic penis was 12 inches long, but because that looked ridiculous, it was shortened to seven inches.
Rent or Buy
Basic Instinct 2
Released: 2006
Directed by: Michael Caton-Jones
Actors: Sharon Stone
Fun Fact: Two scenes, one of them a threesome, had to be cut from this film for it to avoid an NC-17 rating. The orgy scene and this masturbation scene remained, making the sequel that much crazier than the already-crazy first Basic Instinct.
Rent or Buy
Don Jon
Released: 2013
Directed by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Actors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Fun Fact: JGL knew he wouldn’t get a big Hollywood studio to make his porn addiction movie, so he did it on his own.
Rent or Buy
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Released: 1975
Directed by: Jim Sharman
Actors: Susan Sarandon and Peter Hinwood
Fun fact: Sarandon refused to appear nude during this much-beloved, musical ensemble number.
Rent or Buy
Trainwreck
Released: 2015
Directed by: Judd Apatow
Actors: Amy Schumer and John Cena
Fun Fact: Cena said this scene was written to be much more physical, but Schumer and Apatow let him ad lib, so it became something truly memorable.
Rent or Buy
The Room
Released: 2003
Directed by: Tommy Wiseau
Actors: Tommy Wiseau and Juliette Danielle
Fun Fact: Wiseau claimed, “I have to show my ass or this movie won’t sell.” Show his ass he did.
Buy
Sausage Party
Released: 2016
Directed by: Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon
Actors: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, and many more
Fun Fact: This was the first ever 3D CGI-animated film to get an R rating by the MPAA, for obvious reasons.
Rent or Buy
Disobedience
Released: 2018
Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
Actors: Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams
Fun fact: McAdams said the saliva used in this scene was actually lychee-flavored lube.
Rent or Buy
Secretary
Released: 2002
Directed by: Steven Shainberg
Actors: Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader
Fun fact: This was one of few mainstream films to portray BDSM as sex positive, long before 50 Shades of Grey entered the scene.
Rent or Buy
Raw
Released: 2016
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Actors: Garance Marillier and Rabah Nait Oufella
Fun fact: People allegedly fainted while watching this gory, French cannibalism movie. Consider yourself warned.
Rent or Buy
Black Swan
Released: 2010
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Actors: Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman
Fun Fact: This psychological thriller is one of just six horror films to ever be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
Rent or Buy
Girls Trip
Released: 2017
Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee
Actor: Tiffany Haddish and a banana
Fun Fact: Though not an actual sex scene, this bonkers grapefruiting demonstration got the crew on Girls Trip to start sending Haddish love letters and jewelry for her performance.
Rent or Buy
The Counselor
Released: 2013
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Actors: Cameron Diaz and a 2013 Ferrari California HS
Fun fact: Angelia Jolie turned down the role of Malkina. Wonder why?
Rent or Buy
9 1/2 Weeks
Released: 1986
Directed by: Adrian Lyne
Actors: Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger
Fun fact: Basinger used a body double for all of her sex scenes.
Rent or Buy
Shame
Released: 2011
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Actors: Michael Fassbender and Amy Hargreaves
Fun fact: The Standard Hotel in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District is notorious for couples having sex against the floor-to-ceiling windows, as one scene in this movie demonstrates.
Rent or Buy
Showgirls
Released: 1995
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Actors: Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle MacLachlan
Fun fact: Showgirls is the highest-grossing NC-17 movie of all time.
Rent or Buy
Don’t Look Now
Released: 1973
Directed by: Nicholas Roeg
Actors: Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie
Fun fact: The scene still seems so natural and real that rumors abound that Sutherland and Christie weren’t really acting.
Rent or Buy
Love
Released: 2015
Directed by: Gaspar Noé
Actors: Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman, and Klara Kristin
Fun fact: The unsimulated sex scenes were arguably more exciting during the film’s 3D theatrical release.
Rent or Buy
The Paperboy
Released: 2012
Directed by: Lee Daniels
Actors: Nicole Kidman and John Cusack
Fun fact: This is the movie in which Nicole Kidman peed on Zac Efron. And yet that’s not the most shocking scene of the film.
Rent or Buy
Blue Is the Warmest Color
Released: 2013
Directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche
Actors: Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos
Fun fact: One of the multiple sex scenes in this film took ten days to shoot, and sparked intense conversations about a director’s responsibility to actors’ well-being on set.
Rent or Buy
Wet Hot American Summer
Released: 2001
Directed by: David Wain
Actors: Bradley Cooper and Michael Ian Black
Fun fact: This sex scene was all improv. Including the part where they keep their socks on.
Rent or Buy
Watchmen
Released: 2009
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Actors: Malin Akerman and Patrick Wilson
Fun fact: Snyder actually thought it would be a good idea to set a superhero sex scene to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
Rent or Buy
Gone Girl
Released: 2014
Directed by: David Fincher
Actors: Rosamund Pike and Neil Patrick Harris
Fun fact: Pike practiced this murderous sex scene using a Dora the Explorer doll. She also requested that she and Harris spend two hours alone on set preparing.
Rent or Buy
Wild Things
Released: 1998
Directed by: John McNaughton
Actors: Denise Richards, Matt Dillon, and Neve Campbell
Fun fact: The crew found a dead body before filming a river scene. The police simply anchored the corpse to the shore out of site until filming was completed.
Rent or Buy
Y Tu Mamá También
Released: 2001
Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Actors: Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Ana López Mercado
Fun fact: Luna is not circumcised. That penis you see is pure prosthetic.
Rent or Buy
Team America
Released: 2004
Directed by: Trey Parker
Actors: Two puppets voiced by Trey Parker and Kristen Miller
Fun fact: After showing an initial version of the film to the Motion Picture Association of America, the board gave it an NC-17 rating for the sex scene. After at least nine edits, the film finally got bumped down to an R rating.
Rent or Buy
Shoot ‘Em Up
Released: 2007
Directed by: Michael Davis
Actors: Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci
Fun fact: This film had a body count of 151—nine during this sex scene.
Rent or Buy
Risky Business
Released: 1983
Directed by: Paul Brickman
Actors: Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay
Fun fact: This movie, in which Cruise wears Ray-Ban Wayfarers, boosted sales of the model by 50 percent.
Rent or Buy
American Psycho
Released: 2000
Directed by: Mary Harron
Actors: Cara Seymour, Guinevere Turner, and Christian Bale
Fun fact: Bale based his Patrick Bateman off Tom Cruise, as he called it “this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes.”
Rent or Buy
MacGruber
Released: 2010
Directed by: Jorma Taccone
Actors: Will Forte and Maya Rudolph
Fun fact: Rudolph was eight months pregnant while shooting her scenes.
Rent or Buy
Eyes Wide Shut
Released: 1999
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Actors: Tom Cruise and a lot of naked people in scary masks
Fun fact: Many of the orgy guests were computer-generated figures that obscured the sex acts, allowing the film to get an R rating.
Rent or Buy
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
