Though it's difficult to fathom now, there was a time when going to watch top erotic movies meant having the choice of seeing a woman have sex with a guy, generally Michael Douglas, before attempting to destroy or damage their life or either.
Though it's difficult to fathom now, there was a time when going to watch top erotic moviesmeant having the choice of seeing a woman have sex with a guy, generally Michael Douglas, before attempting to destroy or damage their life or either.
Yes, sexual thrillers were sometimes "problematic" and nearly always overtly campy, but gosh, they could be fun.
And during their heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, they made a ton of money at the box office.
But then, somewhere around the year 2000, studios abruptly ceased producing them. How come?
Whatever the cause, it took a botched comeback to make us realize how much we still miss them.
The Patricia Highsmith novel Deep Water was adopted earlier this year by British filmmaker Adrian Lyne, who earned his reputation churning out popular sensual thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful.
However, rather than reviving the genre, it merely served to highlight how conservative movies have gotten over the past 20 years.
The movie has more close-ups of Ben Affleck's pet snails than real sex.
Fortunately, Hollywood produced more erotic thrillers than the majority of us could handle for a while, leaving us with a rich archive of spicy violence to relive.
Here are 35 of the finest sensual thrillers from the movies to get your heart racing.
The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci missed this list solely because of its fundamental topic, which is that personal desire is still repressed by political commitment, if not also by emotional and physical repression.
Two years later, however, the director chose one of the most well-known performers in the world to portray the opposite scenario of a man who has so overcome with sadness that his only escape is into sexual perversion.
How one views the performances and the movie as a whole will undoubtedly be influenced by the controversy surrounding the "butter" scene.
However, it remains a crucial work that elevated eroticism in the popular narrative is a filmmaker who frequently addressed sexuality as (alternatively) a façade and window into people's inner life.
Last Tango in Paris 1972 Trailer | Marlon Brando | Maria Schneider
Moneyed young women who traveled the world slept with beautiful, unidentified partners, and disregarded the taboos of so-called "decent" society were the focus of the 1970s erotica legacy created by Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle and the dozens of namesake copycats and imitators (shedding letters in her name like articles of clothing).
However, even if the confessional novel on which this flagship franchise is based was written by Emmanuelle Arsan's husband rather than her, Emmanuelle 2 (also known as The Joys of a Woman) gave the title character agency and empowerment, in contrast, to essentially every other installment, including the original movie.
Emmanuelle 2 (1975) MV 4K Up-scaling & HQ Sound -"L'amour D'aimer" - Francis Lai
In a travelogue for libertines and those fortunate or fearless enough to satisfy their fantasies, whether in a polo club, bathhouse, or during an acupuncture session, Francis Jacobetti, a photographer for the French erotica magazine Lui, effectively invented the sexy soft-lit look that became synonymous with nude imagery of the time.
In the film, he makes actress Sylvia Kristel look more beautiful than ever as she slips in and out of bed with men and women.
Even without the sex scenes, this film is worth seeing for the cinematography and the ethereal soundtrack by Pierre Bachelet.
Tony Scott made his directorial debut with this sexually charged tale of, well, the most attractive vampire couple in eternity (David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve) trying to facilitate their legacy, and longevity, in a time of science and affluence, just a year after Paul Schrader rebranded Jacques Tourneur's Cat People as a sexual parable for the post-disco era.
While John (Bowie) searches for treatment for his deteriorating condition, Scott cranks up the style to eleven as he shows Miriam (Deneuve) finding solace in the arms of scientist Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon).
The sexual chemistry between Deneuve and Sarandon is positively undeniable, leaving in its wake one of the greatest intriguing conundrums in film history:
if you were enslaved for eternity to one woman, which of the two would you choose?
I'm not entirely sure the film sticks its landing, but it's clear that producers chose something more open-ended, if nonsensical, to leave room for a possible sequel.
The Hunger Official Trailer #1 - Susan Sarandon Movie (1983) HD
Erotically charged storylines make up a large portion of Adrian Lyne's cinema; while they are not all as effective as one another, most of them are unique and profound in their ways.
(For instance, I believe that his version of Lolita is a better adaptation of Nabokov's work.)
While gender roleplaying games, having sex in public, and using food as an aphrodisiac were all considered novel at the time Lyne presented these actions with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, 9 ½ Weeks, his follow-up to Flashdance, appears almost mundane by modern standards.
What's especially noteworthy is how the film avoids treating the sexual chemistry between these characters and the relative health of their relationship as interchangeable.
In the end, it rejects the notion that their occasionally overlapping dysfunction is a sign of deeper love or emotional commitment but rather a transitory expression and amplification of desire that is rich and satisfying, even if only in the short term.
With Turkish Delight, Spetters, and The Fourth Man, Paul Verhoeven challenged sexual taboos in his native Netherlands before making his Hollywood debut with Robocop.
As Michael Douglas' homicide detective Nick Curran becomes involved in a sexual relationship with Sharon Stone's unrestrained novelist and murder suspect Catherine Tramell, Basic Instinct comes off as an act of provocation, pushing the boundaries of an audience's acceptance of melodrama and even camp (further pushed, to almost parodic effect, with Showgirls).
The way that Stone's Tramell unapologetically indulges her sexuality, objects to her male partner, and asserts control both in and out of the bedroom is what remains distinctive, alluring, and even empowering.
Critics were right to say that Joe Eszterhas's screenplay showed gay and bisexual characters as dangerous or mentally unstable over and over again.
A mute Scotswoman called Ada (Holly Hunter) is sold into marriage with a New Zealand frontiersman (Sam Neill), but she later falls in love with a forester named Baines (Harvey Keitel), who has been employed as a day laborer.
This amazing film was written and directed by Jane Campion.
When Baines trades with Ada, initially for her piano and eventually for sexual affection that develops into a deeper and more meaningful love, what starts as a tale of slavery for this lady becomes a path of emancipation.
Ada receives a frantic letter from Hunter that becomes more dignified as she starts to understand her independence and finally gains control over these two confused and terrified men.
Set in a time and place where gender roles were strictly enforced, Campion makes an erotic feminist masterpiece that is both seductive and deep.
Coming-of-age tales provide recognizable, even ageless, chances for various forms of personal exploration and serve as starting points for filmmakers to explore these topics in their works.
As deeply as the physical effects of a young teen's sexual discovery, Luca Guadagnino's adaptation of Andre Aciman's novel of the same name (written by James Ivory, who is exceptionally adept at capturing longing) conveys both the heat of Elio's (Timothee Chalamet) fling with Oliver (Armie Hammer) and the substance that binds them before and after.
In the movie, the sexual encounters between these two beautiful and different bodies are revealing, intense, and delicate all at the same time.
When their time together is over, viewers feel as overwhelmed, heartbroken, and grateful as Elio does.
Woman in White Long Sleeve Shirt Hugging Woman in White Long Sleeve Shirt
Before tackling the genuine sensual thriller The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook previously made Thirst, Stoker, and the incredibly screwed-up Oldboy elevate and focus the impulses he experimented with and complicated in those earlier movies.
In this rollercoaster of sexual infatuation, deception, and betrayal, Kim Min-hee falls prey to the advances of her maid, Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), and the two must avoid the dominating power of the man they believe is dictating their futures.
Similarly, Park-chan Wook deceives the audience by showing them scenes of attraction and completion between the women rhythms of dirty melodrama that he eventually reveals to be more important discoveries of actual affection rather than merely desire.
The Handmaiden, like the best romantic stories, shows both the passionate needs and energy that couples have and the ties that keep relationships alive and help them grow when they're not making love.
There are valid concerns about how much of this opus genuinely investigates a lesbian relationship from a female viewpoint and how much it indulges the masculine gaze with director Abdellatif Kechiche at the helm (as well as where to draw the line between nurturing authentic performances and treating the cast and crew poorly).
However, the film's legacy firmly honors Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulous' work as much or more than his after the Cannes Film Festival gave its top prizes not just to actor Kechiche but also to actresses Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulous.
Two young women fall into a relationship that transforms them both and guides them through significant life discoveries.
Since what happens between them is more than just physical attraction and involves the deep, evocative rhythms of love, with its ebbs and flows, and the quirks of two people getting to know each other and themselves, the intimate scenes have raw sexuality that can't be denied, but also a strong sense of closeness.
Weekend, a film written and produced by Andrew Haigh, shows not just the excitement of a brief fling but also the closeness that may grow between two people, even when they may not be actively looking for it.
When Russell and Glen start dating after meeting at a gay bar, their goals, convictions, and morals are put to the test by the intimacy they experience.
The two men fall into an erratic, exposing rhythm of physical and emotional engagement.
In the course of navigating one another and what they both know will be a brief period together, Haigh addresses a lot of challenging societal issues, as is to be anticipated from the future showrunner of Looking.
But the fact that the movie doesn't skimp on the sex or the meaning that comes from a connection that each person at first keeps at a distance only shows how deep and important a sexual encounter can be.
Though it's hard to imagine now, before 2000, choosing to see a film in a cinema meant having the option of witnessing a woman engage in sexual activity with a male.
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