The recent release of Claire Denis' Vendredi Soir, a languorous film about a one night stand, has provoked some questioning about what makes a great movie sex scene. Is it fantasy or realism? Anticipation or the act? The Guardian looked at two lists of "hottest movie scenes" from Premiere and Playboy.
Among the ones Gothamist agreed with, Don't Look Now, Body Heat, and Mulholland Drive. However, we also love Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, where Antonio plays a crazy fan of Victoria's porn star and ends up kidnapping her. (Antonio is pretty hot as a crazy gay lover in The Law of Desire.) And for all the sex they don't have, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung still manage to smolder more passionately than most film love scenes in In The Mood For Love.
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You are SO right about In the Mood for Love - what an affair - and no sex. And her fashion! Could you imagine asking a Hollywood exec to greenlight that film?
One of my favorites is the scene between Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in The Year of Living Dangerously, ah the rains...
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Judge Rhinehold and Phoebe Cates: the pool/bathroom scene. More real than real and hotter than hot.
There was something so ravishing about the build up in Mulholland Drive that made the sex scene completely drive me crazy. It's so erotic to watch their initial shyness in bed transforming to passion . . .
Don't Look Now was great, too -- it's funny, but it can be such a turn on to watch somebody get _dressed_ sometimes.
My vote for most overrated recent sex scene is Y tu Mama Tambien. I really enjoyed it on the whole but that final sex scene seemed sort of ordinary movie stuff as compared to the rest of the movie.
what about that really hot sex scene in the lizzie macguire movie? i was amazed they slipped that by the censors- i mean, when she brought out the strap-on and took that kid from behind, i was absolutely astounded.
I'm with you, j., Yu Tu Mama was way overrated. A protagonist can only tag-team two teens if she dies of cancer at the end?
I'm one for the sex scenes in Happy Together since they're so frustration-filled. Watching Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung drift apart -- even when they're thrashing between the sheets, is quite affecting.
"Turns out that lonely people are all the same."
Wait, jake, that must have been when I got up to get the popcorn! Damn it! No wonder when I came back in everyone in the theatre was bleeding from the eyes.
I think the whole attitude of y tu mama is sexy - that might be why the sex scnese are disappointing. Everything that Alfonso Cuaron films is charged with eroticism. The Little Princess is scarily lush.
When Natalie Portman smooches with Hayden Christensen in that orange-ish, "high-definition" Italiano portico in Ep. II.
or
In LOTR Two, when Liv Tyler and Viggo lounge around together in her dewy little Elf bed.
but then
Maybe when Hulk and Betty stare into each other's eyes -- her from the passenger seat of the red Ford SUV -- after the big CG dog fight outside her Ralph Lauren cabin.
Ewan McG just-off-heroin post-club-scene in-the-teenager's-house in Trainspotting.
I'm rather partial to the scene in Election where Matthew Broderick is rogering the missus and starts imagining he's boinking Reese Witherspoon's character instead. "Fill me up. That's it. Fill me up, Mr. M. Fuck me. Good job."
Star Wars episode II?!?! I thought this list was best of, not worst! Lucas should stay far, far away from sex and love - he just spouts a torrent of cliches.
Sorry Adrian, sometimes I just get carried away with my love for Lucas and for product placement in movies that feature "new technology."
What about in Andre Technie's "Wild Reeds" when Elodie, Gael and Stephane go for a swim in the river... or Charlotte Rampling, her former Nazi captor and that broken jar of jam in "The Night Porter."
Speaking of most overrated sex scene, what about Halle Berry and Billy Bob in Monsters Ball?
Bleh.
Besides Vendredi Soir, which I thought was quite hot, my most recent favorite was in Laurel Canyon. Not the scene where Kate Beckinsale and Frances McDormand "almost," but the one in which Christian Bale and Natascha McElhone discuss what they might do to each other if only they weren't so up tight. Their total fussy awkwardness is really great.
And for the record, Maggie and Tony did shoot a scene getting it on for In the Mood For Love which Wong "Who Needs to Explain Plot?" Kar-Wai excised from the final cut. Maggie has mentioned she was very disappointed it didn't end up in the theatrical version, which means it must have been smoking. *Sigh*
"Rogering the missus" - that makes the scene sound really cute, Jason, not disturbing and funny.
Another thought: Not exactly a sex scene, but Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kissing and talking in Notorious is sexy.
Since someone mentioned Episode II, I thought I'd throw in the worst sex scene in recent film history.
Neo and Trinity: Matrix Reloaded. I guess it wouldn't be so bad without the rave mixed in or if those two had any real chemistry.
Hawthorne - you read our mind - we're working on a WORST sex scene post for tomorrow!
Yeah, Neo and Trinity really did stink.
Hawthorne: Worst sex scene in a film that people actually saw, maybe. The worst sex scene, hands down, in a recent film was in Rollerball (locker room) between Chris Klein and who I believe was Rebecca My-Career-might-be-serious-without-this-last-name Stamos. You can tell that the scene was shot for an R rating but then her entire nude torso was "digitally shadow-ed out" in a really obvious way to obtain a PG-13. Everyone really should see the film simply because it is an exercise in how filmmaking can go horribly, horribly wrong. There is a 15 minute action sequence in the middle that is entirely filmed in green-glow night-vision for no apparrant reason.
I really dug it in "28 Days Later," when Selena finally has an epiphany -- in the form of a hopeful thought. Jim tells her she's stealing his thought, but then he smiles, real cute-like, and tells her she can keep it.
Abe- I couldn't get past the opening credits for Rollerball so I'll take your word for it on that scene.
It does look like the Guardian did their own worst sex scenes and beat me to the punch on the Reloaded scene, but I'm sure the Gothamist can come up with a smarter list.
Yeah, I was going to use that Guardian piece as a jumping off point. We'll see if we can come up with a better list. The Specialist, in my personal book, ranks number 1 as worst sex scene ever. It's so disgusting.
michael douglas sex-scenes ("disclosure" or "basic instinct") give me the heebie jeebies. and not in a good way.
good ones: brad pitt & geena davis in "thelma and louise," liv tyler and the cute italian boy in "stealing beauty," anything from "the lover"
Worst sex scene? Well -- it's not one, strictly speaking . . . but the beginning of "Best in Show" when Parker Posey and whoever played her husband are at the shrink's office and talking about having sex in front of the dog . . . Ack -- that's like a week-long cold shower.
Of course, at least in that case, the movie is trying to give you a major case of the willies.
George and Mary leaning into the phone together in "It's a Wonderful Life" ("It's the chance of a lifetime...") is the hottest moment on film ever.
The spanking in the movie Secertary was a major tease and turn on.
Best sex scene was in "Lone Star" between Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena--it was just so believable.
I need some help with the movie title for this one. Geoff Goldblum and his leading lady make mad passionate love in the kitchen involving lots of squashed fruit and veg. Anyone got any ideas?
The Geoff Goldblum one was in The Tall Guy and was with a young Emma Thomson. That one was quite funny:)
Has anone seen a film called 'The Hour of the Pig' ( also called 'The Advocate')with Colin Firth?
In that he is a medieval French advocate/Laywer who has to defend a pig acused of witchcraft believe it or not. Anyway- he is asleep and in a dream sequence when the maid wakes him up. She looks down and says having a nice dream then? and he is all embarassed so she says it's all right she has brotheres and walks off while he pulls the sheets up a bit better. she then goes out of site and crawls onto the bed naked almost before he knows it and away they go.
It really is one of the best. The trainspotting one mentioned before, I agree is also great.
all of it except ones with fat chicks
The scenes between Viggo Mortensen and Diane Lane in A Walk On the Moon were hot.
Jada Pinkett and Allen Payne in Jason's Lyric. One of the classic all-time best sex scenes.
rachel weisz and jude law in 'enemy at the gates'
as for funny, lumbergh and jennifer aniston's character in 'office space'
Madeleine Stowe & Daniel Day-Lewis in Last Of the Mohicans. No skin, but a lot of steam.
Angelina Jolie & Ethan Hawke in Taking Lives. Angelina was HOT!!!
Demi and Woody were really hot in the kitchen love scene in Indecent Proposal.
sexy