Recommendations for films to improve your sex life?

March 27, 2007 6:37 AM

Neither my boyfriend nor I have a particularly high libido, and we make love once every few weeks or so. We've discovered, though, that we really enjoy watching good movies that are also....well....hot. And I do mean good films -- not porn -- that also are sexual. (Sex & Lucia, Shortbus, etc.) We enjoy watching a film, find it arousing, and then we have great sex! I'm curious what other films are out there that tell a good story....have strong character development....and are sexy. Any recommendations?
posted by anonymous to media & arts (73 comments total)

Sirens and Don Juan de Marco leap to mind.
posted by cerebus19 at 6:43 AM on March 27, 2007

Romance sounds like something you'd enjoy.
posted by Ostara at 6:49 AM on March 27, 2007

Y Tu Mama Tambien.
posted by ourobouros at 6:52 AM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

Secretary
posted by AwkwardPause at 6:56 AM on March 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

ditto secretary. fun movie
posted by cosmicbandito at 6:57 AM on March 27, 2007

I wonder what the subby's "etc" contains.

* Sex & Lucia
* Shortbus
posted by cmiller at 7:00 AM on March 27, 2007

Well, take my recommendations with a grain of salt as I thought both the films you recommended were terrible, but these are the films I find sexy and/or erotic:

- Girl on A Bridge
- The Hairdresser's Husband
- Mulholland Drive
- Y Tu Mama Tambien
- The Ring Finger
- 9 Songs (I haven't seen it but if you liked Shortbus this also has non-simulated sex as does Intimacy)
posted by dobbs at 7:01 AM on March 27, 2007

Lie With Me
posted by meerkatty at 7:07 AM on March 27, 2007

Henry & June.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 7:09 AM on March 27, 2007

I strongly support the suggestion of Y Tu Mama Tambien.
posted by liquorice at 7:13 AM on March 27, 2007

Dreamers, if for no other reason than Eva Green's perfect figure (which they even poke fun at with a Venus de Milo joke).
posted by geoff. at 7:18 AM on March 27, 2007

Original Sin.
posted by LouMac at 7:21 AM on March 27, 2007

I second The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci.
posted by wsg at 7:23 AM on March 27, 2007

Nine Songs, a film that contains some very hot (and explicit) sex scenes. It also contains really boring scenes of concerts, but you could fast forward those.
posted by kika at 7:24 AM on March 27, 2007

I will always have a soft spot for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, though it's equal parts sexy and horrific.
posted by steef at 7:24 AM on March 27, 2007

Nosferatu
posted by matteo at 7:27 AM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I really like Last Tango in Paris. And Betty Blue.

Two movies that I also enjoyed for their sex(iness), but have a high kink/artsy pretension factor (ie, YMMV) are Crash (the Ballard one from '96, not the Oscar winner) and Pola X (which is based on Melville's Pierre, ou Les Ambiguites).
posted by veronica sawyer at 7:27 AM on March 27, 2007

Some qualifications: I haven't seen it in a while so it may have grown in my imagination, plus it is mostly a comedy (so maybe good for a change up from the others people are recommending), but...I swear to POG that the sexiest scene I've ever witnessed is from The Tall Guy

Does that make me weird?
posted by Wink Ricketts at 7:34 AM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

In Age of Innocence and Remains of the Day people keep their clothes on, but the sexual longing is palpable. After seeing these movies, you'll want to make love just to have some sense of closure.

If you like older movies, here are some that sizzle:

Double Indemnity
Picnic
Singin' In The Rain's "Broadway Melody" number (Cyd Charrise!)
posted by grumblebee at 7:36 AM on March 27, 2007

The Piano. Crash. Amateur. The Unbelievable Truth. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Desert Hearts. Betty Blue. The Thomas Crown Affair.

There's a Spanish movie about where a guy ends up in a wheelchair, becomes some sort of wheelchair basketball star. Can't remember the title, but hopefully someone else will. Pretty hot, despite the lame description.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:37 AM on March 27, 2007

Cyd Charisse image from "Singin' in the Rain"
posted by grumblebee at 7:39 AM on March 27, 2007

Wink Ricketts, I don't think you're weired. I'm not a fan of "The Tall Guy," and if you asked me to picture Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson having sex, I'd probably decline. But that scene IS hot. To me, it's mostly because Emma is so smart and funny in bed.
posted by grumblebee at 7:41 AM on March 27, 2007

Wink Ricketts, I love that scene in The Tall Guy too. Sex and Lucia has a bunch of scenes with that same kind of sense of fun as well, which for me is a big part of why it's so hot. Most movies with explicit sex are about pretty joyless relationships.
posted by teleskiving at 7:45 AM on March 27, 2007

Didn't see anybody mention Unfaithful above. Diane Lane got an Oscar nomination for her role.
posted by COD at 7:48 AM on March 27, 2007

Even though it's fairly tame, I find Out of Sight to be surprisingly hott.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:08 AM on March 27, 2007

"Don't Look Now" is sexy as hell, but freaky
posted by Salvatorparadise at 8:23 AM on March 27, 2007

Savage Sisters.
posted by markovich at 8:25 AM on March 27, 2007

Body Heat.
posted by JanetLand at 8:31 AM on March 27, 2007

Unfaithful
posted by nataliecay at 8:32 AM on March 27, 2007

Belle Epoque
posted by tristeza at 8:37 AM on March 27, 2007

Seconding Out ot Sight. It's tame, but the trunk scene ...

/fans self.
posted by donpardo at 8:44 AM on March 27, 2007

Do any of these movies not involve someone dying? I often get the sense that the creators of these movies feel like they have to kill someone in order to be considered "not porn", and frankly, that's a bit of a downer.
posted by Caviar at 8:47 AM on March 27, 2007

There's a Spanish movie about where a guy ends up in a wheelchair[...]

Pedro Almoldovar's "Carne trémula" a.k.a. "Live Flesh"

Great movie.
posted by buxtonbluecat at 9:05 AM on March 27, 2007

L'Amant.

It took multiple viewings before I saw the entire film in one go...
posted by esilenna at 9:05 AM on March 27, 2007

O
Nine ¹/₂ weeks
posted by Mitheral at 9:06 AM on March 27, 2007

I got so hot and bothered thinking about it I forgot to write that it's the 1992 film (aka The Lover) based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras I mean, *not* the japanese one from 2004
posted by esilenna at 9:10 AM on March 27, 2007

High Heels
Silk Stockings
In Her Shoes
Peau du Foot
My Left Foot
Footloose
Happy Feet
posted by horsewithnoname at 9:30 AM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Out of Sight and Secretary get a hearty seconding/thirding from me.

History of Violence is not a sexy movie but has two very erotic and quite realistic sex scenes. Inspite of its coldness, I think Eyes Wide Shut is sexy.

Yeah, I'm weird.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:40 AM on March 27, 2007

Nerve's Screengrab blog recently listed its picks for the Kinkiest Films ever made (part 2's just above part 1).
posted by mediareport at 9:53 AM on March 27, 2007

The Pillow Book.
posted by juv3nal at 9:57 AM on March 27, 2007

Joining the people cheering for Secretary.
posted by ArchBr at 10:04 AM on March 27, 2007

Um, Betty Blue is sexy but may ultimately traumatize the viewer rather than encourage love-making. Maybe watch the first half?
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:05 AM on March 27, 2007

The Hunger. Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon have luscious lesbian vampire sex to the strains of the Flower Duet from Lakme. Hotcha!

For more hot girl-on-girl action, Bound had some good parts too.
posted by ottereroticist at 10:18 AM on March 27, 2007

Y'know...I'm in the camp that finds a bit of the right kink sexy...but Secretary just did not do it for me. I would not recommend it as a good sexy movie. I just found it excruciatingly boring and long, with very little payoff.

Perhaps it's that I'm just not into that sort of ascetic/self-denying/mind-games-playing kind of S&M...
posted by limeonaire at 10:25 AM on March 27, 2007

Count me in as someone firmly in the Secretary camp.

Haven't seen it mentioned, but there's some good hot sex in Nora (biopic on James Joyce and Nora Barnacle). For more nude Ewen McGregor (and who doesn't want more of that?!), there's also The Pillow Book.
posted by scody at 10:57 AM on March 27, 2007

My top three reco's here are Bound, Secretary and Dangerous Liaisons.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:02 AM on March 27, 2007

Henry and June is far and away my recommendation here.
posted by krark at 11:07 AM on March 27, 2007

La Fille Sur La Pont (The Girl on the Bridge). That movie always gets my juices flowing. Vanessa Paradis is gorgeous and the chemistry between the two main characters is out of this world. It's that chemistry that makes it truly hot as there really isn't too much hardcore sex going on. But who needs sex when you have erotic knife-throwing against the side of a shed in a train yard? I'm getting a little turned on just thinking of it.

I'm another one who adores Secretary. Although to be honest, even though it deals with kink, I found it more sweet and romantic than erotic.
posted by LeeJay at 11:50 AM on March 27, 2007

I'm not a fan of "The Tall Guy," and if you asked me to picture Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson having sex, I'd probably decline. But that scene IS hot.

Don't Look Now has a similarly unexpectedly sexy (though not funny) sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. The rest of the the movie, though, is decidedly not sexy.

Incidentally, my g/f met Jeff Goldblum and promptly declared him to be one of the sexiest men she'd ever met. Go figure.
posted by mkultra at 12:04 PM on March 27, 2007

Like Water for Chocolate can be either really hot or really depressing, depending on the viewer.
posted by lekvar at 12:46 PM on March 27, 2007

Incidentally, my g/f met Jeff Goldblum and promptly declared him to be one of the sexiest men she'd ever met. Go figure.

Just about every woman I know gets all hot over Goldblum. I've never understood it either.
posted by lekvar at 12:49 PM on March 27, 2007

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Seconding The Lover
Stealing Beauty
A History of Violence
TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE - That puppet sex scene was HOT - don't deny it... :P
posted by spec80 at 1:23 PM on March 27, 2007

Another: Tampopo.

The Goldblum factor: see jolie laide. For another example, Beatrice Dalle, of the aforementioned Betty Blue.
posted by ourobouros at 1:27 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

OMG Secretary, the piano scene from Pretty Woman, Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Secretary! Did I say that?
posted by santojulieta at 2:17 PM on March 27, 2007

Ooooh, see I love Jeff Goldblum. So much so in fact that this list also gets Earth Girls Are Easy.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:20 PM on March 27, 2007

Goddamn! I'm all het up to post Tampopo, and I get down to the bottom and there it is!
posted by klangklangston at 3:02 PM on March 27, 2007

To Have and Have Not. 19 year old Lauren Bacall plays a girl of easy virtue who runs out of money on her way back to America, in Martinque. Old salt fishing charter captain played by Humphrey Bogart, meets Bacall, gets enmeshed in WWII anti-Vichy smuggling intrigues, but decides to help Bacall. Her first movie. She does the famous "Got a match?" scene, which ends with her telling Bogart that if he wants her to come over, all he's got to do is whistle.

"Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love during production. Director Howard Hawks afterward said that it was actually Bacall's character Marie that Bogart had fallen for, "so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." However, it has also been said that Hawks - who was something of a womanizer, and who had a fling with Dolores Moran during the shooting of the film - was jealous and frustrated that Bacall had fallen for Bogart and not for Hawks himself."

There's sex in almost every frame of this movie. Except the ones with Walter Brennan in them. Bacall even sings a Hoagy Carmichael tune!

Major kink, but Blue Velvet has some hotness, built around Isabella Rossellini and Laura Dern.

Nobody put Boogie Nights in this thread yet, so here it is.
posted by paulsc at 3:24 PM on March 27, 2007

i remember really loving the big easy when it first came out ...
posted by sdn at 3:30 PM on March 27, 2007

the piano scene from Pretty Woman...

... is NOTHING compared to the piano scene from The Fabulous Baker Boys.
posted by frogan at 3:53 PM on March 27, 2007

my g/f met Jeff Goldblum and promptly declared him to be one of the sexiest men she'd ever met

Seconding the secretary, body heat and mkultra's girlfriend.

Maybe a bit too explicit but a great movie: Realm of the Senses

Malle's Damage.
posted by claudiadias at 4:02 PM on March 27, 2007

Note on the Pillow Book (without spoiling it)...most of the hot stuff is toward the beginning and middle, and the end is a bit of a downer, so don't feel bad if you get overwhelmed with lust and don't finish watching it.
posted by nekton at 4:56 PM on March 27, 2007

I second Tampopo.
But not Betty Blue - terrible depressing movie. If movies like THIS pass for erotica then watch The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea... great sex scenes. But do not watch the last 20 minutes. HINT: If the children in the story catch a cat... turn off the TV IMMEDIATELY if you actually wish to ever have sex again.

The problem is that "sexy" movies become dated very quickly. 9 1/2 Weeks and Last Tango in Paris are spoofs now.

So approach it from a tangent. Like...

If you watch The Little Mermaid with a twisted attitude it's waaay HAWT! Damn those animators.

I think I have reveled too much about myself.
posted by tkchrist at 5:46 PM on March 27, 2007

Kinda late to the thread, but nthing Bound. Sonia Braga is (whew!) hot in The Milagro Beanfield War, though I don't remember if there's actually any sex in the movie. And I don't care what anybody says, but the scene where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt beat each other up in Mr & Mrs Smith is smokin'.
posted by rtha at 6:17 PM on March 27, 2007

Caviar makes the point I came in to make: there's an epidemic of directors killing off characters (almost always the female characters) who have explicit sex in movies. Luckily, the success of Shortbus will probably help a lot with encouraging people to make sex movies that are actually sex-positive and don't involve death...
posted by allterrainbrain at 6:31 PM on March 27, 2007

Emanuelle. All the Emanuelle movies. Jamon Jamon. The Story of O. Quills. The Piano. Swimming Pool.

Seconding 9 1/2 Weeks, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Don Juan de Marco, Boogie Nights, Earth Girls Are Easy, Unfaithful and Like Water for Chocolate. Loved Tampopo, didn't think it was sexy though. Love, Actually is a bit sugary but I thought it was romantically sexy. Against All Odds. Flashdance. Exotica. 9 Songs.

Sex, Lies and Videotape, Crash, White Palace, all with delectable James Spader. Wild Orchid. La Femme Nikita. Shall We Dance? (the Japanese version). Kama Sutra.

Jungle Fever. The Bridges of Madison County is excellent and has some nice undercurrent of sizzle. Shakespeare in Love.

Stander has some nice sex scenes.

Before Sunset is erotic to me. Loved Before Dawn too...both are conversational, romantic-emotional-intellectual with sexual yearning.

Cool erotic movies at Amazon.
posted by nickyskye at 8:17 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

The Piano Teacher (French)
The Auditon (Korean I think? Or Japanese)
Videodrome
Secretary
Velvet Goldmine (although mainly gay sex)

But all these are pretty kinky. And the first three are just kinda fucked up. But ya know... whatever gets you off...
posted by greta simone at 9:17 PM on March 27, 2007

Dangerous Beauty
posted by TayBridge at 9:40 PM on March 27, 2007

Angels and Insects
Notorious
posted by brujita at 9:45 PM on March 27, 2007

Realm of the Senses is pretty good, as is Belle De Jour. this might also be helpful.
There's also the Satyricon, Prospero's Books, Calligula and 120 Days of Sodom, from most sexy to least (at least to me). Fellini's actually pretty good for sex scenes, at least to my mind, and those were all movies that couples seemed to like when I was working at the video store (though I actually know more about recommending actual porn than just sexy movies). Take a warning, though, 120 Days of Sodom can be pretty hard to stomach. It's a better movie than Calligula or Prospero's Books though.

Oh, there's also the Alice in Wonderland from 1976 or the Fritz the Cat movie, but now we're moving more into cult movies (did I mention Alice in Acidland?)
Or you could try any number of the '80s sex comedies.
And stay away from the Emmanuelle movies! They're almost universally terrible!
posted by klangklangston at 9:46 PM on March 27, 2007

Basic Instinct is a classic for me :)
posted by Flamingoroad at 6:10 AM on March 28, 2007

Nobody put Boogie Nights in this thread yet, so here it is.

I love Boogie Nights. There's a lot of sex in Boogie Nights. There's a lot of dialogue in Boogie Nights that uses the word "sexy". Boogie Nights, however, is not what I'd call a sexy movie.
posted by mkultra at 8:41 AM on March 28, 2007

The Draughtman's Contract (may be a bit of an acquired taste, since it's directed by Peter Greenaway).
8 femmes (Catherine Deneuve and - Annie Girardot, if memory serves - not quite doing the dirty. This is a movie by Francois Ozon, and might be a bit of an acquired taste as well).
posted by rjs at 9:46 AM on March 28, 2007

nickyskye's summary above is right on, IMO.

Surprised no one has mentioned When Night is Falling - lush, beautiful, romantic lesbian movie.
posted by widdershins at 12:40 PM on March 28, 2007