William Friedkin’s 1980 crime thriller, in which undercover cop Al Pacino infiltrates New York’s underground S&M scene to uncover a serial killer and - being Al Pacino - goes in too far, generated a lot of controversy. The film wasn’t exactly a smash, but the scene, though explicit, is both creepy and touching - a fantasy of a sad, final encounter that haunts the tormented, silent protagonist. Some say Gallo was using a prosthetic Gallo (of course) claims he was not. Hey, remember The Brown Bunny? Back when it was released, Vincent Gallo’s arthouse provocation was known for two things: Being blasted at Cannes by critics (particularly by the late Roger Ebert, who would later praise Gallo’s final, shorter cut) and for its allegedly unsimulated, lengthy scene of fellatio by Chloë Sevigny. (That didn’t keep star Negoda from posing in Playboy, of course.) It’s a drab little melodrama of two star-crossed young lovers whose families do not approve of their relationship, but the scenes of intimacy between star Natalya Negoda and Andrei Sokolov are earthy and lived-in - a far cry from the slick sex scenes of Hollywood. This 1988 film, released at the height of perestroika, made waves in both the USSR and the West for being (reportedly) the first Soviet film to feature a naked sex scene. Indeed, by focusing largely on the characters’ faces (and by showing Lamarr’s character achieving orgasm - probably another first for cinema), director Gustav Machaty conveys the thrill of intimacy. That’s not to say it’s not erotic, however. But interestingly, although the film itself contains copious nudity (including a famous, extended scene of Lamarr skinny-dipping) the sex scene itself is largely demure. This may have been the first documented sex scene in cinema. In this 1933 Czech film, the great Hedy Lamarr plays a young, frustrated bride who flees her marriage to a wealthy, impotent older man and finds love and lust in the arms of a virile engineer. Here are the 30 Most Important Sex Scenes in Movie History. And some are just unforgettable scenes that informed what came after them.
Some came to represent nefarious, exploitative trends. Some are flash points that wound up changing our culture in interesting ways. Some of the scenes on this list are seminal moments in film history (for better and for worse). But sex scenes have also been important - whether in the development of the cinematic idiom, or sparking controversy, or just plain helping break new ground in depicting intimacy. These days, they tend to be relatively rare. In the 1980s, they were commodified in startling ways. In the 1960s and ‘70s, they were often used for shock value and to shake viewer complacency. They’ve gone through periods of near-ubiquity, as well as scarcity. Sex scenes have a rich, varied tradition in the cinema. Welcome to Sexpositions, a weeklong Vulture celebration of sex scenes in movies and on TV.