History of Sex in Cinema: The Greatest and Most Influential Sexual Films and Scenes

settima

settima @settima

304 movies  

https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms1.html

---------<a href="https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms1.html">pg1</a> Eadweard Muybridge's Primitive Motion Studies (from 1884-1887) - The Human Figure in Motion - Descending Stairs and Turning Around

TBA A L'Ecu d'Or ou la Bonne Auberge (1908, Fr.) Mack Sennett's "Bathing Beauties"

---------<a href="https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms2.html">pg2</a> Early Stag Films (1920s)

Young aspiring starlets or contest winners, who felt that Hollywood would be a perfect place for them to be discovered, journeyed there - often ending up stranded and needing assistance to return home, and finding their dreams shattered.

Some desperate girls became either high-class whores or resorted to appearing in various stag films to avoid going hungry.

Early French Adult Films (1920's)

The earliest known adult films first began to appear in France in the early part of the century, and then began to flourish in the 1920's. They were known as "risqué" or 'stag' films.

They were sold on the black market and viewed mostly in private settings.

Lesbianism and heterosexual intercourse were the most common subjects (male homosexuality was very rare).

---------<a href="https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms4.html">pg4</a> Balinese Love (1931) Goona Goona (1932) (aka Kriss) Isle of Paradise (1932) Virgins of Bali (Land of Love and Romance) (1932) Wajan (1933) Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935)

--------- <a href="https://www.filmsite.org/sexinfilms13.html">pg13</a> <a href="http://letterboxd.com/imdb/tt0141669/">Nudist Paradise</a> (1959) ADDITIONAL POSTER

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Carmencita (1894) [Movie] IMDb WikiData TMDB
Carmencita
director: William K.L. Dickson / William Heise actor: Carmencita
1894 film by William Kennedy Dickson
settima: Spanish dancer Carmencita was the first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera, and quite possibly the first female to appear in a US motion picture. The short film (about 21 seconds long) was directed and produced by Edison's employee William K.L. Dickson. She was filmed March 10-16, 1894 in Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange, NJ.

In some cases, the projection of the scandalous film on a Kinetoscope was forbidden, because it revealed Carmencita's legs and undergarments as she twirled and danced. This was one of the earliest cases of censorship in the moving picture industry.
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Bedtime for the Bride (1896) [Movie] TMDB WikiData IMDb
Le Coucher de la Mariée
director: Albert Kirchner actor: Louise Willy
other title: Le Coucher de la Mariée / Le Coucher de la mariée
A newlywed couple in front of their wedding-bed after their wedding. The woman undresses in front of her husband. A French erotic short film considered to be one of the first erotic films made.
settima: "Blue movie" pornographer Eugene Pirou reportedly pioneered the risque film with the premiere of this film in Paris. He was responsible for producing this film (and other similar "smoking concert" or stag party films). The short film (only 2 minutes of which survives today of the original 7 minutes) was directed by Léar (real name Albert Kirchner).

In this one, cabaret performer Louise Willy recreated a striptease from her cabaret act - the first striptease onscreen, although she was undressing behind a screen shielding her from the eyes of a gentleman (who was waiting and pretending to read a newspaper). In the surviving portion of the film, she was only down to her petticoat when the excerpt ended.
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Fatima, danse du ventre (1896) [Movie] IMDb WikiData TMDB
Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance
director: James H. White / William Heise actor: Fatima
other title: Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance
1896 film by James H. White
settima: This short nickelodeon kinetoscope/film of a gyrating belly dancer named Fatima (well-known for her dancing shows at the Columbia World's Exhibition in 1893) became one of the earliest films in which a scene was censored - for her gyrating and moving pelvis.

It was covered up by what appeared to be a white picket fence (a grid-like pattern of white lines - see second image). At the time, there were numerous risqué films that featured exotic dancers.
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The Kiss (1896) [Movie] Douban TMDB WikiData IMDb
The Kiss
director: William Heise actor: May Irwin / John C. Rice
other title: O Beijo / Le Baiser …
1896 film directed by William Heise
1890s 1896 爱情 短片 美国
settima: The very first kiss on film was between a Victorian couple seen in this Edison kinetoscope in a filmed scene enacted from the Broadway stage play The Widow Jones. It was titillating short 20-second film loop, with a close-up of a nuzzling couple followed by a short peck on the lips ("the mysteries of the kiss revealed").

The kissing scene was denounced as shocking and pornographic to early moviegoers and caused the Roman Catholic Church to call for censorship and moral reform - because kissing in public at the time could lead to prosecution.
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After the Ball (1897) [Movie] Douban TMDB IMDb WikiData
Après le bal
director: Georges Méliès actor: Jane Brady / Jeanne d'Alcy
other title: Après le bal / 舞会之后 …
A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.
settima: Pioneering film-maker Georges Méliès directed this short, B/W silent film, which contained one of the earliest nude scenes in film history.

In the scene, a fully-dressed person was helped to undress by a maid for a bath.
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Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894) [Movie] Douban IMDb TMDB
Annabelle Butterfly Dance
director: William K.L. Dickson actor: Annabelle Moore
other title: Annabelle No. 1 / 安娜贝拉的蝴蝶舞
美国无声短片《安娜贝拉的蝴蝶舞》（英语：Annabelle Butterfly Dance），由威廉·迪克森（William K.L. Dickson）于1894年拍摄，由爱迪生制造公司（Edison Manufacturing Company）出品。 舞者是安娜贝拉·摩尔（Annabelle Moore）。
settima: Many of the earliest nickelodeon films featured the dancing of vaudeville performer Annabelle Whitford (known as Peerless Annabelle), whose routines were filmed at Edison's studio in NJ:

Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894)
Annabelle Sun Dance (1894)
Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)
Serpentine Dance by Annabelle (1896)
Annabelle in Flag Dance (1896)
Skirt Dance by Annabelle (1896)
Tambourine Dance by Annabelle (1896)
Sun Dance - Annabelle (1897)
Male audiences were enthralled watching these early depictions of a clothed female dancer (sometimes color-tinted) on a Kinetoscope (an early peep-show device for projecting short films).
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Birth of the Pearl (1901) [Movie] TMDB WikiData IMDb
Birth of the Pearl
director: Frederick S. Armitage
In this picture there is a limited amount of action in the pose. As the curtains are drawn aside the shell appears shut. It gradually opens, disclosing the model curled up in a recumbent position. She slowly arises as if awakening, and gracefully assumes the final position of the pose.
1900s short silent usa
settima: Proprietors of the arcade parlors and nickelodeons with hand-cranked kinetoscopes, designed to provide cheap entertainment for poor, lower-class immigrants in the cities, realized that sex (or erotica) sold.

One example was this short provocative American Mutoscope & Biograph film about the 'birth of a pearl' in an art tableau. When the curtains were drawn to the side by two clothed chorus girls, a large oyster or clam shell was revealed in front of a painted backdrop of the ocean.

As the shell opened, a sleeping or slumbering long-haired young model (wearing a flesh-colored body stocking) was curled up, but then slowly awakened from slumber and stood up.
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From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen (1903) [Movie] Douban IMDb TMDB
From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen
other title: 从歌女到艳舞女王
A kind of burlesque show, with a woman making a striptease, interrupted by a man entering the room. Tableaux. 1903.
settima: This titillating short film (one-minute in length) from American Mutoscope & Biograph was designed to stimulate its audience.

It presented a view of a woman in her dressing room mischievously undressing and smiling at the camera - but after removing clothing and standing in a long white undergarment (and slipping the strap of her garment off one shoulder), she ducked behind a screen to her right.

There, she continued to undress and furtively reach for other clothes. She then appeared costumed in another outfit.
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Peeping Tom in the Dressing Room (1905) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
Peeping Tom in the Dressing Room
A young man leers through a peephole in the wall separating two dressing rooms, but he is caught, and is humiliated by his victims, two pretty ladies.
settima: This voyeuristic short was sexually enticing to early male audiences.

After being caught 'peeping' through a keyhole while spying on a buxom female as she dressed, the humiliated man was brought into the dressing room, where chorus girls beat him with powder puffs.

A similar earlier title was Biograph's Peeping Tom (1897).
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Traffic in Souls (1913) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Traffic in Souls
director: George Loane Tucker actor: Jane Gail / Ethel Grandin …
other title: Seelenhändler / Tráfico de almas
A woman, with the aid of her police officer sweetheart, endeavors to uncover the prostitution ring that has kidnapped her sister, and the philanthropist who secretly runs it.
settima: Carl Laemmle's newly-formed Independent Motion Picture Company's (IMP) first feature-length film release was the six-reel melodrama (and faux documentary) Traffic in Souls (1913) (aka While New York Sleeps).

It was the first American feature-length sex film. This was one of the first films to understand that 'sex sells,' although its producers worried that a 'feature-length' film on any subject wouldn't be successful.

It was a "photo-drama" expose of white slavery (entrapment of young women into prostitution) at the turn of the century in NYC, although the film exploitatively promised steamy sex in its advertisements.

It was the most expensive feature film of its time at $57,000, although its record earnings were $450,000.
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Damaged Goods (1914) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Damaged Goods
director: Tom Ricketts actor: Richard Bennett / Adrienne Morrison …
"Damaged Goods" pictures the terrible consequences of vice and the physical ruin that follows the abuse of moral law. It is a stirring plea for a pure life before marriage, in order to make impossible the transmission of hereditary traits to future generations.
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Damaged Goods (1919) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Damaged Goods
director: Alexander Butler actor: Campbell Gullan / J. Fisher White …
other title: Damaged Goods (film fra 1919)
A quack doctor 'cures' a victim of venereal disease, whose baby is later born infected.
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The Birth of a Nation (1915) [Movie] Douban IMDb TMDB NeoDB WikiData
The Birth of a Nation
director: D.W. Griffith actor: Lillian Gish / Mae Marsh …
other title: Nascita di una nazione / En nations fødsel …
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
settima: D.W. Griffith's Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation (1915) was controversial for many reasons, one of which was its racist and "vicious" portrayal of blacks and its proclamation of miscegenation (racial mixing), according to the NAACP. For that reason, it was the subject of bans for inciting "race hatred and race riots."

In one long suspenseful scene, an emancipated former house servant/slave - an inflamed, lusty Negro "renegade" named Gus (Walter Long), chased after young Flora Cameron (Mae Marsh). Although he reassured her: "Wait, missie, I won't hurt yeh," she fell from a cliff after repeatedly threatening him -- "Stay away or I'll jump."

The scene has often been misinterpreted as a rape scene, although it wasn't. However, it could be interpreted that her threatened state symbolized the emasculation and 'rape' of whites in the South by a rampant black population suddenly emancipated - and destructive of the racial order.

In another controversial scene, lecherous mulatto leader Silas Lynch (George Siegmann, a white actor dressed as black and acting monstrously) attacked Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish), representing innocence, purity and virtue. He attempted to force marriage upon her.
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The Cheat (1915) [Movie] Douban NeoDB WikiData TMDB IMDb
The Cheat
director: Cecil B. DeMille actor: Fannie Ward / Sessue Hayakawa …
other title: I prevaricatori / Forfaiture …
A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.
settima: Director Cecil B. DeMille's sensational melodrama combined elements of sexuality with sadomasochism, luring large audiences to theatres to watch it. It was an early example of DeMille's predilection for sensationalism and boldness in pushing the censors to the limit.

The masterfully-filmed story was about an indebted married, spendthrift woman named Edith Hardy (Fannie Ward in her debut film) who turned to a benefactor, a wealthy Japanese/Burmese ivory merchant/dealer named Hishuru Tori/Haka Arakau (Sessue Hayakawa). [The film was accused or racial prejudice against the Japanese, causing Paramount Pictures to change the name and nationality of the character.] When she was wanting to repay a loan of $10,000, he demanded her as repayment.

When she refused (in a 'rape' scene), the sexually-predatory, sadistic Asian man grabbed her by the hair, and branded her with a red-hot iron on her bare left shoulder, making her his property or possession.
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A Fool There Was (1915) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
A Fool There Was
director: Frank Powell actor: Theda Bara / Edward José …
other title: La vampira / Embrasse-moi, idiot …
John Schuyler, a happily married lawyer, is appointed diplomat and sent to England. Due to an unfortunate accident, his wife and child can not come along with him. On the ship to England, Schuyler meets the notorious Vampire - a relentless gold digger who causes the moral degradation of those she seduces, first fascinating and then draining the very life from her victims.
settima: The full-bosomed Theda Bara became an overnight sensation after her appearance in this melodrama. She was dubbed the "Vamp," and became the screen's first femme fatale (the first dangerous female in the movies) and first movie sex goddess or sex symbol.

The sexy actress was first introduced as an evil temptress in this film with her character name: Vampire. She was portrayed as a predatory vamp (luring men to ruin and destruction). The vamp was a reflection of the society's anxious fear and attraction to the newly-emancipated woman of the early 1900s.

As a homewrecker, she destroyed the marriage of wealthy lawyer and statesman John Schuyler, a successful Presidential special envoy to Britain. She delivered her most famous lines to him, shown in two title cards, as she draped her arms over him:

"You have ruined me, you devil, and now you discard me!"
" Kiss me, my Fool!"

Bara was a Hollywood creation who mixed ruthlessness and dark erotic sexiness into her numerous roles - she would often appear in risque transparent costumes, in her over 40 films created from 1914 to 1919.

The Vamp character was repeated in Bara's melodramatic The Devil's Daughter (1915) in the role of La Gioconda, and also in the lost film The Vixen (1916) (aka The Love Pirate) (see below) as the nymphomaniacal boyfriend-stealing Elsie Drummond. However, the "vamp" didn't last too long at this time, because it soon became too recognizable a caricature.
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A Free Ride (1915) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
A Free Ride
director: A. Wise Guy
Reportedly the earliest extant American pornographic film, A Free Ride depicts a motorist who picks up two women from the roadside and later engages in several sex acts with them.
settima: A Free Ride was reportedly the earliest-known US silent stag ('men only') or pornographic film. Because these kinds of films (with increasingly explicit amounts of nudity and sexuality) were completely illegal, they were shown in all-male locations, clubs, etc., not in mainstream theatres.

Its comic titles foretold its plot:

Directed by A. Wise Guy, Photographed by Will B. Hard, and Titles by Will She.

It included explicit sex scenes of a wealthy man having sex with two female hitchhikers by the side of the road.
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Hypocrites (1915) [Movie] WikiData TMDB IMDb
Hypocrites
director: Lois Weber actor: Myrtle Stedman / Courtenay Foote …
other title: Den nøgne Sandhed (film fra 1915)
The story of St. Gabriel, who was killed by an ignorant mob for making a nude statue representing Purity, who is also represented by a ghostly naked girl that flits through the film.
settima: Hypocrites was a Paramount 4-reel silent film from female director Lois Weber - the most important and prolific of all American women directors of the silent era.

It was considered a shocking and controversial film that was held up for many months because of its full nudity.

Nudity was portrayed in the ghostly figure of the Naked Truth, literally shown by a nude woman (Margaret Edwards) who revealed hypocritical desires for money, sex, and power.
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Sublime Beauté (1915) [Movie] WikiData TMDB IMDb
Sublime Beauté
director: George Foster Platt actor: Audrey Munson / Thomas A. Curran …
other title: Inspiration / The Perfect Model …
Audrey Munson (a real-life 'perfect' model for numerous Beaux-Arts sculptors) first appeared artistically nude as a sculptor's model, recreating classic artistic (nude) paintings in George Foster Platt's controversial film from the Mutual Film Corporation. In fact, the film told the story of her own life. This film has generally been regarded as the first non-pornographic American film to feature nudity. This was the first known film in which a leading actress stripped down to be naked, making her the first nude film star. (filmsite.org)
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Behind the Screen (1916) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Behind the Screen
director: Charlie Chaplin actor: Charlie Chaplin / Eric Campbell …
other title: Charlot macchinista / Chaplin i filmatelieret …
During the troubled shooting of several movies, David, the prop man's assistant, meets an aspiring actress who tries to find work in the studio. Things get messy when the stagehands decide to go on strike.
1910s comedy short silent slapstick
settima: In this two-reeler for Mutual, Charlie Chaplin portrayed a hired worker named David at a film studio.

In the film's infamous 'gay' scene, he kissed a young girl (Edna Purviance) who was dressed in masculine clothing (as a masquerading way to find work), thereby upsetting his brutish and burly foreman Goliath (Eric Campbell). The boss believed they were homosexual and teased them mercilessly by acting 'prissy' to mock them.
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A Daughter of the Gods (1916) [Movie] IMDb WikiData TMDB
A Daughter of the Gods
director: Herbert Brenon actor: Annette Kellerman / William E. Shay …
other title: La Fille des dieux / Gudernes Datter …
A sultan agrees to help an evil witch destroy a mysterious beauty if the witch will bring his young son back to life. A lost film.
settima: This controversial film (filmed in Jamaica) starred Australian-born swimming and diving champ Annette Kellermann (the "Esther Williams of the silent era"). It was Kellermann's second feature film, and also the most expensive film of its decade at $1 million.

Earlier Kellermann films included Siren of the Sea (1911), The Mermaid (1911), and her first feature film, the underwater fantasy Neptune's Daughter (1914). [The biopic Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), with aquatic star Esther Williams, was based upon Kellermann's life.] She was called "the world's most perfectly-formed woman" and "The Australian Mermaid," and billed as "the Diving Venus."

In 1910, she had already gained attention for advocating the scandalous-at-the-time one-piece bathing suit, for which she was arrested in Boston Harbor.

She caused a great stir when publicity posters displayed her naked, with her long flowing hair covering her breasts and pubic region. She was one of the first major female stars to appear nude on screen.
Created date: March 3, 2026