The Best Sex Scenes Of 2017

5. “Big Little Lies” – Renata & Jeffrey
The dysfunctionality of apparently idyllic heterosexual relationships is a recurrent theme in miniseries megahit “Big Little Lies.” It’s a show in which the major revelation is the nature of the violently abusive marriage that ties ostensibly perfect couple Celeste (Nicole Kidman) and Perry (Alexander Skarsgard) together, and there are certainly some distressing scenes between the two of them that illustrate their fucked-up dynamic of attraction, abasement and abuse. But perhaps the show’s best sex scene is, for once, its least complicated as driven career woman Renata (Laura Dern) finally makes time to have sex in her office with her husband Gordon (Jeffrey Nordling) and is rewarded with the kind of noisy, rambunctious, orgasmic encounter that middle-aged women are seldom seen to enjoy.

4. “God’s Own Country” – Johnny & Gheorghe
In direct, refreshing contrast to the way sex scenes often bring a film’s momentum screeching to a halt, Francis Lee‘s gorgeous gay love story uses them to further the plot and the character development, and this is nowhere better exemplified than by the contrast between the first two encounters between the protagonists Johnny (Josh O’Connor) and Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu). We’ve already seen Johnny in a casual encounter elsewhere, but here the first time these two have sex it’s muddy, animalistic, gruff and antagonistic. The second time, a short while later, it is the tenderness that takes Johnny, and us, by surprise: the truth these contrasting scenes contain is that the breaking down of defenses can be a brutal process, but it’s only when you let yourself be vulnerable that sex becomes lovemaking, and so much more passionate and fulfilling for it.

3. “American Gods” – Bilquis & Man, Salim & the Djinn
A veritable cornucopia of strikingly shot, deeply weird sex scenes — usually between an unsuspecting human and a god who has taken human form, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green‘s adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s book is both wildly blasphemous and somehow so profoundly odd it manages not to be blasphemous at all. Take the Episode 3 scene below which is transgressive because it seems to be a gay sex scene between two ostensibly Muslim men, before one of them turns into a fire-god-demon thingie with flames bursting from his eyes. Or, perhaps even more subversively, the gauntlet thrown down in the very first episode in which Goddess of Love Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) lures a hapless man to his blissed-out doom, seducing him, getting him to whisper words of worship that seem to renew her, and then enlarging around him and devouring him whole into her vagina.

2. “The Shape of Water” – Eliza & Amphibian Man
One of the most delightful aspects of Guillermo del Toro‘s utterful delightful fantasy is how, despite its notes of fairytale and magical whimsy, it is so very unabashed about sex. From Eliza’s (Sally Hawkins) morning masturbation ritual to Zelda (Octavia Spencer) asking the most natural question in the world (“How?“) there is a refreshingly frank acknowledgement of sexuality — how we think about it as well as how we do it — throughout the film. The apex, though, is this sex scene which is not just transgressive because it is interspecies. It’s also remarkable for they way it is both initiated by the woman (Eliza turning on all the taps and then joining her fishman lover in the flooded bathroom) and concludes with her — that unmistakable expression of unapologetic carnal satisfaction in her eyes when they’re discovered in their post-coital embrace.

1. “Call Me By Your Name” – Elio & the peach
Between the now famous peach scene here and Tiffany Haddish‘s expert “grapefruiting” demonstration in “Girls Trip,” 2017 was a dangerous time to be a fruit. One moment, there you are, nestling idly on a hotel platter or dropping in juicy abundance from a sun-dappled Italian tree, the next minute you’re being unceremoniously hollowed out for use in a movie character’s bid for sexual exploration. “Call Me By Your Name” has justly come in for criticism over its portrayal of the sex act — for a film that is fast becoming a landmark in LGBT cinema to only show its heterosexual sex scenes in any kind of detail is at the very least disappointingly timid. But this scene is so fearlessly performed by Timothée Chalamet, that it almost compensates: romance and sidelong glances and dips in the fountain and long walks and back rubs notwithstanding, at some point a love affair this passionate must become about actual sex — the taste and feel and scent of it. And though Guadagnino makes the choice not to show Elio and Oliver having sex directly, this sequence, in moving from the pulpy, sticky details of the actual act of fruit defilement to Elio’s horror at its discovery, to Oliver teasing him, to the touchingly humorous new understanding they arrive at as a result, is so frank and charming that it suggests intimacy better than any shot of naked writhing flesh could. Which is not to say we don’t miss the naked writhing flesh bit as well. 

Honorable Mentions:
Chief among the sex scenes that aren’t actually sex scenes are two standout moments from the year’s sci-fi franchise entries, namely Adam Driver‘s naked from the waist-up shot in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and the borderline X-rated recorder-playing sequence from “Alien: Covenant” in which android Michael Fassbender “blows into the hole” while other android Michael Fassbender “does the fingering.” Elsewhere, we were tempted to include the scene in “Raw” where Garance Marillier bites into her own arm in a frenzy of literal bloodlust, but then we totted up the number of chilly, gross, grotesque and borderline psychotic sex scenes we had on the list and figured one more and people might call the police on us.

“Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” has a threesome scene, but the only one of us who has seen it thought it was quote-unquote “cheesy,” though props for having Rebecca Hall, Luke Evans and Bella Heathcote in it nonetheless — if you have to watch three people having sex in a movie, they’re a pretty great choice. “American Made” has a zero gravity sex scene in the cockpit of an airplane which sounds more impressive than it looks, but kudos anyway. Luke Cage and Claire get it on with table-thrashing effect in “The Defenders” but we hate that show so whatever. And “Atomic Blonde” has the impeccably gorgeous pairing of Charlize Theron and Sofia Boutella but we hate that movie so again, whatever.

And just so we don’t leave you with any, erm, unfinished business, let’s cool off with a threesome of dishonorable mentions sure to quell even the most rampant libido: the ludicrous elevator fingering session in the irredeemably shit and unsexy “Fifty Shades Darker“; the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-smutty fingering scene (what’s with all the fingering?) in “Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle” which bizarrely follows a tracking device all the way into a woman’s uterus because gynaecology really turns everyone on; and last and exceptionally least “The Last Face.” One look at any of the hook up scenes here, but particularly the one bizarrely scored to a particularly irritating Red Hot Chilli Peppers track, and it won’t just cure errant arousal, you may elect never to have sex again.

What did we leave out?

— with Rodrigo Perez.