The Least Sexy Movies About Sex

Image via Complex Original

Director: Garry Marshall

If you can get past the image of Rosie O'Donnell in full-on dominatrix gear, well, then you've got one up on us already. In the ridiculous Exit to Eden, she and Dan Aykroyd play detectives sent to investigate a diamond heist at a private BDSM island. If you're interested in learning more, email our editors for the number of a good therapist.

Director: Woody Allen

Woody Allen borrowed the title of one of the world's first sex manuals for this seven-part anthology film that answers such critical questions as "What happens during ejaculation?" and "What is sodomy?" It's important to note that the above image of Gene Wilder and a sheep comes from the answer to that second query. Funny? Yes. Sexy? Hell no.

Director: Michael Winterbottom

After its Cannes Film Festival premiere in 2004, 9 Songs was described by The Guardian as "the most sexually explicit film in the history of mainstream British cinema, containing un-simulated sex scenes including fellatio, ejaculation and cunnilingus." Yet the film was also praised by the paper's film critic, Derek Malcolm, for looking "like a porn movie, but it feels like a love story. The sex is used as a metaphor for the rest of the couple's relationship. And it is shot with Winterbottom's customary sensitivity." 

Yeah, sex as a metaphor is never sexy. Too much, pun intended, heavy lifting.

Director: Lars von Trier

Some people would prefer to classify Lars von Trier's controversial Antichrist as a horror movie. And they wouldn't be wrong, as there's much to cringe about in this bleak, often horrific film that follows the increasingly violent sexual behavior of a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) grieving over the loss of their young son. And we do mean violent. With scissors. And female private parts. And...oof, let's just stop talking about it. 

Director: Catherine Breillat

Before un-simulated sex became a thing in films like The Brown Bunny and 9 Songs, it was part of what distinguished Catherine Breillat's Romance. In this cheekily titled film, a school teacher (Caroline Ducey) finds empowerment and sexual gratification with the help of anyone but her boyfriend. And it ain't pretty.

Director: Larry Clark

Harmony Korine was only 22 years old when he wrote the script for what became one of the most controversial American films of the 1990s. Kids captures 24 hours in the (unprotected) sex life of an HIV teenager (Leo Fitzpatrick) and his equally reckless friends in New York City. It's enough to make any teenager consider abstinence.

Director: David Cronenberg

There's only one thing you need to know about Crash in terms of pre-judging its arousal potential: it's about a group of people who get off on car accidents. Turned on yet? No, of course you're not.

Director: Uli Edel

There's only one word to describe everything about this Basic Instinct ripoff, from its hokey title to leading lady Madonna's attempts to appear sexy: painful.

Director: Tinto Brass

That acclaimed novelist and playwright Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay for what's arguably one of the worst movies of all time is still a source of much amusement. Caligula also holds the distinction of being one of only three films that the late Roger Ebert admitted to walking out of in the middle, describing it as "sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash." Ouch!

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

If two hours of a bare-assed Marlon Brando is your idea of a sexy good time, congratulations. You are in a class entirely unto yourself.

Director: Paul Verhoeven

There was a collective sigh of disappointment in 1995 amongst teenage boys who had purchased tickets to see Showgirls. Though they had hoped for an erotic romp, they were met with a campy tale of a stripper's trying-too-hard-to-be-erotic adventures in Sin City. Fortunately for the film, its terribleness became its greatest achievement.

Director: Steve McQueen

Sexual addiction has been used as the punchline in many a cheesy sitcom. But freshly minted Oscar winner Steve McQueen painted an achingly honest (and hard-to-watch) portrait of nymphomania in this 2011 film, which very rightly earned star Michael Fassbender a Golden Globe nomination.