The 20 Most Gratuitous Girl-on-Girl Scenes in Movies

You know this, but we'll just refresh your memory: The word gratuitous, as defined by Merriam-Webster, means "not called for by the circumstances; unwarranted."

A movie usually has a lot of ground to cover in 90 or more minutes; it must introduce characters, set up conflict, see that conflict through to its climax, and tie up loose ends if possible before the closing credits roll.

So why then do we get anything gratuitous in film? Do we really have room for unwarranted digressions? Hollywood seems to give a resounding yes. If your movie is boring, confusing, implausible, or simply not sexy enough, Tinseltown's evident solution is to throw in some gratuitous girl-on-girl action and the head-bobbing audience will perk up a bit.

This weekend, the movie Butter will open; in it we will see (in addition to amazing feats of butter-sculpting) Ashley Greene and Olivia Wilde share some steamy sapphic moments. While not strictly necessary, we're pretty sure this will make the wacky comedy a better film. Hell, it worked for these other 20 flicks. Enjoy this look back at the 20 most gratuitous girl-on-girl scenes in movies.

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Movie: Higher Learning (1995)

There is a lot going on in this movie, which follows three incoming college freshmen, and the main theme is one of racial tension. But one of the main characters, Kristen (Swanson), meets a strikingly pretty lesbian, Taryn (Connelly), who is a junior. When Kristen runs into some trouble with a frat boy, there's little doubt that Taryn's sympathetic embrace is what Kristen needs. Do Taryn and Kristen really have a steamy topless makeout session, or is it just a fantasy of Kristen's? Who cares? They show it in the movie, so it happened.

Movie: Basic Instinct (1992)

Do you remember, 20 years later, that Sharon Stone's character Catherine Trammell was a lesbian when the film starts? You remember she was psychotic and ruthless. You may remember she's a crime writer who frames people and pits cop against cop. You may even remember, from the final scene, that Catherine is probably going to kill Michael Douglas and it only makes him desire her more. But what do you really remember? Catherine doesn't wear panties to her police interrogation. Makes her lesbian lover seem a bit tame, doesn't it?

Movie: The Roommate (2011)

This movie, about college students thrown into shared living spaces in their freshman year, is a tangled web in which every girl seems to be a lesbian, a dormant lesbian, or considering lesbianism. Sara, played by Minka Kelly, is surrounded by lesbians—hot lesbians. What school is this, Hot Lesbian State? (And where is it located and what sort of SAT scores would we need get in?)

Sara's roommate Rebecca (Meester) goes hot lesbian on her, and not in a good way—she's sort of a hybrid of the psycho babes in Single White Female and Fatal Attraction. Not good. Sara considers moving in with Irene (Harris), who also happens to be a hot lesbian, and then—what are the odds?—Rebecca and Irene have a hot lesbian hookup at a hot lesbian club, and head back to Rebecca's for hot lesbian sex. Are we over-using the phrase "hot lesbian" here? Well, that's sort of how you feel when you watch the movie.

Movie: Foxfire (1996)

A drifter named Margaret "Legs" Sadovsky (Jolie) shows up one day and shakes up a group of high school girls, inspiring them to beat up a teacher who makes inappropriate advances and later break into the school, where they end up setting off the sprinkler system. They regroup in an abandoned house, and then things get weird; Legs whips her top off and gives herself a tattoo on one breast, and as a sign of solidarity (or something) Maddie Wirtz (Burress) gets topless herself, and lets Legs ink her boob up as well.

Movie: Embrace of the Vampire (1995)

After an eight-year, nearly 200-episode run on Who's the Boss?, Milano needed to make a statement. She was no longer the cute Samantha Micelli; she was all grown up, hot, and capable of making her own bad decisions. It's a vampire movie, the umpteenth reworking of an idea we're all familiar with, and you have to dress it up in some way that will make it appealing. Or undress it, as the case was with Milano. Suddenly after all those years, she's naked all over the place, and getting it on with another girl. There are four hot lesbian scenes in this film, and they are the only reason why anyone has ever wanted to watch it.

Movie: Without Men (2011)

In a small town in Latin America, all the men—every one of them—are called to fight in the country's civil war. In the absence of dudes, the place becomes a female utopia, and what's more, the inherent bisexuality of all women bubbles up. This is a theory that our culture generally accepts: While men are either straight or gay, straight women, under the right circumstances, will go for girl-girl action. Hey, we didn't invent the theory, we're merely repeating it.

So what is the message of Without Men—that an all-female society would be superior to the mixed-gender one we know? Or that Eva Longoria will have sexy time with another Latina if left alone with her long enough? Both seem to be true.

Movie: Showgirls (1995)

Nomi (Berkely) and Cristal (Gershon) are super-hot ladies who dance topless for a living in Vegas. They're rehearsing a dance number when Cristal, who is bisexual, becomes suddenly irresistably attracted to Nomi. Down comes Nomi's top and Cristal is safe at second base (we're talking both hands). They go in for the kiss and Cristal says, "You see, darlin'—you are a whore." This apparently kills it for Nomi, who runs off.

Movie: DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004)

The villain of the movie, White Goodman (Ben Stiller), has his sights on Kate (Taylor), but it looks like she'll probably end up with the protagonist, Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn). Lafleur is trying to save his gym from being bought by Goodman, and naturally the issue looks to be resolved in a dodgeball match. LaFleur and his ragtag bunch of dodgeballers have pluck and heart, so naturally they win, and in the moment of victory Kate gives LaFleur a smooch. But not before she turns to her previously unseen girlfriend, Joyce (Chorvat), and gives her a thorough tongue lashing. LaFleur is caught completely by surprised, but the audience loves it. Just look at the picture—even Fat Spectator with Goatee can't hide his glee.

Movie: The Runaways (2010)

The film is based on the true story of all-girl hard rock band The Runaways; as in real life, the nexus of the band is the duo of Cherie Currie (Fanning) and Joan Jett (Stewart). The movie was based on a book, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway, by Currie, and includes some sapphic moments between Currie and Jett which were not in the source material. In a way, that's the definition of gratuitous—although that doesn't mean the scenes were inaccurate. When asked by Spin magazine whether she thought the scenes were exploitative, Currie said, "At first, I would have agreed with that. But no, it tells the truth. First of all, back in the mid-’70s, Bowie had just come out as bisexual and so had Elton John and that was really intriguing. We experimented. We weren’t in love with each other. We just had fun. I like that it’s in the film."

Movie: Femme Fatale (2002)

This movie starts with a jewel heist, but since it's a Brian de Palma film, we know better than to expect a straight-up robbery. No, the jewel (the "Eye of the Serpent") is part of a snake-shaped getup that a basically-naked model named Veronica (Rasmussen) wears to an event in Cannes, France. To relieve Veronica of the valuables, criminal Laure (Romijn) does the logical thing: She seduces her in the bathroom, and while the two are going at it in a stall, we see Romijn's accomplice swap out the real snake-thing with a replica. You have to think that sometime during the planning, Laure said to her conspirators, "You know, this is kind of crazy, but it just might work."

Movie: Cruel Intentions (1999)

Cruel Intentions was based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, an 18th-century French novel with more juicy sexual intrigue than we care to explain here, but the setup for this special moment is pretty simple: Cecile (Blair) is a sexual newbie, while Kathryn (Gellar) has been around the block more than a few times. Cecile is so green she hasn't even French kissed a boy. Kathryn takes it upon herself to pop Cecile's mouth-cherry, and kisses her demurely on a park bench. Kathryn then tells Cecile what will happen next: "Okay, let's try it again only this time I'm gonna stick my tongue in your mouth, and when I do that I want you to massage my tongue with yours. And that's what first base is." The tongue-tastic action won the prize for "Best Kiss" at the MTV Movie Awards.

Movie: Personal Best (1982)

Chris (Hemingway) is a track star with her sights set on the Olympics. She doesn't make the team in 1976, and then a funny thing happens on the way to Moscow '80: Her country decides to boycott, and Chris's Olympic dream dies. Is that what pushes her into the arms of older athlete Tory (Donnelly)? Or did the film just seem to need some lesbian intrigue to make up for the fact that it's about a giant test of speed and skill that doesn't happen?

Movie: John Tucker Must Die (2006)

Why must John Tucker die? Because John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) is bad. How is he bad? Because he is simultaneously scoring with Carrie (Arielle Kebbel), Heather (Ashanti), and Beth (Bush). Juggling those three makes a guy bad? More like badass. But still, from the point of view of his lovers, he's got to pay for his dirty dog-ishness. They want him humiliated, but they need an outsider to do the job, which they find in Kate (Snow). Perfect! But there's one problem. Although Kate is really, totally cute as well, she is inexperienced—she even needs a kissing lesson! Fortunately, promiscuous vegan Beth is around to give her an instructional liplock.

Movie: American Pie 2 (2001)

Calling something gratuitous in an American Pie movie is a little like, as they say, handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. In this scene, Jim, Stifler and company want to see some sapphic action from hot neighbor ladies, who oblige on the condition that a couple of the boys do the same. This comes fairly early in the movie, after Jim's dad has walked in on him having sex at college but well before Jim injures himself when he tries to masturbate with superglue.

Yes, but does this advance the plot? Wait, what plot?

Movie: Piranha 3D (2010)

Piranha's are emerging from a vortex somewhere at the bottom of an Arizona lake, and spring break hits—it's an extravaganza of coeds and carnage. The presence of pornographer Jerry O'Connell and his starlets Danni (Brook) and Crystal (Steele), there to film Girls Gone Wild-ish antics is gravy. Although Doug Stanhope is not present in this film to deliver his "Show me where babies feed!" line, rest assured there is plenty of showing where babies feed. And yet, oddly enough, no babies.

Movie: Black Swan (2010)

What seems like an artsy-fartsy ballet movie becomes much more interesting when protagonist Nina (Portman) indulges in a night of what seems like ecstasy-fueled sex with her rival, Lily (Kunis). But we realize that the lesbian loving was imagined; as the hallucinations continue it becomes clear that Nina is crazy in the coconut. These other visions involve jealousy and suicide; Nina is getting into some dark territory and things will not end well for her. But her fantasy of jumping Lily's bones? If that's a sign of insanity then lock us up with Macaulay Culkin and throw away the key. Now there's a sentence we never thought we'd write.

Movie: Butter (2012)

In this movie, you have a quirky couple: Laura and Bob Pickler (played by Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell). When champion butter sculptor Bob retires, Laura decided to carry on the Pickler legacy of butter sculpting and compete in the championship herself. Got it so far? Bob, it turns out, has a relationship with scamming stripper Brooke (Wilde); Brooke at some point ends up in bed and smooching with Kaitlen (Greene) who is—wait for it—Bob and Laura's daughter. This sets up one of the more bizarre love quadrilaterals we've ever seen: Laura is competing with the stripper for her husband's affection, but her husband is, in a way, competing with his own daughter for the stripper's affection. And we just thought we'd see some cool butter sculptures.

Movie: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Before this movie ever came out, it picked up buzz for a rumored lesbian scene between Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz. This was big stuff—we're talking an Ali-Frazier match-up of sexy actresses. When we finally got down to it, it was, eh, a hurried smooch in a darkroom that had almost no significance in the arc of the story.

Those of us who had hoped for extended naughtiness on the scale of Bound (1996, Gina Gershon vs. Jennifer Tilly) or Mulholland Drive (2001, Naomi Watts vs. Laura Elen Harring) could not have been more disappointed. Is it possible that Woody Allen, the director least likely to resort to cheap sensationalism, pulled a fast one on us?

Movie: Jennifer's Body (2009)

The two main characters in the film are Jennifer (Fox) and Needy (Seyfried)—Megan Fox does her Angelina Jolie-lite sex bomb thing while Seyfried attempts to play a nerd. The two are best friends even though they have nothing in common. It's all extremely illogical until you take into account the fact that a) Seyfried's hotness cannot be negated by a pair of nerd glasses and b) they're not really best friends. No, they're repressed lesbians. Aha! Like a cold sore, this mutual longing flares up mightily; there's a very intense make-out scene, and then, just as suddenly, it's all over. The movie, which is really about cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the occult, chugs right along.

Movie: Wild Things (1998)

Ok, Matt Dillon, as the male lead Sam Lombardo, is simply playing out of his mind in this film. He has not one but two young and super-sexy lovers: Suzie (Campbell) and Kelly (Richards). They're having threesomes, there's intrigue and double-crossing—nobody is really to be trusted. In fact, when Suzie thinks Kelly has betrayed her, she attacks Kelly in a swimming pool. And before you can even say the word "gratuitous," the two are lip-locked and stripping down. It's a lesson for all aspiring screenwriters out there: When you have a plot twist and can't decide on how it should be resolved, just throw in some lesbian love and everything will be OK.