Spank You Very Much: The 25 Kinkiest Movies

If you happen to be watching a Hollywood flick that shows a sex scene, one that doesn't cut away when two characters start kissing intensely, or climb into bed, you'll most likely be treated to the most vanilla (and heterosexual) coupling imaginable. The woman will leave her bra on. The man, somehow, won't reveal any flesh beyond his back or chest. And afterward, everyone will stay under the sheets. Not a stray nipple or pubic hair, absolutely no genitalia.

And no wonder people have strange ideas about sex.

Of course, there are fringe films that depict different sorts of sex, often through the lens of kink. To see something beyond vanilla, you wind up watching art films or other edgy fare. Sign us up for that: Here are the 25 Kinkiest Movies.

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Director: Garry Marshall
Stars: Rosie O'Donnell, Dan Aykroyd, Paul Mercurio, Dana Delany, Iman, Hector Elizondo

Fair warning: To see Dana Delany and Iman decked out in black leather dominatrix outfits in Exit To Eden, you also have to spend time with Rosie O'Donnell.

Garry Marshall's laughably bad comedy follows detectives investigating an S&M-themed vacation resort. Marshall's stinker also has the honor of being the movie where Dan Aykroyd runs around looking like the Rubber Man from American Horror Story (also worthy of FF-ing).

Director: Adrian Lyne
Stars: Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger

In the '80s, Kim Basinger was the apple of everyone's eye, and 9 ½ Weeks is her crown jewel of hotness. In what's basically a softcore flick, Basinger plays a divorcee who engages in a series of increasingly experimental and perverse sexual acts with a Wall Street move-maker (Mickey Rourke).

Amongst their carnal methods: Rourke blindfolds a naked Basinger and rubs a melting ice cube up and down her body, and, later, she puts on a tux and a moustache and rides Rourke in a seedy back alley. Moustache ride, right bros?

Director: Terry Jones
Stars: Julie Walters, Alec McCowen, Shirley Stelfox, Tim Woodward

Don't ever underestimate the lengths a mother will go to help her children—that's one of the themes at play in Monty Python's Flying Circus member Terry Jones' comedy Personal Services.

Julie Walters plays a hard-working single mom in need of cash to pay for her kid's education; her waitressing job isn't cutting it, so she finds the next logical solution: She becomes a role-playing call girl who wears schoolgirl outfits and performs as a disciplinarian types for older men dressed as students. All in the name of higher learning.

Director: Luis Buñuel
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Francisco Rabal

As an art movement, Surrealism was interested in unconventional sex and the female body. Buñuel's film Belle de Jour explores the fantasy life of Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve). Sex between Séverine and her husband has fizzled, but she would like to get her rocks off. She has wild dreams where she's dominated and whipped. With her husband unable to do the trick, she begins to work at a brothel. Probably.

With Buñuel, nothing is as it seems, but rest assured, it's all very smart, sexy, and novel.

Director: William Friedkin
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, Thomas Haden Church

Here's to hoping that director William Friedkin continues to work with Tracy Letts at bringing the playwright's work to the silver screen, as both Bug and Killer Joe are fantastic. But if you want to talk kinky, you have to talk Killer Joe, the very bloody white trash comedy of errors.

The film's kinks come Joe's (Matthew McConaughey) creepy fixation on the very young Dottie (Juno Temple). As part of the complicated scheme at the film's core, Dottie has been given by her family to Joe on the condition that he'll kill the family's matriarch.

There's also a fried chicken blowjob, but as that's a case of sexual assault, it doesn't quite count as a kink. Still, if you're curious what that's like, well...

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, Joe Silver, Barbara Steele, Allan Kolman, Susan Petrie

Have you ever watched a zombie movie, or even The Walking Dead, and thought, "You know, this could use more sex."? Well, if you have, Shivers, David Cronenberg's breakthrough genre classic, is a must-see. Shivers qualifies as a zombie movie in form more than plot.

The film concerns an experimental parasite that infects an apartment building and turns all it touches into sex-crazed lunatics. The aphrodisiac-like leech is transmitted via kissing, as well as burrowing its way into the vaginas of the apartment's women while they bathe.

In the spirit of the best George A. Romero zombie flick, Shivers culminates with a mob of diseased nymphomaniacs converging into one room and engulfing the hero; unlike, say, Night Of The Living Dead, however, the antagonists in Cronenberg's movie don't watch to eat anyone's flesh—they'd much rather grope and kiss it.

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Stars: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider

Last Tango In Paris isn't the steamy experience many wanted it to be, but the signs where there from the start. Marlon Brando plays an American who heads to Paris after his wife dies (first red flag); there, he meets a sexy young Parisian woman (Maria Schneider), and all she wants to do is have anonymous sex, never revealing names and keeping things strictly physical. Zesty sex ensues, along with some heavy emotionalism. Which gives way to disturbing sodomy: Brando's character douses his joint in butter and plugs away at Schneider from behind while she cries. Sex is fun, right?

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Stars: Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Loles Léon, Francisco Rabal

Pedro Almodovar loves melodrama, but unlike the famed American directors in that genre, he doesn't shy away from depicting what was normally hinted at: sex.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! tells the simple story of a former porn star who gets abducted by a former mental patient. He's in love with her so much that he doesn't want her to leave him. And so the ropes come out.

The intense personalities at play make for highly charged sex. Add in some light bondage, and you've got a kinky movie everyone can appreciate.

Director: David O. Russell
Stars: Jeremy Davies, Alberta Watson, Benjamin Hendrickson, Carla Gallo

Because on the title, you'd think that David O. Russell's debut would revolve around masturbation. You'd also think, "Hey, that's not a kink—that's a basic life need." You're right about the latter, but the former? Not so much.

In Russell's black comedy, the kink isn't anything to do with a zesty solo dolo sex life. No, it's about incest. Raymond (Jeremy Davies) is spending the summer with his mom (Alberta Watson), who's laid up with a leg injury. Dad is away on business, allowing ample time for mom and kid to redefine 'quality time.'

Director: Tinto Brass
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O'Toole, Helen Mirren, Teresa Ann Savoy

The first indicator that Caligula was going to let its freak flag fly: The seedy biopic was co-funded by Penthouse magazine. With the adult rag's influence, director Tinto Brass went to shameless measures to emphasize the in-and-out nature of Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus' (Malcolm McDowell) lustful universe.

With abundant orgies, the film's sordid highlights (including rampant nudity, nearly porn-level intercourse, and a young Helen Mirren dancing around half-naked) made it cinema's first-ever movie in which big-name actors participated in graphic sex scenes. Enjoy the kink while you can, though, because Caligula's downer ending and widespread gore define "flaccidness."

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Todd Field, Sydney Pollack, Madison Eginton

When Eyes Wide Shut first opened, the backlash was strong. Apparently, people wanted to be titillated. Why they thought Kubrick would be the man for that job, we have no idea.

Kubrick's film is alternately hilarious and uncomfortable, but seldom erotic. The eerie centerpiece at the heart of the Tom Cruise-led Eyes Wide Shut takes place inside a lavish New York City mansion, where older rich gents hold ritualistic orgies in which everyone has to wear weirdo masks and hump quietly, like neutered canines.

Real sexy.

Director: Steve McQueen
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan

Most of the hype leading up to the release of British visual artist Steve McQueen's second feature revolved around the main character's addiction to sex and the size of Michael Fassbender's cock. Turns out, only one of those things proved to be accurate.

Shame isn't really about sex addiction. Yes, the character has a problem with sex, but it really stems from his troubled past and incestuous relationship with his sister. Like a Hemingway story, these aspects of the story exist deep below the surface, and are only hinted at. With repeated viewings, though, it becomes more and more clear that the focus here is on Brandon (Fassbender) and Sissy (Mulligan).

Director: Steven Shainberg
Stars: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies, Lesley Ann Warren, Stephen McHattie, Jessica Tuck

Unlike most of the films on this countdown, Secretary doesn't use unconventional sex to reflect its characters' darker sides—freak flags fly with pride here. The 2002 independent taboo-smasher is a love story with S&M, centering on a control freak of a lawyer (James Spader) who dominates his submissive employee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) by spanking her at will and dressing her in dog collars—all things she enjoys!

The loves scenes in Secretary have similar emotional implications as the quieter love sessions in sentimental movie romances, like ones starring Katherine Heigl and Jennifer Lopez. Or much like the S&M-free whoopee Spader and Gyllenhaal make on a grass-covered bed at film's end, though we prefer dog collars over grass. For whatever that's worth (probably too much).

Director: Uli Edel
Stars: Madonna, Willem Dafoe, Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Julianne Moore

We'd tell Madonna to stick to her day job, but, for starters, it's not like she'd give a damn. Meaning, we'll all have to endure more and more films either starring the pop icon or overseen by her. Widely regarded as cinematic poison, Madonna has yet to win over critics with any of her acting performances.

Here's one reason why: The 1993 erotic disaster Body Of Evidence is worthy of infinite Golden Raspberries. In the notorious bomb, Madonna plays a sexpert prone to pouring hot wax on her mate and riding him bronco-style while he uncomfortably lies on crushed light bulbs. Broken glass fetish? Check.

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, Vincent Cassel

Everything about David Cronenberg's elegant period drama A Dangerous Method screams award bait—on paper. For one, it's a biopic of sorts, tracing the difficult friendship between psychology mavericks Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen); Cronenberg himself is highly prestigious, having directed a slew of lauded genre flicks (including The Fly and The Dead Zone) and more recent dramas of top quality (A History Of Violence, Eastern Promises); and it co-stars Keira Knightley, who's the quintessential costume drama all-star.

But—and this is a big but—this is Cronenberg we're talking about, and nothing is easy. Knightley's character (real-life mental patient turned psychologist Sabina Spielrein) has some atypical bedroom habits. She and Jung get involved in a steamy love affair, during which she gets off on him spanking her. And Cronenberg, never one to shy away from sexual perversions, dedicates quite a few sequences to Spielrein's kinks.

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky

There is a whole lot of wrong in David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome, a slimy commentary on the future of the human being in the face of increasingly sophisticated technology. Memorable sights like James Woods' Max Renn with a vagina-like opening in his chest, a gun that shoots cancer, and a breathing TV can make the viewer forget some of the decidedly non-vanilla sex going on in the film.

Max Renn, the sleazy cable TV exec, starts hooking up with Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry), who likes it rough. As in, putting a lit cigarette out on her breast. Or playing with pins. Bloodletting. We're well beyond foot play territory here.

Director: Barbet Schroeder
Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Bulle Ogier, André Rouyer

Maîtresse is your traditional love story: Guy meets girl, they fall in love, and complications arise. However, in director Barbet Schroeder's controversial film, the guy is a two-bit criminal and the girl is a mean-spirited dominatrix he meets by chance during a robbery.

And the complications are twofold; first, he decides to take part in her hurt-for-pleasure hobby, and then someone's penis gets nailed to a plank. And that's when the kinkiness boils over into squirmy discomfort. Like we said, just your common piece of heartwarming romance.

Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Stars: Sook-Yin Lee, Peter Stickles, PJ DeBoy, Lindsay Beamish, Paul Dawson

Sex is the name of the game in indie filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell's uninhibited dramedy Shortbus. An ensemble piece, Shortbus pays the most attention to a sex therapist who can't achieve an orgasm, which leads the frustrated woman and her disgruntled hubby to open their, um, legs up to male prostitutes, a female dominatrix, and orgy enthusiasts in hopes of getting her off.

With its playful sado-masochism and group sex, Shortbus revels in a sexuality beyond categories. And, honestly, it's liberating to watch—if you're into that sort of thing, of course.

Director: Julia Leigh
Stars: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie

Writer-director Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty isn't the spank-bank deposit Sucker Punch fans wanted it to be.

Leigh's film is a feminist fairy tale about agency and means. Browning, of Sucker Punch, plays a college student who goes to work at a strange brothel where men pay to spend the night with women who have been drugged into such a deep sleep, they're like corpses. This a kink with some serious issues.

Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot

The tender Michael Haneke of Amour? Don't look for him here. The Piano Teacher, an adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek's novel of the same name, has a set-up that horror fans should find appealing. A tightly wound piano teacher, Erika (Isabelle Huppert), lives with her possessive, abusive mother (Annie Girardot). Because of mom's chokehold on her life, not limited to curfews and dress codes, Erika has an unhealthy relationship with sex. It's not limited to self-mutilation and sniffing semen-filled tissues discarded at the viewing booths of a porno shop. And then Erika finds herself pursued by a young man (also, a pig) who wants to study with her.

Rough going but rewarding because of Huppert's honest performance and Haneke's devilish dressing down of classical music, usually regarded as one of civilizatin's high points, but here, not so much. Don't expect to feel very pro-sex after this one.

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait,
Stars: Melinda Page Hamilton, Bryce Johnson, Geoff Pierson, Colby French, Jack Plotnick, Bonita Friedericy, Brian Posehn

Bobcat Goldthwait, the comedian with the voice like a staticky radio going through puberty, directed a film in 2006 that boldly milked laughs from a kink that doesn't have get nearly enough attention. Oh sure, movies will talk about feet and blindfolds and handcuffs and spanking and what have you, but how many movies are about bestiality?

Sleeping Dogs Lie is, in fact, about bestiality. Readers should know that the story revolves around a woman who happened to have congress with a dog while in college, and the fallout that occurs when her secret is revealed to her fiancé. The act occurred long before the film begins, and is never shown. If you're disappointed by this, there's probably a hotline for you to call.

Director: David Lynch
Stars: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Dean Stockwell

David Lynch's filmography is jam-packed with unforgettable visuals: human-sized rabbits starring in a sitcom (Inland Empire), a shotcaller with a head the size of a softball (Mulholland Drive). Yet, when it comes to anointing the most horrifying sequence in any Lynch picture, the choice is easy: Dennis Hopper's tour-de-force of insane sexuality in Blue Velvet. Specifically, his first appearance in the movie.

He inhales nitrous while ordering Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), the woman whose husband he's kidnapped, to spread her legs for him. He stares into her vagina with a look somewhere between lust and fury. He hits her. He sexually assaults her. He babbles to her, saying, "Baby wants to fuck." And maybe she enjoys this kind of play?

The film suggests that she does, or that she's been so twisted that she does so against her better judgement (which is a problematic).

Director: Liliana Cavani
Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti, Isa Miranda

To exorcise the ghosts of the Holocaust, Cavani's film stages a sexual relationship between a concentration camp prisoner (Charlotte Rampling) and an SS officer (Dirk Bogarde). The two meet 13 years after the end of the war and pursue their violent, destructive relationship again, with disastrous results.

The subject matter is deeply problematic (most American critics decried it as junk when it was first released, though it was better received in Europe), but there's no denying the startling beauty of the film's most famous scene. Rampling's character performs a Marlene Dietrich song at the death camp, wearing an SS officer's cap, men's pants, and suspenders. It's scary, ugly, in bad taste. And sexy.

Director: Nagisa Oshima
Stars: Eiko Matsuda, Tatsuya Fuji

Legendary director Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses takes its story from a very violent, very real incident. In 1936, Sada Abe killed her lover, Kichizo Ishida. The two had been having increasingly dangerous sex, experimenting with asphyxiation. Abe strangled Ishida until he died, and then removed his genitalia with a blade. She was arrested with his severed member on her person.

Oshima's film explores their passionate, ultimately destructive relationship in unflinching detail. In addition to the strangling, there's a moment in the film where Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji) inserts an egg into the vagina of Abe (Eiko Matsuda).

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette

Most people can't help but stare at car accidents on the sides of roads and highways, rubbernecking in unison as EMTs and police officers handle the post-fender-bender damage. It's a natural human response, wanting to see danger without having to experience it yourself. The twisted characters in David Cronenberg's dementedly erotic 1996 flick Crash (and adaptation of J.G. Ballard's controversial novel of the same name) take the voyeuristic impulse one step further: Whereas a normal person would look at the banged-up cars and then keep it moving, these sickos get off on the wreckage.

So much so, in fact, that James Spader and Holly Hunter, playing a pair of car accident survivors, can only get stimulated by having sex in automobiles.