The 17 weirdest sex scenes in film and TV, ranked

Get our free weekly e-mail for all the most recent cinematic information from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic e-mail without spending a dime

Sex scenes. Driver of discourse, bane of Generation Z.

Like it or not, cinema is affected by sex scenes. The finest examples may be romantic, or titillating, or convey one thing deeply significant.

Bad ones, in the meantime, can come throughout as low cost or tawdry, or in the worst circumstances, merely laughable.

But what about these sex scenes that match into neither class? What in regards to the NSFW sequences that merely really feel bizarre?

Recently, Emerald Fennell’s divisive class satire Saltburn has provoked shock and bewilderment in viewers due to a much-talked about scene involving bathwater.

But Saltburn is way from the one film to have tackled sex on display screen in a method that’s surpising, unconventional or downright weird. And it’s not simply movies – the small display screen has additionally featured its share of unusual sex-filled moments.

Please word, this text incorporates descriptions of sexual acts.

Here’s a listing of 17 of the weirdest and most outrageous sex scenes in cinema and TV…

17. Call Me By Your Name

The most talked-about second in Luca Guadagnino’s sun-baked romance noticed Armie Hammer sink his enamel into one thing uncommon… a peach that his younger lover, performed by Timothée Chalamet, had simply used to masturbate. Call Me By Your Name didn’t really depict any sex onscreen, however this scene was sufficient to forge its popularity as a contemporary horny traditional.

16. American Pie

Sometimes sex scenes are only a small a part of a film; in American Pie, it’s proper there in the title. This raunchy lowbrow comedy’s massive set piece sees randy teenager Jim make candy whoopie to a freshly baked pie. What extra is there to say?

15. Toni Erdmann

There’s little standard about Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade’s fascinating three-hour German comedy about an uptight businesswoman and her eccentric, sensible joke-loving father. The film culminates in an exquisite scene set at a spontaneously bare celebration, nevertheless it makes this record due to an earlier scene, in which Ines (Sandra Hüller) has a sexual rendezvous with a co-worker, and he ejaculates onto a cupcake, which is promptly ingested. It’s arduous to think about the rumoured – and now, seemingly deserted – Hollywood remake getting away with such stuff.

14. Enter the Void

Argentine provocateur Gaspar Noé has indulged in his justifiable share of sex scenes down the years – 2015’s Love was mainly a full-blown pornography, launched in 3D – however Enter the Void incorporates what should be his most startling specific sequence. Penetrative sex is proven, with the digital camera providing the viewpoint from inside a girl’s vagina. To say it’s full-on could be somewhat the understatement.

13. I’m a Virgo

Boots Riley’s Prime Video sequence follows a person who was born 4 metres tall, performed by Jharrel Jerome. One plotline follows his relationship with aspiring chef Flora (Olivia Washington), a regular-sized girl who strikes at superspeed. The supernatural abnormalities make for a really distinctive lovemaking scene, even when a lot of what transpires is left to the creativeness.

Access limitless streaming of flicks and TV exhibits with Amazon Prime Video

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

(*17*)Sign up

Access limitless streaming of flicks and TV exhibits with Amazon Prime Video

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

(*17*)Sign up

12. Peep Show

British sitcom Peep Show had its justifiable share of uncomfortable sex scenes – made all of the extra jarring by the unrelenting first-person-POV camerawork. But there’s one in explicit that stands out. In the season two episode “Dance Class”, Jez (Robert Webb) enters a relationship with Nancy (Rachel Blanchard), in which their lovemaking is commonly charged with taboo. Towards the top of the episode, in pursuit of busting ever-bigger taboos, Jez agrees to put on blackface whereas getting randy. It’s not simply awkward however clearly problematic, and the scene was faraway from streaming platforms in 2020.

11. Annette

Borrowing a transfer from Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s musical episode (“Once More With Feeling”), Leos Carax’s Annette injects music into the sexual act – with comedy dangerous boy Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) singing a quantity whereas taking place on his opera singer spouse Ann Desfranoux (Marion Cotillard). It’s horny, however, like all the pieces else about this eccentric, puppet-featuring film, very unusual.

10. 40 Days and 40 Nights

In this 2002 romcom, Josh Hartnett plays a libidinous man who decides to abstain from sexual activity for the duration of Lent. As he gets closer to love interest Shannyn Sossamon, he finds it increasingly hard to respect the vow. With carnal intimacy off the table, he instead brings his paramour to apparent climax simply by… waving a flower around. OK then.

9. Saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s polarising 2023 drama starred Jacob Elordi as a benevolent has-it-all wealthy child and Barry Keoghan because the lower-income interloper who befriends him. There’s plenty of materials that strains for sexual transgression – a grave-humping sequence was apparently Keoghan’s invention on the day – however the “bathtub scene”, in which Keoghan’s character slurps the, um, contaminated dregs of his opulent host’s tub water, is the one that basically received folks speaking.

8. Team America: World Police

This crude but impressively crafted satire from the creators of South Park didn’t actually do something by halves – and that features the prolonged sex scene, staged completely utilizing marionettes. The amorous sequence noticed the puppets positioned in quite a lot of more and more acrobatic sexual positions, whereas a thumping guitar ballad performs beneath.

7. Holy Motors

For those that haven’t seen it, Holy Motors mainly contains a number of of essentially the most weird scenes ever put to film, all stitched collectively one after the opposite. Directed by French maverick Leos Carax, the film consists of one sequence in which two actors simulate sex whereas totally dressed in motion-capture fits. The barely haunting finish product is then rendered on a display screen: two serpentine creatures giving it the complete triple-X therapy. It’s quite a bit!

6. Bride of Chucky

Another puppet sex scene in the vein of Team America, comedy-horror sequel Bride of Chucky featured some unpalatable sex between the demonic dolls voiced by Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly. “Do you have a rubber?” she asks. “Look at me, baby, I’m all rubber!” comes the reply. That nearly sums up the tone of this unusual, deeply un-sexy sequence.

5. BrainDead

This little-seen sci-fi-satire starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead took some massive swings – together with its very premise, which noticed aliens devour the brains of the American political class. The sixth episode includes a scene that Winstead described because the “weirdest” of her whole profession: a vigorous bout of sexual activity, all whereas chowing down on a number of candies and salami. It ended up being the present’s largest speaking level – however wasn’t sufficient to save lots of BrainDead from cancellation after one sequence.

4. Zoology

This 2016 Russian drama follows a girl who instantly grows a tail. It’s an odd and unsettling piece of physique horror, introduced by the lens of realist drama. The most annoying scene, nonetheless, comes when a potential suitor begins fetishistically incorporating the tail into his sexual advances. Call me a prude, however I’m out.

3. Howard the Duck

This weird comedy – technically the primary Marvel film – follows the adventures of an anthropomorphic duck dwelling amongst people. In the film’s most notorious scene, Howard shares an evening of romance with Lea Thompson, who says she “just can’t resist his intense animal magnetism”. “This relationship… it defies all the laws of nature,” one other character feedback – and fairly rightly, too.

2. The Counselor

Depending on who you ask, Ridley Scott’s The Counselor is both a horrible, off-putting catastrophe or a stone-cold masterpiece. In what is perhaps the film’s weirdest set piece, Cameron Diaz has sex – not with an individual, however a automotive. The act is subsequently described in the foulest phrases by Javier Bardem: “It was like one of those catfish things, you know, one of those bottom feeders you see going up the way of the aquarium sucking its way up the glass.”

1. Pink Flamingos

Pretty a lot all the pieces about John Waters’ seminal filth comedy was surprising: it’s small marvel this scatalogical oddity was banned in a number of international locations. It’s arduous to choose only one scene, however the half in which Divine fellates her no-good son Crackers (Danny Mills) stays notably outrageous. British censorship board BBFC reinstated the scene in 2008, having initially reduce it for a earlier launch, explaining that the second “could be justified by the wider context of the film, in that the whole purpose of the film was to shock, disgust and amuse (in a blackly comic fashion), rather than to arouse”.