50 Worst Movie Sex Scenes
Completely unsatisfactory
Flypaper (1997)
The Scene: Meth lab worker Lucy Liu and James Wilder test out a new anti-venom by getting in a water-free pool filled with deadly snakes. Then having sex.
Look Away When: The pair copulate as narked snakes bite their naked bods.
Purple Rain (1984)
The Scene: Prince and Apollonia Kotero struggle to evoke even the tiniest flame of passion for their minute-long sex scene, which mostly involves the former rubbing the latter all over.
Look Away When: Prince starts rubbing his face in Kotero’s hair.
Miami Vice (2006)
The Scene: Colin Farrell and Gong Li get together in a shadowy bedroom, looking moodily at one another in a distinctly unsexy montage.
Look Away When: Li starts to cry.
Irrversible (2002)
The Scene: A nine-minute assault on the senses, as Alex (Monica Bellucci) is beaten to the ground and anally raped. Hideous.
Look Away When: Alex enters the underpass.
Demolition Man (1993)
The Scene: Sly Stallone’s defrosted action man discovers that sex in the future is all done via a strange little device. And there’s no physical contact whatsoever.
Look Away When: Sandra Bullock whips out the hardware.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
The Scene: A ridiculously over-choreographed orgy that looks like something you’d find in a really smutty opera.
Look Away When: Naked people in masks start turning up.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Scene: Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) have sweaty cave sex as all the other Zion inhabitants pant and dance to delirious tribal music.
Look Away When: The dreadlocks start swirling. Enough already.
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Wild Things (1998)
The Scene: Matt Dillon has a morally bankrupt threesome with Neve Campbell and Denise Richards.
Look Away When: Dillon grabs Campbell and Richards by the skull and forces them to kiss. Just. So. Wrong.
Kissed (1996)
The Scene: Sandra Larson (Molly Parker) locks herself in the morgue to do the nasty with a stiff. We throw up a little.
Look Away When: Sandra starts circling the dead body on the table. Trust us, you don’t need to see this.
Nowhere To Run (1993)
The Scene: Jean-Claude Van Damme’s first ever sex scene falls flatter than a joke about being thirsty at an AA meeting.
Look Away When: Van Damme gets his kit off.
Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.