As part of our Sex in Film series, the Epigram Film & TV editors have each picked a film that they believe uses sex in a memorable way. Vote for your favourite in our poll below!
Call Me By Your Name, 2017
Dir: Luca Guadagnino
Chosen by Patrick Sullivan, Film & TV Editor
London Film Festival / Call Me By Your Name
The sex in this beautiful, coming of age film, directed by Luca Guadagnino, is not limited by heteronormative Hollywood standards, and ventures vastly in all directions with its curious teen protagonist. Timothée Chalamet is Elio, the Italian son of an academic who falls in love with his dad's American research assistant, Oliver (Hammer), but also explores his sexuality with childhood friend, Marzia, and even uses a peach as a tool for masturbation. The film is set in stunning Northern Italy, and is a gorgeous, charming rendition of the hopeless pursuit of love which is equally overwhelming and heartbreaking in parts. Chalamet, Armie Hammer, and Michael Stuhlbarg put in three tremendous turns, pivotal in the simmering, sun soaked, emotional core of Call Me By Your Name.
American Pie, 1999
Dir: Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Chosen by Luke Silverman, Film & TV Deputy Editor
IMDb / Universal Pictures
American Pie is a classic Hollywood coming-of-age film about a group of five guys in high school who, with the exception of Stifler (Seann William Scott), make a pact to lose their virginity before their graduation. Jason Biggs leads the cast as Jim Levenstein. Despite the comedic elements of the film, it does speak a lot about the expectations of sex by teens. There are certainly clichéd moments in the film: for instance the jock, Oz (Chris Klein), learning to be kind and sensitive. Whilst the film could easily be accused of being a relatively uninspired one, it is always cheerful and, for the less mature audiences, is definitely funny. But, most importantly, the film is not mean - it makes no effort to alienate any part of teen society and the characters come across as sweet and lovable.
Boogie Nights, 1997
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
Chosen by James Turnbull, Film & TV Online Editor
IMDb / New Line Cinema
Partly based on The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), a short mockumentary that famed Hollywood wunderkind Paul Thomas Anderson made when he was still in high school, Boogie Nights charts the heady highs and soul-crushing lows of the so-called ‘Golden Age of Porn’ in unforgettable fashion. What sticks in your memory isn’t the sexual content but the universal nature of the story and the characters’ journeys, which are full of the same success and excess as any other. Of course, the film has plenty to say about the industry it portrays, as its central characters gradually lose their humanity at the hands of a world that comes to view them as mere props performing for their pleasure, not actors creating works of art. Word of warning: don’t watch this one with your parents.
The Duke of Burgundy, 2014
Dir. Peter Strickland
Chosen by Miles Jackson, Student Film Correspondent
IMDb / Rook Films
In a timeless, Gothic world inhabited entirely by women, a biology professor whose home is plastered with dead butterflies employs one of her students as a maid. The two are lovers, meeting each week whereupon a rigid role-play of master and servant is enacted. Despite its playfully surreal premise, Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy is one of the few films ever made to non-judgmentally depict the intricacies of a BDSM relationship. It’s a sharply funny pas-de-deux of tricksy power dynamics that makes a violent, sadomasochistic - but ultimately consensual - relationship feel genuinely sincere and endearing. Strickland suffuses the film in eye-popping imagery whilst the weirdness is buoyed by two sensitive performances from Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna. An unforgettable presentation of erotic love.
Featured Image Credits: London Film Festival / Call Me By Your Name, IMDb / Universal Pictures, IMDb / New Line Cinema, IMDb / Rook Films, Collage via Canva
What's your favourite film that uses sex in a memorable way? Comment below!
Facebook // Epigram Film & TV // Twitter
