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Some films use sex or intimacy to change what happens next; others use it to reveal a relationship, expose a character’s power or vulnerability, or make a theme visible. The scenes below matter for those specific reasons—not because sexual content is automatically meaningful. Spoilers follow, including major plot revelations for Oldboy.
When sex changes the plot
In these films, intimacy has a direct causal role: it sets events in motion, changes loyalties, or acquires new significance as the story unfolds.
The Terminator (1984)
Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese’s encounter is integral to the time-travel premise: John Connor, whose future leadership motivates the mission, is their child. The scene connects the film’s romance to its central causal loop rather than functioning as a break from the action.
Atonement (2007)
Briony witnesses an intimate encounter between Cecilia and Robbie and misreads what she sees. Her interpretation helps drive the accusation that changes all three lives. The witnessed encounter is distinct from the later assault that also figures in the film’s story.
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Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
The threesome between the two friends and Luisa shifts the emotional alignment of the trio. Its importance lies not simply in who takes part, but in how the experience changes the friendship and exposes tensions that had been easier to ignore.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
An attempted role-play encounter reveals a serious fracture in the marriage and precipitates the film’s crisis. The scene is uncomfortable, and its power depends on recognizing the mismatch between the couple’s expectations and what is actually happening—not treating the situation as uncomplicated erotic play.
It Follows (2015)
Sex is built into the horror premise: an encounter passes a supernatural threat from one person to another. That fictional mechanism shapes the characters’ choices and the film’s atmosphere of dread. It is not a depiction of real-world sexually transmitted infection.
Oldboy (2003)
Major spoiler: an encounter between the central characters takes on a devastating meaning after the film’s revelation about their connection. The scene’s function is retrospective: what viewers understand about it changes along with what they understand about the story.
When intimacy reveals a relationship
These scenes make a bond legible—whether through tenderness, instability, alienation, or a moment of connection—without requiring that the relationship be healthy or lasting.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
An early scene between the married protagonists establishes emotional distance and instability beneath the surface of their marriage. It gives the later journey into jealousy and fantasy a domestic point of departure.
Don’t Look Now (1973)
An intimate scene between a couple grieving their child presents physical closeness as one way they reconnect amid loss. Its significance is emotional: it belongs to the film’s account of grief and marriage, not just its mystery plot. Claims that the scene was unsimulated should not be repeated as fact without reliable verification.
Rank #2
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Happy Together (1997)
The opening physicality between the lovers quickly establishes a relationship marked by attraction and recurring instability. It gives the film’s cycles of separation and reunion an immediate, embodied starting point.
The Ice Storm (1997)
An awkward car encounter reinforces the film’s portrait of sexual behavior that is damaging and unsatisfying. Its discomfort is part of the point: the scene offers no easy escape from the emotional carelessness surrounding the characters.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
A quiet encounter between the leads gives their desire space apart from the surrounding racial, economic, and social pressures. That contrast makes intimacy feel like a private relationship, not merely a symbol standing in for the film’s larger conflicts.
Bound (1996)
Corky and Violet’s intimacy puts lesbian desire at the center of a confident, stylish crime story. Their attraction is part of the relationship that makes the plot’s deception and collaboration possible, while also resisting familiar portrayals that treat queer intimacy as a punchline or a warning.
The Shape of Water (2017)
An intimate scene develops the film’s unconventional romance as a sensual bond rather than leaving it at the level of a chaste fantasy. Its narrative work is to make the central relationship feel lived and mutual within the film’s fairy-tale world.
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The peach episode and later intimacy communicate attraction, awkwardness, and the uneven confidence of a first love. The film frames Elio as 17, so the character’s age matters to how the relationship is read; the scene is best discussed as part of the film’s coming-of-age perspective, not as an uncomplicated adult romance.
Intimacy
Time Out includes the film among examples where sex is more than titillation or resonates with the surrounding story. That broad description supports its inclusion as a case for considering intimacy’s place in a film, but does not establish a more specific scene-by-scene interpretation here.
Rank #3
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When sex makes a theme or style visible
Not every essential scene is a plot mechanism. Some express the film’s ideas through performance, censorship, representation, or the way desire is framed.
Boogie Nights (1997)
A scene from Dirk’s first explicit film shoot introduces sex as performance and work, while establishing the adult-film industry as the story’s setting. Nervousness and production context matter as much as the sexual act: this is the beginning of a professional identity.
Baby Face (1933)
Lily’s use of sexuality is bound up with how she navigates economic and gendered power. The film’s pre-Code context is relevant: its frankness belongs to a particular moment in Hollywood history, rather than serving as a timeless statement about sexual freedom.
North by Northwest (1959)
A train-tunnel cutaway implies sex through a visual joke, showing how suggestion can carry erotic meaning under censorship-era constraints. It is not indispensable to the plot; its value is stylistic and historical, demonstrating that a scene can matter through how a film says something.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
An intimate connection between the women sits within the film’s unstable world of identity and desire. Its plot mechanics are deliberately difficult to pin down, but the scene contributes to the film’s emotional and thematic texture. This is a useful example of thematic significance without a neat cause-and-effect explanation.
Halloween (1978)
The film depicts teenagers having sex as ordinary behavior, complicating the later slasher convention in which sexual activity is treated as a marker deserving punishment. The scene’s importance is partly a matter of genre context: what the film does, and does not, make the characters’ sexuality mean.
The Living End (1992)
Intimacy belongs to a story about gay men living with HIV and connects personal choices to the film’s anger and politics. Its historical context matters, but the characters’ experiences should not be generalized to people living with HIV.
Rank #4
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In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
The film’s sustained erotic content is integral to its account of obsession and gender and class expectations. Here, explicitness is not an isolated ornament: the film’s subject and form are intertwined. Viewers should be aware that it contains explicit material.
The Handmaiden
British GQ discusses the film’s intimacy in relation to deception, patriarchy, and queer liberation. Those connections make desire part of the story’s shifting power relations, not a detachable interlude.
Maîtresse (1976)
A preview of Sex and Storytelling uses Barbet Schroeder’s film as an example in a discussion of explicit sex as a possible element of narrative cinema. That supports its place as a thematic example, though it does not establish a detailed reading of any one scene.
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In these films, sex can expose a character’s evolving sense of self, make performance visible, or reveal a fixation that is far from romantic.
Poor Things (2023)
Bella’s sexual exploration forms part of her broader development, and her encounter with Toinette is framed as companionable as well as physical. The film’s treatment of Bella’s childlike framing alongside adult sexuality calls for care: her exploration should not be reduced to a titillating image or mistaken for a simple coming-of-age analogy.
Saltburn (2023)
A deliberately shocking posthumous act expresses Oliver’s desire and obsession. It is not a conventional love scene; its function is to make his fixation impossible to mistake and to reveal how far his desire has become entangled with possession.
Babygirl (2024)
The opening scene establishes the protagonist’s dissatisfaction and anticipates the film’s exploration of desire and boundaries. It sets up questions about what she wants and what she is willing to risk, rather than offering a self-contained erotic detour.
How to tell whether a sex scene is doing story work
A useful test is to ask what changes because the scene is there. It may change the chain of events, as in The Terminator; alter a relationship, as in Y Tu Mamá También; or make a film’s ideas visible through form and context, as in North by Northwest. A scene can also be meaningful because it is awkward, alienating, frightening, or politically charged rather than pleasurable.
- Causality: Does the scene create a consequence or reveal that changes what follows?
- Character and relationship: Does it disclose desire, fear, tenderness, power, or a shift between people?
- Theme and style: Does its placement or form make the film’s ideas visible?
- Point of view: Whose desire is shown, and does the scene reinforce or complicate familiar portrayals?
The examples above come from several critical lists and a syndicated article credited to Lifehacker. The PressBee copy’s headline promises 35 films, but its body introduces 31; the 27 examples here are the titles for which the available source material supports a specific function or a clearly qualified thematic connection. This is a selection, not a claim to settle a definitive ranking. The cited lists include Time Out’s discussion of sex scenes in film, StudioBinder’s list focused on narrative contribution, and British GQ’s selections; the source examples and descriptions are in the PressBee-syndicated Lifehacker copy.
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