The Hollywood movies with A-list stars where the sex scenes are real
For anyone who finds themselves at a loose end over the Christmas period
As real as it may look to viewers at home, steamy scenes in your favourite Hollywood blockbusters are very much the opposite.
In fact, actors and directors will spend hours carefully choreographing these moments in order to make them appear as realistic as possible on screen.
Add in intimacy co-ordinators, modesty garments and clever camera angles and you'll find sex scenes are anything but steamy behind-the-scenes.
Well, excluding a very small number of cases where the actors have decided to rip up the rulebook entirely and actually get it on.
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Infamous cases of films which depict real sex include Michael Winterbottom's erotic 9 Songs, as well as body doubles in Nymphomaniac, Antichrist and Starlet.
So if this sort of thing floats your boat then why not check out our round-up of Hollywood films which feature unsimulated sex from A-listers.
The Brown Bunny (2003)
Kicking things off is 2003 erotic drama The Brown Bunny which was written, directed and produced by Vincent Gallo.
The Buffalo '66 actor also starred as one of the leads opposite Chloë Sevigny, a role which saw Sevigny controversially perform unsimulated oral sex on Gallo.
Reflecting on the scene during a 2011 interview with Playboy, Sevigny referred to the moment as 'very complicated'.
"There are a lot of emotions. I'll probably have to go to therapy at some point. But I love Vincent. The film is tragic and beautiful, and I'm proud of it and my performance," she said.
"I'm sad that people think one way of the movie, but what can you do? I've done many explicit sex scenes, but I'm not that interested in doing any more.
"I'm more self-aware now and wouldn't be able to be as free, so why even do it?"
Caligula (1979)
Another controversial title is 1979's Caligula, starring Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Peter O'Toole and more.
The erotic historical drama film follows the story of Roman emperor Caligula and was highly sensationalised, with scenes featuring graphic sex and violence ultimately cut in initial releases.
"When we were doing Caligula, it was very rare that anybody had any clothes on," recalled Mirren in a 2011 interview with The New York Times, having previously called the flick a 'irresistible mix of art and genitals'.
A 178-minute Ultimate Cut was later released in 2023.
Little Ashes (2008)
Next up, we have Robert Pattinson's role as Salvador Dalí in Little Ashes, which saw the Die My Love actor pleasuring himself on camera after finding that faking it didn't work for him.
"My orgasm face is recorded for eternity," he famously told Germany's Interview magazine. "[Faking it] just doesn’t work, so I pleasured myself in front of the camera."
Pink Flamingos (1972)
John Waters' 70s flick stars a woman named Divine who competes with another couple to be the filthiest person alive.
Given the nature of the film, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there is an unsimulated sex scene included, with viewers treated to a very real oral sex between Divine and a character named Crackers (Danny Mills).
It is Fine! Everything is Fine (2007)
Unsimulated sex isn't reserved for erotic dramas, with 2007 horror It is Fine! Everything is Fine featuring various unsimulated sex scenes including, according to IndieWire, actual penetration.
Dogtooth (2009)
Yorgos Lanthimos may be well known nowadays for films such as The Favourite and Poor Things, however, the director previously shocked audiences with his Greek-language film Dogtooth, a disturbing tale where a father keeps his three adult children locked away in a compound and in a state of eternal childhood.
According to the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), there is also 'real' unsimulated sex in the film.
Intimacy (2001)
Intimacy took the title of its film quite literally, with Mark Rylance's character engaging in a casual relationship with a mysterious woman, played by Kerry Fox.
The movie featured an unsimulated oral sex act, with Rylance later saying it was the 'most difficult job' he took in large part due to that scene.
He said: "I was convinced it was a vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.
"Hanif Kureishi's writing couldn't have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. I wish I hadn't made it."
Rylance said he felt 'undue pressure' from director Patrice Chéreau to do the scene and thought that at the time he lacked the confidence to say no.
For her part, Fox said doing the film was 'not one of her regrets'.
The To-Do List (2013)
Parks and Recreation star Aubrey Plaza previously revealed that her role as Brandy in 2013's The To-Do List involved masturbating on camera.
"In my head I envisioned a nice scene where you just see my hand slowly go out of frame," Plaza said of shooting the scene.
"I thought I was doing one thing and when I showed up it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot and I asked the director 'what should I do' and she said 'masturbate like it says in the script.'"
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
The last entry on our list is French drama Stranger by the Lake which tells the story of a man named Franck who meets a man named Michel on a nudist beach.
Being set on a nudist beach, the film unsurprisingly features a lot of nudity and unsimulated sex scenes - with the actors using body doubles for their genitalia.
Merry Christmas and happy viewing!
Topics: Film, Celebrity, Sex and Relationships
Brenna Cooper