Top 20 Iconic Nude Scenes In Movies

WatchMojo

From boundary-pushing to controversial, these scenes changed how we view nudity in film. Join us as we examine those moments of cinematic nakedness that went beyond mere titillation to make cultural impacts! From puppet love scenes to groundbreaking full-frontal displays, these unforgettable moments forever altered how cinema approaches the human form.

Transcript

00:00Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute here. Who's doing who a favor? Who called who up begging for a sub?

00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for those instances of cinematic nudity

00:09that combined titillation with sociological ramifications.

00:18Number 20, Puppets. Team America, World Police.

00:25I promise I will never die.

00:28Does it matter, really, that Team America, World Police actually wasn't the first film to showcase intimate puppet action?

00:36Not really, because the other one that we can think of is an obscure 1976 adult film titled Let My Puppets Come.

00:44That leaves this feature from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to do a lot of the heavy lifting

00:50with regard to edge-pushing on-screen puppet nudity and sensuality.

00:53Lisa, you're the most amazing person I've ever met. It's only been a short time, but I think that I'm completely in love-

01:01Shh!

01:02Let's not talk.

01:04The film as a whole does a great job at playing things intentionally straight, while also knowing when to go all out on the silliness.

01:11It's an execution that essentially warped, so 2018's The Happy Time Murders could run.

01:16I have something for that.

01:19Hey, hey, hey, what's going into you?

01:22I'm hoping you.

01:23Number 19, Oliver Reed and Alan Bates.

01:26Women in Love.

01:27The Italians vulgarly say it stands for the female part, the fig fruit, the fissure, the yoni.

01:33There's just something about the music of Georges Delarue and Michael Garrett that helps make this infamous scene from 1969's Women in Love just a little uneasy.

01:43The swelling orchestra seems to blend in with Oliver Reed and Alan Bates' nude wrestling match, as both men jockey for position.

01:50I don't care how it is as long as I feel that.

01:53Fulfilled.

01:55Yes, I suppose it could be fulfilled.

01:57Themes of fraternal love are mixed with notions of sex, as both men tussle in front of a roaring fire.

02:02The ending leaves more questions than answers, as Bates brings up a possibility of the pair swearing undying love, a proposition of which Reed seems unsure.

02:11It's boundary-pushing stuff, particularly for 1969, a well-shot juxtaposition of personal close-ups and voyeuristic long shots from the camera.

02:20Would you like a bar?

02:23Hmm.

02:23I wonder who the real cannibals are.

02:34This is the infamous line uttered by Robert Kerman during the finale of 1980's Cannibal Holocaust, an infamous exploitation movie with a disturbing legacy of carnage.

02:44There's also an excessive amount of nudity within the film, although here it's not exactly designed for titillation.

02:49Instead, the movie combines a travelogue-style amount of nature footage alongside legitimate Amazonian tribespeople hired as actors.

02:58Cannibal Holocaust helped make grim history as a pioneer of the found-footage genre of filmmaking,

03:03while the unsimulated animal deaths and graphic on-screen violence were so controversial that it got the film banned in multiple countries.

03:10The director, Ruggiero Diodato, was even accused of making a snuff film, to the point where he was required to prove his actors were still alive.

03:19I'm going to try to scare him away with this, but I hope it works.

03:25Number 17.

03:26The Shower Girls.

03:27Porky's.

03:28What?

03:30No!

03:32No!

03:33Oh, God!

03:34Oh, God!

03:36The history of the sex comedy dates back decades, but there was one film that did a lot of heavy lifting when it came to codifying certain tropes.

03:44Porky's was a smash hit when it first hit screens back in 1981, making $160 million.

03:50VCRs weren't exactly commonplace within the average home yet, so lascivious movie fans still had to sojourn to a theatre in order to take in scantily clad flesh.

04:00Porky's, to its credit, delivered everything that it promised, from future star Kim Cattrall's energetic sex scene, to the girls that are spied on during their shower.

04:08Oh, hold still, man.

04:10She's coming for it.

04:11Oh, boy, she really was.

04:13It's a very un-PC movie that would probably not get made today, but a lot of people were taking notes and following in its footsteps.

04:22What, is there an echo here?

04:24Well, they're for you.

04:25For me, what am I going to do with them?

04:26Well, we thought you'd like to wear one today.

04:30Number 16, Lina Nyman and Bordje Alstedt, I Am Curious, Yellow.

04:36M, da?

04:38Men.

04:39Men.

04:40Samlar du på men?

04:41Nej, men har gjort.

04:43The release of I Am Curious, Yellow in the United States resulted in waves of both censorship and controversy.

04:49This was thanks to the Swedish film's unfettered approach to displaying human sexuality on screen,

04:54during an era where the restrictive Hollywood haze code was finally being lifted.

04:58Leads, Lina Nyman and Bordje Alstedt, show it all on screen,

05:03with one of the debates during this time being whether or not I Am Curious, Yellow was pornographic.

05:08The phrase, I know it when I see it, may have been popularized by a Supreme Court justice three years earlier,

05:14but Nyman and Alstedt's mood scenes made a lot of people want to see exactly what all the hype was about with I Am Curious, Yellow.

05:22No, don't go. It's clear to go.

05:24No, it's clear to go.

05:29Number 15, Jane Birkin, Blow Up.

05:32Couldn't you give us just a couple of minutes?

05:35A couple of minutes? I haven't even got a couple of minutes to have my appendix out.

05:39This movie wasn't the first to display pubic hair on screen, but it did make waves for doing so within the confines of a major commercially viable picture.

05:47Michelangelo Antonioni was considered a hero of Italian neorealism, yet Blow Up could also appeal to the non-art house crowd, thanks to its psychological murder mystery.

05:57This was also the on-screen debut of It Girl, Jane Birkin, the singer-slash-actress who inspired the Birkin bag,

06:04while also serving as a muse for artists like Serge Gainsbourg.

06:08You weren't expecting us, were you?

06:12No.

06:13It was Birkin's brief flash of pubic hair within Blow Up that made some in the audience do a double take,

06:19just to make sure they didn't miss anything.

06:22Right, let's move. Out.

06:24But you haven't taken any photos.

06:25No, I'm too whacked.

06:28It's your own fault.

06:30Number 14, Hedy Lamarr, Ecstasy.

06:38Sometimes it takes years or even decades for certain films to be appreciated as formative turning points within a medium.

06:46Hedy Lamarr's appearance in the 1933 film Ecstasy made history with its close-up scenes of nudity.

06:52Perhaps of more significant importance, however, is the depiction of Lamarr as enjoying sexual pleasure,

06:58a scene that helped cinema break free, at least a little, from the male gaze.

07:02Further leaps forward would, of course, be required, but Lamarr's performance in Ecstasy is largely seen today

07:08by critics as incredibly forward-thinking for its era.

07:16Number 13, Sally Hawkins and A Fishman, The Shape of Water.

07:20It speaks volumes that the self-professed monster kid Guillermo del Toro felt it fit to include a not-so-subtle reference

07:36to Universal's Gill Man as his romantic lead in 2017's The Shape of Water.

07:42Here, it's the humans that feel monstrous,

07:44while our creature that's not from the Black Lagoon finds a partner in the shape of co-star Sally Hawkins.

07:50Del Toro's adoration of monsters, their misunderstanding, and their plight ties into the love scene that's shot for the picture.

08:05It's a beautiful sequence within a film that, very often, also dwells within the unfortunate prevalence of human cruelty.

08:20Number 12, Fred Ward, Maria de Medeiros, and Uma Thurman.

08:24Henry and June.

08:26My life.

08:28Sometimes I think I need something else.

08:31An older man, a man stronger than I am.

08:35You like to make me suffer.

08:37Somebody had to be first.

08:39Henry and June from 1990 was the first film to be saddled with a brand-new rating

08:43from the Motion Picture Association of America, an NC-17.

08:48This was thanks primarily to the film's heavy erotic nature,

08:51since it was loosely based upon the writings of Anais Nin.

08:54The latter is considered to be a pioneer when it comes to female-focused erotica.

08:58He's a man life intoxicates.

09:02He's like me.

09:04But he doesn't know it yet.

09:06While the film version featured explicit nudity from its stars Uma Thurman,

09:10Maria de Medeiros, and Fred Ward.

09:12This set the stage for future NC-17 films

09:15to push for further acceptance within the very complicated world

09:19of movie ratings and politics.

09:21We should go away somewhere together

09:24where there's lots of snow.

09:28Number 11, Anne Bancroft, The Graduate.

09:31Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.

09:35The new Hollywood movement of the 1960s and 70s

09:38saw a space where commercially successful films

09:41also appealed to the intellectual side of a growing audience.

09:44The Graduate was one of the most important examples from this era.

09:53Ben, what are you doing?

09:55Although the famous bit of nudity from co-star Anne Bancroft

09:58was actually achieved by utilizing a body double,

10:01this takes absolutely nothing away from the film's impact, however.

10:04Particularly how The Graduate examines its lead, Benjamin Braddock,

10:08and his feelings of listlessness.

10:10Ben's brief affair with Mrs Robin ultimately leaves him unfulfilled.

10:14But the scene went on to help define not only the marketing of The Graduate,

10:18but also a growing public desire for counter-culture voices in cinema.

10:22You don't understand what I...

10:23Let me out.

10:25Did you understand what I...

10:26Yes, yes, let me out.

10:27Number 10, Kate Winslet, Titanic.

10:30The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like a porcelain doll.

10:38As a paying customer.

10:40Kate Winslet has gone on the record stating that the aftermath of this nude scene

10:44for 1997's Titanic was personally very difficult for her.

10:48The actress received a lot of media attention for the sequence,

10:51where she poses nude during a portrait session with her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

10:56Titanic is seen today as one of the most watched and most owned movies of all time,

11:00making Winslet's nude scene one of the most viewed in modern memory.

11:04So serious.

11:08The sequence remains artistically shot and without any of the prurient or exploitable elements

11:14often associated with these types of scenes.

11:16It was the most erotic moment of my life.

11:24Up until then at least.

11:27Number 9, Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

11:30Hey, you got here fast.

11:32Segel truly bears it all in this scene in more ways than one.

11:36This famous moment from Forgetting Sarah Marshall is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.

11:42After confidently strutting in to shake his snake at his girlfriend,

11:45Segel's character is faced with an unexpected breakup,

11:48as is the thrust of the rest of the film, pun intended.

11:51I've been feeling for a long time that we've been growing apart and we're leading different lives.

12:00The nudity in this scene is not only extremely bold and comedically acted,

12:05but it's also based on a real experience from Segel's own life.

12:09With that in mind, it's hard to imagine a more vulnerable performance.

12:13It's no surprise that this nude scene has been remembered so vividly since its release.

12:18But maybe if we just held each other or something, you would remember what it's like to be with me.

12:21No.

12:22Number 8, Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.

12:26Shame.

12:27Morning.

12:28Nice earring.

12:30Hot date.

12:31It's a question as old as the acting profession itself.

12:35Is this nudity essential to the plot?

12:38Well, this definitely is the case with regards of 2011's Shame and its stars,

12:43Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.

12:45The topic of sex addiction is one that's laid bare, pardon the pun, within the film.

12:51Shame earned an NC-17 rating thanks to its frank and explicit nudity from both actors,

12:57with Fassbender's story being particularly compelling.

13:01Try not talking.

13:03Try just listening or thinking for change.

13:07The sex act isn't glamorized here, but instead taken from the perspective of a person without control.

13:13Shame, as a result, utilizes nudity as a narrative construct and does so in a remarkably effective manner.

13:20I'm sorry.

13:23You're always sorry.

13:26Number 7, Animated Animals.

13:28Fritz the Cat.

13:29Hey, man.

13:31The poster just sort of says it all.

13:341972's Fritz the Cat proudly proclaimed that it wasn't rated X for nothing, baby.

13:40This came down to Fritz the Cat being the first animated film to be saddled with this rating,

13:46and for very good reason.

13:47I know of a place where we can be alone to join our souls in sacred truth.

13:53Hey!

13:54Sausage Party from 2016 wasn't the first bit of animation with explicit content to its name,

14:00since Fritz goes all the way within its satire of youth culture during the 1970s.

14:05The combination of political commentary, social caricature, and explicit animal nudity was par for the course for director Ralph Bakshi,

14:19who made a career out of transgression.

14:22Fritz the Cat is definitely not for kids, but those interested in outsider cinema are highly encouraged to seek this one out.

14:29Number 6, Shannon Elizabeth, American Pie.

14:33Jim, there's a young lady here to see you.

14:38Hey, Nadia.

14:38Hi, Jim's. Ready to study?

14:40Oh, he's always ready to study. He's a real bookworm, this kid.

14:43This coming-of-age sex comedy largely rifts upon tropes laid down by films such as Porky's Decades Prior.

14:50Several scenes had everyone talking in 1999, including Shannon Elizabeth's.

14:55When exchange student Nadia comes to Jim's house to study,

14:59he sets up a webcam so that he and her friends can spy on her undressing.

15:03Did I miss anything?

15:04No.

15:05You were just in time.

15:06However, he accidentally shares the livestream with the entire school.

15:11Nadia soon strips down and becomes preoccupied.

15:14Let's be honest, this scene has not aged well.

15:17Jim is called out, but only because he gets, um, overly excited.

15:23What happened? What did he do?

15:25He blew it.

15:28I guess I'll be going now.

15:30Nadia is humiliated and forced to leave the country,

15:32but somehow she and Jim have become buds by the end,

15:35in a way, we guess this scene still has people talking.

15:46Number 5, Mark Wahlberg, Boogie Nights.

15:49May I see it?

15:50Really?

15:51Please.

15:51Male and female nudity is commonplace on streaming services like Netflix,

16:04but this wasn't always the case.

16:06This is what makes Mark Wahlberg's scene at the climax, pun intended, of Boogie Nights so notable.

16:13Let's forget the other nude scenes from actors like Heather Graham or Julianne Moore for a moment.

16:17The reveal of Wahlberg's prosthetic manhood at the end of Boogie Nights was shocking for some viewers.

16:24Director Paul Thomas Anderson riffed upon real personalities of the adult industry for this film,

16:29and even cast a few as well.

16:31The Wahlberg reveal here is a tribute to troubled adult icon John Holmes,

16:36yet the execution is far from glamorous.

16:39I'm Brock Landers, so I'm going to be nice.

16:46So I'm going to be nice.

16:48Number 4, PJ Souls, Halloween.

16:51Okay, later.

16:53Have a good time.

16:54We definitely will.

16:57Nudity was nothing new within the world of 70s horror.

17:00That said, the nudity of PJ Souls in John Carpenter's Halloween served as something of a transitional piece.

17:06Soul's sex scene with her boyfriend is presented in a fairly natural way, and doesn't demonize her character.

17:13Yet the sequence is an early example of sexually active female characters becoming murder victims in slasher films.

17:19I'll be right back.

17:20Don't get dressed.

17:23Those films would eschew the character development of Halloween, or the earlier Black Christmas,

17:29and codify the final girl tropes.

17:31More and more, only the virginal females would be allowed to live.

17:35While the sexually active PJ Soulses of the world would be condemned to horrible deaths.

17:41Any of you all right?

17:51Number 3, Phoebe Cates.

17:53Fast times at Ridgemont High.

17:55Hi Brad.

17:57You know how cute I always thought you were.

17:59Home video boomed during the 1980s,

18:05which made it a perfect time for VHS copies of Fast Times at Ridgemont High to fly off store shelves.

18:11This was thanks not only to Amy Heckerling's respectful treatment of teen characters in a high school setting,

18:17but also one particularly iconic nude scene.

18:20Phoebe Cates' sequence at the pool is perhaps one of the most rewound scenes from the home video era.

18:26Although the entire thing is a bit of a bait and switch.

18:29On one hand, the front-loading of Cates' nudity is sure to evoke titillation within its audience.

18:34However, the back-end takes the wind out of the scene's sails via Judge Reinhold's Brad and his massive, uh, embarrassment.

18:43Does anybody f***ing knock anymore?

18:46Number 2, Diego Luna and Gail Garcia Bernal.

18:50There's a very fluid sexuality at play in Y Tu Mama Tambien.

19:00This story of an adult woman on a road trip with two teenage boys

19:03indulges in every sort of coupling that equation can conjure up.

19:07This includes one between Diego Luna and Gail Garcia Bernal near the end of the film.

19:22Gay sex scenes were still tiptoeing into the mainstream back during the early millennium,

19:26as evidenced by the media attention paid to films like Brokeback Mountain.

19:31Luna and Bernal's scene remains notable for other reasons, however,

19:34including their young age and full-frontal nudity.

19:38Y Tu Mama Tambien is more than just a coming-of-age story, however,

19:41and sets up each sex scene sensibly within the film's narrative.

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20:17Number one, Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct.

20:19Would you tell us the nature of your relationship with Mr. Boz?

20:23I had sex with him for about a year and a half.

20:27I liked having sex with him.

20:30He wasn't afraid of experimenting.

20:31It's one of the most famous bits of on-screen nudity from the 1990s,

20:36as well as another frequently rewound moment from the halcyon years of VHS.

20:41However, the interrogation scene from Basic Instinct also serves as an interesting time capsule

20:46with regard to consent, regret, and the business of filmmaking.

20:51I don't make any rules, Nick.

20:53I go with the flow.

20:54Sharon Stone's role in this film helped launch her into the A-list stratosphere,

21:00but the actress has come out in more recent years,

21:03claiming that she didn't realise the scene would be so explicit.

21:06She also maintained that director Paul Verhoeven didn't show her the scene's final cut.

21:11Verhoeven, for his part, told CinemaBlend that there was

21:14no way he could have filmed the scene without Stone knowing his intentions.

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