Random Top 10: Sexiest Movies Ever

Entertainment Weekly recently picked "The 50 Sexiest Movies Ever" in their November 28th issue and, predictably, the list sucks. Major balls. Not only does it skew newer (as their "...Greatest Ever" lists always do) but some of their entries don't make any sense at all. His Girl Friday at #2? Really? I know it's been awhile (and I'm really not it's biggest fan), but I seriously don't remember anything that screamed "sex!" at me. Once at #11?! You mean that movie in which the main guy tries to woo the girl in the first scene, finds out she's married, gives up and spends the rest of the time making his average indie music? Yeah, I couldn't keep my erection down during that one. Since EW's choices sucked so much, I have decided to offer my picks for the 10 sexiest movies ever.

10. It Happened One Night (1934)
Coming at the beginning of the Hays Production Code, which limited the amount of "morally objectionable" content on screen to absolutely zero, It Happened One Night managed to sneak in almost undetected by the censors. Not only is the witty repartee brimming with sexual tension, but the individual moments (The Walls of Jericho, Clark Gable taking off his shirt, the dreamy moment in the hay, Claudette Colbert trying to catch a ride) make it even steamier.

9. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Sure, Brick (Paul Newman) is a sexually confused, alcoholic who wants nothing to do with his wife-in-heat, Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor), but Cat on a Hot Tin Roof captures the sweaty, lusty atmosphere of a hot summer day in the Deep South unlike any film I've ever seen. Through Maggie's constant pleading, every slight touch and gaze between her and her unresponsive husband radiates more lustiness than you could possibly imagine.

8. The Lady Eve (1941)
Barbara Stanwyck practically glows with sexual prowess everytime she appears on-screen, no matter the genre, but she was never more lust-worthy than when she seduces a nerdy Henry Fonda (who was just returning from a year long expedition studying snakes in the Amazon) in her cabin, purring into his ear and slowly running her fingers through his hair. This is one sexy scene that would straighten any anaconda.

7. Romeo and Juliet (1968)
I've already talked about this one at length, but let me just reiterate: forbidden love + tight 16th century pants + Leonard Whiting's naked butt = Hot, Hot, Hot.

6. Black Book (2007)
Carice van Houten is a sex goddess. Whether she's being rescued by a hunky sailor or saving her ass from the concentration camp by sleeping with a high-ranking Nazi, van Houten always knows how to turn on the audience in Black Book. I should know: that first sex scene between her and Sebastian Koch turned me on in ways I never thought a straight sex scene could.

5. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Normally, guns and violence completely turn me off, but with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway behind the guns and perpetrating the crimes, murder and bank robbery has never looked more stylish and glamorous.

4. Flesh and the Devil (1927)
When people complain about old movies, especially silent pictures, being completely irrelevant and sexless, they should be pointed towards Flesh and the Devil as a counter example to this stereotype. Real-life lovers Greta Garbo and John Gilbert are so intimate in their first alone moment that I swear that they were only moments away from penetration. And no one but Garbo could make drinking from a communion glass so erotic.

3. Breathless (1960)
The relationship between Jean Seberg's papergirl and car thief Jean-Paul Belmondo is charming throughout the entire film, but it is during the 20+ minute interlude in Seberg's apartment that the sexiness really emerges. Belmondo, clad only in his boxers, and Seberg sit around and talk about nothing in particular, but it's all charming and sexy in it's own French way.

2. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Okay, so although I've scene rape scenes in other films that were less uncomfortable than the first sexual encounter between Ennis and Jack in Brokeback, the facts are the rest of the little time they spend together over the next 20 years include some very hot moments. Case in point, their first "real" love making scene in the tent or their first embrace after meeting for the first time in four years.

1. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
I know that the celebrated three-way, which turns into a full-on Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal makeout session part way through, is the piece de resistance of this film (Lord knows I've rewound that scene a good 10 or 15 times); however, many of the other sex scenes between either Gael, Diego and Maribel Verdu are just as hot, dirty and erotic as that scene. I've never seen a film before that has celebrated sex in such an open way and actually made it look sexy without depicting it unrealistically (Diego finishes way too early for Maribel's liking during their scene together). Y Tu Mamá También is the rare film that will turn you on but also make you think and feel for these characters beyond the sexpots they are.

Weekend Rental Picks

A weekly series in which I try to help emerging cinephiles reduce their anxiety by pointing them in the right direction at their local Blockbuster.

The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
The David Lynch film for people who don't really understand David Lynch. I understand why people love him, but I personally need a coherent story to go along with the visuals. The Elephant Man is the first film of Lynch's I saw and the only one that hasn't made me question his sanity. In any one else's hands, this film would have been turned into dreck; with Lynch, it's still uplifting and touching, but the emotions don't feel cheap or forced on us. The friendship between Anthony Hopkins' kindly doctor and John Hurt's grotesquely deformed man (he's not an animal) is a surprising treat as well.

Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
The greatest screwball comedy ever made. The film is so layered and well-constructed that it may take a couple of viewings to begin to understand just how brilliant it is. In comparison with romantic comedies of today, Bringing Up Baby just makes them look so lazy and lifeless. The character actors here (Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald and May Robson) are all fantastic, but the film really belongs to Cary Grant as the befuddled professor looking for his missing interclostal clavicle and Katharine Hepburn as the motormouth heiress who's in love with Grant, both giving the greatest performances of their careers (although I'm sure that there are others who would disagree).

Bad Education (Pedro Almodovar, 2004)
I was just talking with J.D. about how amazing this film is and I really, really want to see it again. Almodovar's self-proclaimed "fag noir" is really hard to describe since it's basically a strange combination of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, a Hitchcock thriller, RuPaul and the infamous make out scene at the end of Y Tu Mama Tambien with sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests thrown in as well. As a bonus, Gael Garcia Bernal burns up the screen as the mysterious femme fatale and let's us now that he is an actor to be reckoned with.