30 Films That Are Just as Sexy as (If Not Sexier Than) Fifty Shades of Grey

Basic Instinct has one of the most famous scenes in film history. You know, the one where a panty-less Sharon Stone slowly uncrosses her legs while wearing a short dress. The neo-noir murder mystery is full of intrigue, drama, and oh yes – sex. Catherine Tramell (Stone) is a suspect in a murder, but rather than sit back and take the questioning and accusations, she takes charge and seduces the detective, Nick Curran (Michael Douglas). The two engage in a steamy affair, all while the murder case starts to unravel around them. The killing doesn’t stop, and neither does the sex.

In Bitter Moon, a stuffy British couple – Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Nigel (Hugh Grant) – meet a seductive French woman, Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner), and her (much older) paraplegic husband, Oscar (Peter Coyote), as they sail to Istanbul. Mimi holds dark secrets about her sexual proclivities and the utter control she has over the men who fall for her. But Oscar has some secrets of his own, sharing with Nigel how despite his paralysis, he can still satisfy Mimi. With his erotic teachings, he proves Nigel can do the same for Fiona and perhaps also Mimi while he’s at it.

Madonna stars in Body of Evidence, an erotic drama about a millionaire’s sexual partner who’s accused of his murder and the kinky affair that ensues with her lawyer. Rebecca Carlson (Madonna) finds herself in a sticky situation when her romantic partner – who just happens to be really old and really rich – dies, leaving her millions. Of course she can’t just have the money, though, because some people are calling foul play. Amid her trial to claim her innocence, Rebecca has a fun dalliance with her attorney, Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe). There’s money, there’s sex, and there’s a murder mystery. What more could you want?

Based on the Ira Levin novel of the same name, this erotic thriller revolves around a successful young editor (played by Sharon Stone) who moves into a new building and meets a sexy neighbour (played by Billy Baldwin), only to learn that he isn’t quite as nice and innocent as he seems. In fact, he’s a top suspect in a number of murders that have taken place in the building. She’s torn between jumping into bed with him – because he’s so, so good – and being afraid. To save her own life, and perhaps the lives of other women in the building – she has to make a choice, though.

Inexperienced and quiet college student Tessa Young’s (Josephine Langford) world gets turned upside down when she meets Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), a mysterious and brooding bad boy who makes her question everything she thought she wanted out of life. Like Fifty Shades, the sex scenes get steamier with each book (and movie), so After We Collided and After We Fell get even hotter. Plus, just like 50 Shades, After was born out of a fan fiction, though rather than Twilight, this one was written about the boy band One Direction, with the character of Hardin originally based on Harry Styles.

Belle de Jour is a French drama about a beautiful housewife, Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve), whose sexual fantasies are dominated – pun intended – by bondage and sadomasochism. Unsatisfied by her husband, Pierre (Jean Sorel), who is only interested in “vanilla” sex, she finds other places to get her kicks – including at a brothel run by Madame Anais (Genevieve Page) and with a young gangster. She starts working at the brothel under the name Belle de Jour and finds the sexual freedom she’s been seeking. Soon she’s in over her head, though, and has to figure out a way out.

This moving romance is set in the world of entertainment, following an up-and-coming young artist who feels burdened by the pressure and attempts to take her own life as a result. After her bodyguard Kaz (Nate Parker) saves her life, the two find themselves falling head over heels, and singer Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) must make an impossible choice: to focus on her career or to take a chance on this exciting and erotic new relationship. Though her dream has always been to be a star – and thought Kaz champions her in the way that a man should – it’s not as easy as it seems.

This story follows a French teen, Adèle (_{Adèle Exarchopoulos}), who after meeting in a lesbian bar, begins a deep and emotional relationship with an older art student named Emma (Léa Seydoux). The intimacy in this movie is so intense that it has an NC-17 rating. It plays on deep connections between the two women rather than raunchy, graphic sex, making it an especially appealing watch for other women. Emma shows Adèle the love and tenderness she’s always wanted and needed from a partner, championing her and building her up to the strong, confident, beautiful woman she wants to be. And while the all-too-relatable turns the relationships take will tug at your emotions, the rawness of the connection will maybe make it all OK.

A fierce, twisted rivalry between ultra-competitive prima ballerinas for the starring role in Swan Lake – what could possibly go wrong? Nina (Natalie Portman) is everything you’d think a ballerina would be: poised, proper, and perfect. In fact, she is perfect for the role of the White Swan in the performance. But newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) becomes not only a rival – and the perfect Black Swan – but an odd sort of friend and maybe sometimes more. If you’re not still thinking about that sex scene between Portman and Kunis after watching this once, we think you need to watch again.

Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, and spanking. Lots of spanking. Set during the brink of World War I, A Dangerous Method is about the tumultuous relationships between psychologist Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and a female patient. It starts with Sabina Spielrein (Knightley) coming to Carl Jung (Fassbender) for treatment, and he calls on Sigmund Freud’s (Mortensen) methods to do so. But when Sabina and Jung come across Freud years later, everything gets twisted. Sabina and Jung find themselves falling into bed together, but it only hinders Jung’s relationship with Freud, which just traps Sabina in the middle of it all.

After breaking up with her long-term boyfriend and quitting her job, Daphne (Shailene Woodley) swears off men and dating. But when she meets two handsome best friends at a party, she begins a love triangle that involves a lot of steamy sex. Each of the friends brings something different into her life and into their sexual relationship, which is why Daphne can’t get enough of both of them, continuing the love triangle. And all the sex. Sebastian Stan and Fifty Shades of Grey‘s Jamie Dornan also star in Endings, Beginnings, so we think looking at them is reason enough to watch.

One woman is hired to deceive a wealthy bachelorette in order to swindle her out of her fortune, but in The Handmaiden, things don’t go as planned and a steamy love affair begins in an unexpected way. The Korean film has so many twists and turns as the wealthy young woman plots schemes of her own. She and the woman hired to rip her off soon turn on the person who orchestrated the whole plot, setting him up to be destroyed. Amid it all these two realise that not only do they not want to be against each other but perhaps there’s more there between them than they thought.

OK, so Mr. and Mrs. Smith may not be superheavy on whips and chains, but what it lacks in props it makes up for in pure sex. The movie is about a bored married couple – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – who discover that they are both actually assassins working for different companies – and they are hired to kill each other. The sexual tension is tangible throughout the movie, both with the characters and the actors who play them, and we all know that it translated to real life between Pitt and Jolie (even if that ended up not quite so well for them years later).

The motto of Secretary‘s E. Edward Grey (James Spader) (yes, another wealthy dominant named Grey) is “if we can fully experience pain, then we can live a more meaningful life.” He begins an erotic relationship with his submissive secretary, Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal), showing her things she never dreamed of sexually. And she really likes it. Fifty Shades fans won’t be disappointed. This movie plays into the sadomasochistic kink and is anything but the forbidden relationship between an employer and an employee. This is much more raw and unguarded. For Lee, who has some emotional baggage, this escapism is everything she needs.

An unhappily married woman named Ann (Andie MacDowell) who has never had an orgasm reunites with an old college friend named Graham (James Spader), only to discover that he has the unusual habit of recording women revealing their sexual experiences and fantasies on tape. Though initially put off, she begins to accept and explore her sexuality – all while being filmed. But Graham is also filming Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), who is sleeping with Ann’s husband, John (Peter Gallagher). While their relationships are truly a mess, the vulnerability of being open on camera about sex turns out to be quite freeing and erotic.

Michael Fassbender was not afraid to bare it all in Shame, a movie about the life of a man with a sex addiction. His sex addiction is borderline out of control, taking over each corner of his life until it’s all he can think about. It isn’t until his sister (Carey Mulligan), shows up in town that he’s finally forced to really confront what’s wrong with him. And it’s not pretty. The sexually explicit scenes and subject matter earned the movie an NC-17 rating in the US, so as you can probably imagine, there is a lot of raunchy sex.

When two adult women and BFFs begin affairs with each other’s teenage sons, disaster is imminent from the very beginning – but that’s what makes this movie so fun. Of course, things get even more complicated when their romantic trysts transform into actual love. When you’re dating someone who’s young enough to be your son, and is, in fact, your friend’s son, there’s no way it could be forever, though. And while it’s steamy for a bit, it inevitably leads to a lot of drama, heartache, and disappointment. Whether or not the excitement of a younger man is worth it remains to be seen.

After New York suburban wife Connie (Diane Lane) scrapes her knee, she meets a handsome stranger named Paul (Olivier Martinez) by chance when he stops and offers to help her. What comes next is a steamy affair with him in the city. Connie’s husband, Ed (Richard Gere), picks up on something being amiss and sets out to find out what’s going on with his wife. Meanwhile, she’s having a hot relationship with a virtual stranger and fulfilling all the sexual fantasies she didn’t realise she even had. While the story, of course, doesn’t end well for anyone involved, the sex scenes are truly hot.

Boogie Nights is an entire movie about the porn industry, but surprisingly it also has a pretty compelling plot. The film follows porn star Eddie Adams’s (Mark Wahlberg) rise to fame during the “Golden Age of Porn” in the ’70s. He assumed the persona of Dirk Diggler and cosies up to fellow porn stars Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), Rollergirl (Heather Graham), and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly). But the height of fame and fortune can’t last forever, and Eddie eventually falls from grace. With Boogie Nights, you get sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. And more sex. Lots of sex.

Crash is a psychological thriller about a group of people who experience extreme sexual arousal from car accidents. This movie is seriously kinky and dark but definitely has some unusual sexual elements that many Fifty Shades fans will find appealing. The movie examines some of the more intense kinks that people experience and how heightened emotions can play into them. Just like your senses tingle when you experience certain euphoric things, the characters in this film experience those tingles quite literally when they see or perceive car crashes. It’s rough and it’s different, but it shines a light on kink in a way that many movies don’t.

The dark plot of Stanley Kubrick’s erotic thriller follows a wealthy doctor, Bill Hartford (Tom Cruise), and his single night of adventure after discovering that his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman) had an affair. Determined to step out on his own and find a tryst to partake in, he sets off, not quite knowing where to go, what to do, or what he’ll find. But guess what? He finds himself in the midst of a masked orgy organised by a secret society – and believe us, anything goes here. Bill dips a toe in, unsure of what to expect and quickly realises this may be too much . . . or maybe it’s just right.

In this movie, a manipulative telemarketing manager named Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) decides to escape both her money troubles and her marriage by convincing her doctor husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), to sell stolen pharmaceutical cocaine, then fleeing to Chicago with the profits. There she begins a sexual affair with a new man, whom she tricks into murdering her husband back in New York. We’re not sure there’s ever been a sexier, more evil villain than Bridget Gregory. There’s just something about knowing what you want in life – or what you don’t want – and doing whatever it takes to get it.

Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger star in 9 1/2 Weeks, an erotic romance about a Wall Street man seducing an innocent art dealer during a brief but intense affair. Things get very sadistic. And very sexy. John (Rourke) pushes Elizabeth (Basinger) and pushes and pushes some more with all his sexual fantasies and kinks. It gets to the point where Elizabeth realises their relationship is entirely built on sex and nothing more. In fact, she knows next to nothing about John, and once that clicks, she realizes this may not be the relationship she’s looking for. So what comes next?

Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) is a middle-aged piano teacher in a rut. She lives at home with her ailing mother who doesn’t treat her well, unable to satisfy her sexual needs to her liking. She dabbles in watching porn and watching other couples have sex, hoping it’ll entice her sexual needs, but nothing can quite scratch the itch that won’t go away. Until Walter (Benoit Magimel), one of her students, walks into her life. Immediately he shows interest in her, but as someone who has always deprived herself of her deepest fantasies, she shuts him down. Erika can only hold out so long, though.

Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a nymphomaniac. After being found alone by a man named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), Joe opens up to him about her sexual conquests, fantasies, and everything in between. Through a series of stories and flashbacks, Joe opens up about her whole life, pouring her heart out and showing her progressively raunchier past through her words. In turn, Seligman opens up as well, though his stories are decidedly more G-rated. It’s an odd match between the two of them, but each brings something that the other needs – openness and a sense of grounding – to their time together.

Sarah (Dianna Agron) is mostly just coasting through life. She gets up in the morning, she gets dressed, she goes through the motions, she goes to bed. But one day an exciting new woman shows up in her town and everything changes. Pepper (Paz de la Huerta) is new, exciting, and everything Sarah wants to be and wants to be with. Pepper saves Sarah from her boredom by introducing her to a brand new world of debauchery. There’s drugs, there’s sex, there’s stripping, and all the while Sarah is falling for Pepper in a way she never expected to do.

Teenager Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is spending the summer with his family in the Italian countryside. Whiling away the hours only takes up so much of his time, but when he catches the eye of Oliver (Armie Hammer), an older student working with Elio’s dad for the summer, the teen falls hard and fast. The pair have a sexy yet slightly questionable love affair for the summer, finding pleasure in the taboo nature of their relationship. For Elio, though, this big love means everything. To Oliver, however, this is just another blip on his radar, and in the end, both call into question the decisions they’ve made.

In a movie that’s exactly what it sounds like, Jamie (Mila Kunis) and Dylan (Justin Timberlake) decide to dabble in a sexual relationship with no strings attached. (But don’t confuse this with the movie quite literally called No Strings Attached, which is the same concept with different actors.) For a while, the two have a lot of fun, having casual sex while avoiding anything serious. After all, the friends with benefits relationship starts in the first place because they’re tired of commitment. So what happens between the two, do you ask? We’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll probably only need one.

It’s the age-old tale of falling in love with the wrong person. The Ang Lee-directed Lust, Caution finds a secret agent (Tang Wei) tasked with killing a Japanese government official (Tony Leung Chiu-wai). But in all her tracking and tracing, she sees another side to her mark. Slowly she falls in love with him and then must decide which to put first – her job or her heart. The forbidden love affair at the center of this movie grows steamy in its secrecy, making it highly appealing for Fifty Shades fans who want more torrid love affairs on screen.

Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) is on holiday trying to save her struggling marriage. However, she ends up kidnapped by Massimo (Michele Morrone), a member of the Sicilian mob. He steals her away and tells her she has 365 days to fall in love with him. The movie, which is highly questionable in terms of consent and abuse, does get pretty steamy when it comes to the sex scenes, making it one of Netflix’s hottest releases of 2020. If you’re looking for a level of kink and intense sex like in Fifty Shades of Gray, you might find it here as long as you can get past the dubious consent.