The Best TV and Movie Sex Scenes Ever: A Definitive List

Welcome to Long Live the Sex Scene, a special project by Cosmopolitan that explores why these steamy television and movie moments truly matter, especially right now. Join us as we rewind, replay, and then rewind them all over again.

Compiling a list of the best movie sex scenes of all time is a daunting task. There are countless options to choose from and everyone’s definition of a great sex scene is different. To some, there must be yearning. Others want nudity. Others prefer a little kink. Basically, there are lots of criteria that make a scene great.

Just because there’s nudity, for example, doesn’t mean it’s hot, especially if it’s completely lacking in romance, or passion, or the lead actors don’t have chemistry. As such, we decided to get really scientific. We not only made a list of our top 10, but we ranked them in 4 separate categories: sexiness (is it truly hot?), nudity (sometimes you really do want to see a boob), realism (like, please do try this at home), and whether it channels romance alongside its spice.

These aren’t necessarily the most popular movie sex scenes of all time, but each gave us something new—and often groundbreaking—to lust over. There are fewer and fewer sex scenes in movies these days period, so it feels more important than ever to highlight when intimacy does show up on our screens. Long live the sex scene.

10. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1, 2011

We know. This one’s a wild card. But Edward and Bella are obsessed with each other in only the way two leads in a fantasy vampire movie can be, and when you know the backstory (they waited for so long, neither of them has ever done it before, he’s terrified he’s going to basically kill her during sex, etc.), finally seeing this sex scene after several movies’ worth of yearning was life-altering. It’s romantic, passionate (he breaks the headboard!), sensual, and by the looks of their bedroom the next morning—as in, destroyed—it was good.

9. Titanic, 1997

Would you agree if we said the hottest sex scene in Titanic isn’t actually the one where they have sex? The infamous(ly humid) carriage scene has gone down in sex scene history, and rightfully so, but no one really talks about how sensual it is when Jack draws Rose like “one of his French girls.” The buildup as Rose lets down her hair and Jack sharpens his charcoal only adds to the sexual tension that’s been gathering between them. They’re so into each other, and you can tell that Jack—who’s already seen his fair share of naked women—is nervous. Meanwhile, Rose is flirty, confident, stunning, and decades later, as an old woman, she still remembers it as “the most erotic moment of my life.” Tracks!

8. Y Tu Mamá También, 2001

Welcome to the hottest threesome ever put to film. Not only does it give you an older woman/younger men dynamic, where she consensually guides them, but the last moments of the movie make you realize that for one character, this hookup was a final attempt at self-discovery. It also doesn’t hurt that all three people are ridiculously beautiful.

7. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 2005

The majority of rough sex on film is violent in an unappealing, often problematic way. But when the titular Mr. and Mrs. Smith turn from fighting to fucking, it’s hot because it’s consensual, and they’re rough with each other because they can be. The two spies are equally capable of killing each other, and that is, surprisingly, a really big turn-on.

6. Sinners, 2025

Sinners is many things, but one of its underrated qualities is that it is sexy. Very sexy. Exhibit A: the Hailee Steinfeld–Michael B. Jordan juke joint scene, where she spits in his mouth while they’re having sex and she’s trying to turn him into a vampire. Oh, and the
two of them are tucked away in a closet in the middle of a party, helping push this moment into gasp-worthy territory.

5. The Notebook, 2004

We can’t have a list of the hottest sex scenes of all time without including Allie and Noah’s first time (the real first time) in The Notebook. The two haven’t seen each other in almost a decade, she’s engaged to someone else (justice for Lon, I’ll say it), Noah built her a house, and when he reveals he never wanted to break up and that he wrote her letters every day for a year after their summer together, they start passionately making out in the rain. The scene only gets hotter as they make it inside, get rid of their wet clothes piece by piece, and have sex that leads Allie to have a swoonworthy orgasm.

4. Disobedience, 2017

If yearning is having a moment, this movie was ahead of its time. Rachel Weisz plays Ronit, a formerly-Orthodox Jewish woman who left her community to pursue a photography career and a life outside religion. She returns for her father’s funeral and reunites with her friend and former flame Esti (Rachel McAdams), who’s now married to a man. It’s basically a queer, forbidden love story with enough sexual tension to saw through ice, and when Esti and Ronit finally sneak off to have sex in a hotel room, it’s both cathartic and urgently passionate. Oh, and Ronit spits in Esti’s mouth. Like, a lot.

3. Red, White & Royal Blue, 2023

It’s not every day you get to see two men in the missionary position. That Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) are face-to-face makes it all the more romantic—they go slow, communicate consent, stare into each other’s eyes, and kiss passionately. It’s about their love, not just the sex. (But the sex is also very good.)

2. Mississippi Masala, 1992

There’s a lot to love about this film, including the fact that the two main characters, Mina and Demetrius, are forbidden to date by Mina’s parents but go behind their backs and do it anyway. When they finally have sex in a motel room, Demetrius (played by a young Denzel, btw, you’re welcome) sucks Mina’s nipple and caresses her legs so slowly and sensually that it is permanently etched in our brains forever. (Or at least, since this movie came out in 1992.)

1. The Handmaiden, 2016

Okay, 1930s Korea is an unlikely (and therefore extremely hot) place to find two women talking dirty while scissoring. Main characters Sook-hee and Lady Hideko solidify their forbidden love with a scene more graphic and realistic than the chaste, closed-door moments we typically get in period pieces. That they’re conning the men around them and making them look like idiots is just a bonus.