10 Movies Where The Sex Scenes Got Extremely Real During Filming

Some sex scenes in movies look so intimate, you wonder how the actors got through it without totally losing their cool. It seems so awkward to pretend to have sex in front of a whole crew of videographers, sound people, and coffee-fetching PAs. Well, one way to deal with the discomfort of pretending to have sex is to actually have sex. That’s what quite a few directors and actors have gone with, and that’s what you’re watching on screen.

There is pornography, of course, if you want to simply watch people fornicate. However, if you’re looking for graphic sex couched in a compelling narrative and stunning cinematography, these ten films will be right up your alley. Actors in all of them abandoned the simulation and nipple pasties and got freaky on camera. More efficient, really, when you think about it.

10. Love

Directed by Gaspar Noé, Love features lovemaking between actors Karl Glusman and Aomi Muyock. It was also produced in 3D and none of the sex was choreographed. Enjoy spontaneous bursts of sexual experimentation from the screen.

9. Little Ashes


Robert Pattinson’ plays Salvador Dali in this Paul Morrison directed film, and he eventually admitted in an interview to giving himself a little rub down on camera to make the whole thing a bit more exciting, saying that faking the scene “just doesn’t work… My… face is recorded for eternity.” Twilight fans everywhere rejoice.

8. Caligula


This movie is infamously graphic, probably because it was produced by Penthouse Magazine founder Bob Guccione. The leads, Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell,  don’t actually have sex with one another, but Guccione filmed scenes with his personal Penthouse Pets in post. Surprise!

7. Antichrist


Directed by Lars von Trier film, this is not exactly an erotic movie. It’s more like a horror film, but it does show some intense sex scenes between stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Only one has been admitted to be unsimulated, and that was produced with body doubles. Does that make it even creepier?

6. The Brown Bunny

The Brown Bunny famously features actress Chloë Sevigny performing fellatio on costar and director Vincent Gallo. Some thought it was fake, but Sevigny has admitted it’s completely real. It’s also the film that made her famous when it was released in Cannes, so she is owning her truth here.

5. Pink Flamingos


Directed by proud pervert John Waters and starring famous drag queen Divine, it’s unsurprisingly that Pink Flamingos is jammed packed with extremely unedited sex scenes. It’s even banned in countries like Australia and Canada for a scene where Divine works over the actor playing her son in the film. Not for everybody, but for some people it’s just right.

4. 9 Songs

This Michael Winterbottom production features real intercourse between actors Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley. Quite a few scenes of it, actually. If that’s not enough to draw you in, there’s also quite a lot of music from well-known rock bands.

3. Shortbus


Shortbus is well-known for featuring unsimulated scenes, between a group of young artist-types who form a club that meets on a weekly basis to…have sex. Director John Cameron Mitchell even participated in the final group scene, if you’re wondering why people get into movie making.

2. In The Realm Of The Senses

This 1976 film directed by Nagisa Oshima has several simulated sexual acts and a penis dismemberment. That’s your first warning. The second warning is that the erotic choking scenes between the actors is entirely unsimulated. Don’t try this at home.

1. Lie With Me


Lauren Lee Smith and Eric Balfour have some sex scenes in Lie with Me that sure looked pretty real to audiences. Eventually, they admitted they were! It was a bit shocking, because neither performer was exactly an unknown when the film came out in 2005. It seems like if too people want to get it on, they’ll do so, even if the cameras are rolling.

Especially if the cameras are rolling.