These 2015 Sex Scenes Changed TF Out of Sex in Movies

Image via Complex Original

Director: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson

Stars: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh

In Anomalisa Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Lisa, a woman who has saved up all her money to see Michael Stone (Thewlis),  an author who specializes in books about customer service, speak at a conference in Cincinnati. Michael is the prototypical Charlie Kaufman character, a middle-aged man riddled with anxiety. He’s lonely and disillusioned with his life, as nihilistic as can be. Lisa, on the other hand, is upbeat, and to Michael, her excitable manner of speaking and her high pitched voice is the loveliest and most unique thing in the world (the fact that it actually is the most unique thing is something in itself). After they get drunk at a hotel bar, the two head back to Michael’s room for a nightcap. There, a nervous Lisa reveals she hasn’t had sex in almost a decade. She nervously rambles, not believing that the guy she has a crush on is also interested in her. Michael, on other hand, is smitten, and asks Lisa to sing him a song, any song. He just wants to hear her voice. She sings "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," first in English and then Italian. It is then they have sex on Michael’s hotel bed.

Maybe it’s the stop-motion animation, but the scene, other than their moaning and breathing, is a quiet one, and the camera spends a considerable amount of time looking over their bodies, strange and stout. You almost forget that what you're watching is two layers removed from reality. In one sense it's simulated for the film, in another it's simulated because the two figures are stop-motion figures. What's so striking about the scene is how vivid and real it feels, despite the fact that the two characters involved are puppets. Their imperfect bodies seem right, and when Michael kisses her neck while she rambles on—it really brings into question authenticity. It may seem ironic, but for something so crafted— and this love scene really is so meticulously created—it feels more naturalistic than some more traditional, live action moments. 

Director: Todd Haynes

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, Jake Lacy, Carrie Brownstein

Carol is concerned with more than a quick release. Perhaps that is why it takes so long for the titular character, played by a never-more-regal Cate Blanchett, and Rooney Mara's young, aspiring photographer Therese, to consummate their relationship. After complimenting her Santa hat at the department store where she reluctantly works, Therese falls for Carol, an older and married woman. They meet again, a few times actually, and these initial exchanges drip in tension—intense glances, brief touches, what is said, what isn't. They know what they're doing is societally shunned, and it makes their first actual sexual encounter, when they are finally alone in a hotel room, that much more satisfying.

When Haynes finally gets the two in bed, however, he wisely decides not to eroticize the moment. He doesn't want us to be voyeurs. Instead he shoots most of the scene so that we are left facing their heads, seeing Carol's blonde locks against Therese's brown hair. It's just enough seeing their bodies meshed into one another. After waiting so long to see them together, Carol succeeds in offering one of the most tender, intimate, and beautifully shot scenes of the year. 

Director: Marielle Heller

Stars: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kristen Wiig

​Marielle Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl poses one of the most complicated, but necessary depictions of burgeoning sexuality I've ever seen. The brilliant Bel Powley plays Minnie, a 15-year-old teenager growing up in the 1970s. Minnie's hormones are going wild and like most teens, she's preoccupied with sex. After she sets out to lose her virginity, she seduces her mother's boyfriend, Monroe (Skarsgård), after she blatantly tells him she wants to sleep with him. It's here that The Diary of a Teenage Girl gets tricky. We see the two back at his apartment and everything goes well enough that they begin to see each other.

It's not a remarkable sex scene in any way, but it does something else that's interesting. It makes sure to paint Minnie as wanting this experience. We know their relationship is wrong, illegal even, but Heller is dedicated to presenting a film about Minnie's desire through Minnie's perspective. No matter what we think, she doesn't see herself as victim, and as she embarks on her sexual journey, we come to realize how rare it is to see a woman exploring and enjoying sex onscreen. Their dynamic may be morally questionable, but that's another conversation. This is Minnie's adventure.

Director: Peter Strickland

Stars: Sidse Babbett Knudsen, Chaira D'Anna

It would be difficult to pick a standout sex scene in Peter Strickland's remarkable The Duke Of Burgundy. For one, the whole movie, which appears like a really expensive and tasteful lingerie ad, functions as an extended sex scene. Cynthia (Knudsen) is a lepidopterist, someone who studies butterflies. She takes Evelyn (D'Anna), a young woman who works as a maid at her home, under her wing (ha!). We soon learn, however, that their relationship is not completely professional or academic, but a highly orchestrated sexual game. Evelyn's duties as a maid, for example, have been crafted. She's role playing and desires Cynthia to dominate her, punish her, berate her. At one point in the film, she even asks Cynthia to lock her up in an old chest. While arty and not always the most accessible, The Duke of Burgundy is, above all else, an exploration of shifting power dynamics. It's strange, often slow, and intentionally repetitive, but there's also not much else like it. 

Director: Sebastián Silva

Stars: Sebastián Silva, Tunde Adebimpe, Kristen Wiig

Ok, so the scene that keep coming back to my mind from Sebastián Silva's Nasty Baby is not really a sex scene. Nevertheless, it plays out like one. Freddy (Silva) and Mo (Adebimpe) are a gay couple living in Brooklyn and trying to have a baby with Freddy's longtime friend Polly (Wiig). Early on in the film, they decide that Mo's going to inseminate Polly, which happens in the strangest of ways. While staying at Mo's conservative family's house, the three end up in a bedroom. It's an awkward and secret encounter, and in so many ways plays out like a love scene. Mo, with Freddy's help, masturbates in a corner of the bedroom into a container. Polly sits on the bed and waits for him to bring it over. She then puts her legs up and injects herself with a syringe full of his semen. Sure, there's no actual intercourse going on, but the scene is moving, real, and involves so much trust and intimacy between these friends that it ends up feeling like one. 

Director: Patrick Brice

Stars: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godrèche 

There's nothing particularly transgressive about the group of characters that come together in Patrick Brice's chamber film The Overnight. Still, there's something to be said about their attempts to spice things up. Alex (Scott) and Emily (Schilling) are a happily married couple who just moved to Los Angeles with their young son. At a nearby playground they meet Kurt (Schwartzman), a hip and slightly too comfortable dude who invites them over for dinner. At Kurt's mansion things finally start to get interesting. They do drugs, reveal deep traumas about themselves, and the night, loaded with innuendos and tension, culminates in the most bizarre last couple of minutes (SPOILERS).

At some point in the evening, after their kids have gone to bed and they've all had too much to smoke and drink, Alex finds himself making out with Kurt. Soon Emily and Kurt's wife Charlotte (Godrèche) are at it. Then it's the four of them. It's super freaky to look at, all the more uncomfortable when they are interrupted by a child. As silly and light as it may be, The Overnight has something to say about our comfort zones, pushing our boundaries, and trying new things with new people. 

Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy

​Stars: Grygoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Roza Babiy

By nature Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's debut film The Tribe is a challenging one. With no dialogue or subtitles, The Tribe is a two-hour long drama that has us—and the characters—connecting through other means. At the beginning of the film we see a boy (revealed in the credits to be named Serhiy), arrive at a boarding school. He finds himself part of a rough gang who commit petty crimes and prostitute two young women who also attend the school. The violence is all the more gruesome without any verbal cues. Serhiy (Fesenko), who first pays one of the girls for sex, Anya (Novikova), eventually falls for her, and in a scene towards the end of the film they simultaneously perform oral sex on one another. It's a long and focused few minutes, but it really has you considering the other ways we as people connect in this world. Serhiy and Anya may not be speaking, but communication in The Tribe is subtle, based on gestures and tensions that seem so innate. Unfortunately the tender moment between these two characters leads to one of the most brutal moments captured on film this year, but in a movie as dark, pensive, and visceral as The Tribe, it feels special.

Director: Andrew Haigh

Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay 

45 Years takes a hard look at the marriage between Kate (Rampling) and Geoff (Courtenay) as they prepare to celebrate their 45th year together. Taking place in the English countryside, the film begins with Geoff learning that the body of his deceased girlfriend from 50 years ago, a woman he was with before Kate, has been found fully preserved. While it shouldn't be the biggest of deals at this point in their lives, the news stirs things up and forces Kate to consider her past, present, and future with the man she believes she knows more than anyone. There's something refreshingly mundane about Kate and Geoff and the world they live in, but at the same time it feels like a privilege to experience a story of people who have truly lived. The sex in 45 Years is a reminder that desire doesn't just expire after a certain age. One evening the two find themselves dancing and, although they soon tire, it excites something primal in them. We then see a brilliant shot of Geoff in the bathroom, shirtless. His stomach is protruding and on his chest we see a huge scar from bypass surgery, a procedure that prevented them from celebrating their anniversary five years ago. He beats on his chest in macho, but endearing way, and the two head to bed. Once there we see the inevitable complications that accompany aging, but it feels important to see Kate and Geoff express intimacy—important because we never really see it onscreen.