In the mood for some of the most sexually explicit moves on Max? Much like the HBO brand that calls the platform home, this streaming service has plenty to offer to those with a Max subscription. If you are short on time and don’t want to spend hours searching through the titles on one of the best streaming services but still want to check some of the more “adult” offerings, don’t worry, because we have you more than covered.
Below is a collection of steamy erotic thrillers, landmark French arthouse films, and some of the wildest sex comedies we could find.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
The Director: Nicholas Stoller
The Cast: Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell
What It’s About: Hoping to escape after a very public breakup with one of the biggest stars on the planet, a down-on-his-luck composer ends up having his Hawaiian vacation ruined by his ex and her new boyfriend.
What To Expect: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, though a heartbreaking movie about unrequited love, is one of the funniest romantic comedies you’ll see. But be warned, plan on getting very comfortable with Jason Segel’s private parts.
Coup De Torchon (1981)
The Director: Bertrand Tavernier
The Cast: Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran
Based On: Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280
What It’s About: Tired of dealing with the lack of respect from his community, as well as his wife’s constant infidelity, a police officer takes matters into his own hands and kicks off a path of vengeance.
What To Expect: Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon has everything you’d want in a French crime film: drama, action, romance, and some artfully shot sex scenes. It gets a little out of hand in the final act, but such is life.
2 Or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
The Director: Jean-Luc Godard
The Cast: Marina Vlady, Robert Jeanson, Jean Narboni
What It’s About: More of a critique of ‘60s French culture than a standard narrative film, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her follows a woman who balances her life as a wife and mother of two with being a prostitute to make ends meet.
What To Expect: Jean-Luc Godard’s radical exploration of contemporary culture is probably unlike any other movie on this list, which makes for an engaging and unparalleled look at love, lust, and life.
Stream 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her on Max.
Belle De Jour (1967)
The Director: Luis Buñuel
The Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Pierre Clementi
What It’s About: Growing bored with life at home, the wife of a wealthy doctor decides to take a new path in life by spending her afternoons as a call girl at a Paris brothel.
What To Expect: Combining elements of surrealist erotica and psychological drama, Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film, Belle de Jour is a cool and moody French film about everything from existential crises to sexual awakenings to finding meaning in a mad world.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
The Director: Rose Glass
The Cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone
What It’s About: Two lovers – a gym manager and an on-the-rise bodybuilder – think they have a good thing going with their budding romance. However, their dreams come crashing down as quickly as they built them in this crime thriller.
What To Expect: Love, lust, drama, and violence are in no short order in Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding, one of the best thrillers of 2024.
Disobedience (2018)
The Director: Sebastian Lelio
The Cast: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alesandro Nivola
What It’s About: Years after being exiled from her conservative Orthodox Jewish community, a photographer returns and rekindles a long-lost love.
What To Expect: Disobedience is a story of forbidden love, past trauma, and finding one’s place in the world (even if that means losing everything in the process). With drama and a swirling romance centered around its two leads, the movie is a tour de force.
Black Swan (2010)
The Director: Darren Aronofsky
The Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder
What It’s About: A tormented ballerina slowly loses touch with reality after becoming consumed by an upcoming performance and a rivalry with a mysterious fellow dancer.
What To Expect: Like a lot of great Darren Aronofsky movies, Black Swan blurs the lines between reality and fantasy while also not shying away from sexual themes. This is especially true when it comes to the relationship shared by Nina and Lily as they prepare for the production of Swan Lake, one that results in some intense moments in practice studios, on stage, and at a nightclub.
American Honey (2016)
The Director: Andrea Arnold
The Cast: Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough
What It’s About: A troubled youth joins a group of social outcasts traveling the American Midwest selling magazine subscriptions and getting into all kinds of mischief.
What To Expect: Throughout the journey through the heartland, the group engages in all kinds of illicit activities and sexual encounters, which ultimately leads to some wildly explicit scenes.
Demonlover (2002)
The Director: Olivier Assayas
The Cast: Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny, Gina Gershon
What It’s About: An ambitious and cutthroat media executive goes to great lengths to acquire a Japanese animation house to give her company the upper hand. But that’s where things get out of hand.
What To Expect: Probably one of the most notorious examples of the New French Extremity movement, Demonlover combines elements of erotic thrillers with corporate espionage to create an unforgettable and boundary-pushing experience.
Le Bonheur (1965)
The Director: Agnès Varda
The Cast: Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Marie-France Boyer,
What It’s About: A seemingly happy father of two has everything going for him in life until he meets and falls in love with a young postal worker.
What To Expect: Beautifully written and directed, Le Bonheur features tremendous performances from its cast, who participate in some artfully shot sex scenes. While there is nudity throughout most of these sequences, it is done ever so delicately that makes it more like art than anything else.
Desert Hearts (1985)
The Director: Donna Deitch
The Cast: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley
What It’s About: Traveling to the desert to file for divorce, a college professor is swept off her feet by a free-spirited woman who exposes her to a life and kind of love she never knew existed.
What To Expect: This celebrated LGBTQ+ romance story is full of passion, new beginnings, incredible dialogue, and beautifully and tastefully shot scenes of romance that push the envelope while not being over-the-top. This magical film about finding what it means to love and to be loved is a gem.
Happy Together (1997)
The Director: Wong Kar-wai
The Cast: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Chen Chang
What It’s About: A gay couple who embark upon a disastrous trip to Argentina, where their relationship and lives fall apart.
What To Expect: Bouncing between hope and hopelessness, this intense drama about broken people trying to endure a terrible situation (and toxic relationships) is an utterly fascinating exploration of the human experience.
Je Tu Il Elle (1975)
The Director: Chantal Akerman
The Cast: Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire Wauthion
What It’s About: A young woman sets out to understand the world around her and how she fits in it. Through encounters with both male and female lovers, solitary moments rearranging her small and meager apartment, and traversing the French countryside, this journey of self-discovery is full of passionate and explicit moments.
What To Expect: Though an early sexual encounter is largely obscured by camera angles and low lighting, a nearly 10-minute sex scene involving Julie and her ex-lover (played by Claire Wauthion) leaves very little to the imagination.
Killing Me Softly (2002)
The Director: Chen Kaige
The Cast: Heather Graham, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone
What It’s About: A woman begins to learn that all is not how it seems in her marriage after learning more about her new husband’s past and previous relationships.
What To Expect: Like other sexy thrillers over the years, Killing Me Softly combines crime, violence, and an intricate plot with racy sex scenes that don’t hold back. Expect nudity, scenes of passion, moments of bliss, and all kinds of intrigue before the credits roll.
Working Girls (1986)
The Director: Lizzie Borden
The Cast: Louise Smith, Amanda Goodwin, Marusia Zach
What It’s About: A day in the lives of a group of sex workers as they are visited by multiple clients at a New York City brothel in a single day.
What To Expect: The movie is full of nudity, sex scenes, and all kinds of risque behavior that pushes the envelope and the boundaries as to what’s acceptable in a movie. This is one of those movies you definitely wouldn’t want your parents walking in on you watching on some late-night HBO showing back in the day.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down (1990)
The Director: Pedro Almodóvar
The Cast: Antonio Banderas, Victoria Abril, Loles León
What It’s About: A recently released psychiatric patient tries to find a former adult film star and convince her to fall in love with him, though how he goes about this is far from romantic.
What To Expect: One of Antonio Banderas’ best movies, Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down! leaves little to the imagination and displays exactly why the MPAA gave it an X rating before replacing it with the NC-17 distinction.
Gia (1998)
The Director: Michael Cristofer
The Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Mitchell, Faye Dunaway
What It’s About: The life and times of supermodel Gia Carangi (Jolie) are explored in great detail, as are her various romantic relationships.
What To Expect: The biographical drama, which doesn’t hold back when it comes to the depictions of the model’s battle with drug abuse, AIDS, and her sexuality, also features some incredibly sexual scenes.
The Piano Teacher (2001)
The Director: Michael Haneke
The Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Magimel, Annie Girardot
What It’s About: A closed-off woman’s sexual release comes in the form of voyeurism and masochism until a chance encounter with a student at her prestigious music conservatory.
What To Expect: In addition to a couple of intense sexual moments, there is a scene near the halfway point where Isabelle Huppert’s character watches a couple have sex in their car at a drive-in, at one point leaning against the car while they make love inside.
Behind The Candelabra (2013)
The Director: Steven Soderbergh
The Cast: Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Rob Lowe
What It’s About: An exploration of legendary Las Vegas pianist Liberace and his intense relationship with a lover in the final years of his life.
What To Expect: The movie, which really hones in on the excess that fueled Liberace’s life off-stage, as well as his attempts to preserve his public image, also has more than a few explicit sex scenes.
Whether you’re a fan of hilarious sex comedies, classic French films, or everything in between, these steamy titles will certainly do the trick.
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