Watching pornography is a normal extracurricular activity for many women. Yet, the storylines in most porn flicks center on a delivery guy/repair man showing up unexpectedly (eye roll). Why should you sacrifice a good plot for great sex? Get you some porn that can do both. The best and most arousing porn films are often the ones that involve drama, relationships, and, ya know, things other than HD penises on the screen. But sometimes they can be hard to find. (Pun intended…?) In an effort to be helpful and sex positive, we’ve rounded up the best full-length porn movies—with ethical standards, feminist values, pretty cinematography, and good music to boot.
Emmanuelle
Parafrance Films
This 1974 French drama was actually the first in a series of softcore porn films all based on the erotic novel Emmanuelle, which was published in 1967. The plot follows a young woman named Emmanuelle who lives with her older husband in Bangkok, where he’s serving as a French diplomat in the country. While abroad, Emmanuelle embarks on a journey of sexual discovery (because would it even be a proper softcore classic without a woman embarking on a journey of sexual discovery?).
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Black Emmanuelle
In 1975, the Black Emmanuelle series, Laura Gemser, kicked off. The movies focus on Mae Jordan, an investigative journalist and photographer who publishes under the pseudonym Emmanuelle, and her erotic adventures around the world. The first installment was set in Africa and filmed mostly in Kenya.
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Blue Movie
Constantin Film
Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie was a game-changer: The 1969 movie was the first pornographic movie depicting explicit sex to get a wide theatrical release in the United States, kicking off the Golden Age of Porn. For when you’re like “porn, but make it critically-acclaimed.”
This movie is not readily available to stream online.
Mona the Virgin Nymph
Graffiti Productions
Also known simply as Mona, this 1970 pornographic film was the second porn movie, after Blue Movie, to receive wide release in the United States and it’s considered to be the first mainstream pornographic movie with a real plot focused on action, whereas Blue Movie was more of a slice-of-life movie (with sex, of course). Granted, the “action” of plot of Mona is mostly the movement it takes for characters to get to another sexual partner, but still.
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Harlot
Graffiti Productions
In 1971, noted Golden Age of Porn producer Bill Osco brought the world Harlot. Osco got his start in the industry working on Mona, and Harlot is definitely a movie in the same vein (it follows a young woman as she makes her way through various sexual situations—you know, like most ’70s porn movies).
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Flesh Gordon
Graffiti Productions
One of the great things about the Golden Age of Porn was the explosion in creativity it brought to pornography. Case-in-point: 1974’s Flesh Gordon, which answered the question, “Can a movie be a comedy, science fiction, and porn all at the same time?” with a resounding YES.
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Tonight for Sure
Searchlight Productions
This 1962 softcore porn comedy was written and directed by famed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. The movie focuses on two men who meet up on the Sunset Strip, where they enter the Herald Club and wire the venue’s electrical box to blow at midnight. While they wait for their handiwork to pay off, they watch the club’s burlesque show, chatting and inching closer and closer to the women on stage.
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The Devil in Miss Jones
There are porn movies with “plots” and then there are porn movies with actual PLOTS. For the record, 1973’s The Devil in Miss Jones is the latter. The movie is about a depressed woman who commits suicide, only to be told in the afterlife that even though she lived a good life, her suicide excludes her from entering heaven. Faced with an eternity in limbo, Miss Jones requests to be sent back to earth as the embodiment of lust so she can earn her place in Hell instead.
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The Jade Pussycat
This movie, set mostly in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is part porn, part heist suspense drama. The movie follows Johnny Wadd on his search for a priceless 13th century Chinese carving known as The Jade Pussycat, which has been stolen from a museum in Japan. The journey to finding the Jade Pussycat involves a lot of sex-filled situations as well, of course, but the movie succeeds so much as a suspense film that Paul Thomas Anderson reportedly recommended that the cast of Boogie Nights watch it to prepare for making that film, describing it as being “like Hitchcock doing a porno.”
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Naked Came the Stranger
Based on the book of the same name, this 1975 movie was filmed in New York City and follows a radio host named Gilly who likes having fun. Sexy fun. She has sexy fun with her husband, Billy. She also has sexy fun with other people, like friends…and acquaintances. And she has that sexy fun in a lot of interesting places, too, like an old-timey ballroom and the top of a moving, double-decker bus.
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Pink Prison
Magma
Billed as an erotic film for women, 1999’s Pink Prison was directed by Lisbeth Lynghøft and produced by Puzzy Power. The movie stars Katja Kean as Mila, a photo journalist who, on a bet from her publisher, breaks into a men’s prison trying to snag an interview with its mysterious warden.
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Reel People
Arrow Film & Video
In 1984, Reel People hit the porn world and changed the game as the first major pornographic film to feature sex between professional porn stars and amateurs. This led to the launch of the “Pro-Am” genre and the film is seen as paving the way for the reality porn genre, too.
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A Dirty Western
Realité
One of the few porn movies in the western genre, 1975’s A Dirty Western is, well, pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Orgies and other displays of lust in the wild west make up the plot of this pornographic classic from the Golden Age.
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Once Upon a Girl
Severin Films
If you have an irreverent side and a love for classic animation, then Once Upon a Girl might just tickle your fancy. The movie mixes live action and animation (from actual Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera animators, at that) and was billed as “bedtime stories for grownups.” The film’s framing device has Mother Goose on trial for obscenity when she dares to tell the “true” versions of several classic children’s stories.
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Bend Over Boyfriend
Good Vibrations
Sometimes, learning is sexy. Case-in-point: The Bend Over Boyfriend series, produced by sex toy company Good Vibrations in the 90s. The sex education video series focused on best practices for pegging—a sex act in which a woman penetrates a man’s anus with a strap-on dildo. The first video in the series became a best-seller and something of a classic in its own right.
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High Test Girls
Elite-Film AG Zürich
Sometimes, in porn, a simple premise is a perfect premise. In 1980’s High Test Girls, six women run a gas station together and pass the time by having sex with customers who are waiting to have their cars filled with gas.
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Bijou
Poolemar
Bill Harrison stars in this 1972 classic as a construction worker who witnesses a car accident and then goes through the victim’s purse (you know, as you do), where he discovers an invitation to a club called Bijou. As you might expect, this sets him out on a sexy adventure.
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9 Lives of a Wet Pussy
Navaron Films
This 1976 porn has a very 1976 porn plot: A wealthy, married New York heiress named Pauline sets out on an adventure of sexual discovery and exploration involving ~sexy~ times with several different people. Classic.
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Flesh Market
OP Eiga
This 1962 Japanese film is notable because it’s widely recognized as the first movie in the pink film genre. While only a 21-minute fragment of the original film (which was 49 minutes long in its complete form) still remains, written accounts of the full movie suggest it was about a young girl who ends up in the hands of criminals when she tries to get to the bottom of her sister’s mysterious suicide in Tokyo.
This movie is not readily available to stream online.
Moan
Vivid Man
Released in 1999, this gay pornographic horror film is based on the 1996 mainstream hit, Scream. And yes—it’s as fun as it sounds.
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Love Toy
Doris Wishman
Doris Wishman actually directed this 1968 softcore sexploitation film, but she was credited as Louis Silverman at the time. Fair warning: The plot is weird. In the movie, a man with a very bad gambling problem loses everything in a game of Gin Rummy (of all things) and ends up agreeing to give his debtor a night with his teenage daughter in exchange for wiping the slate clean (these kinds of problematic plot setups were pretty standard in sexploitation films of the period, sadly). The night that ensues gets increasingly strange and there’s even a twist ending.
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Breaking Point
Audiovision Investment
This Swedish pornographic thriller (yep, all of those things) was released in 1975 and, while it’s a classic in the genre, it also comes with a big trigger warning for rape for modern audiences.
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El Paso Wrecking Corp.
Joe Gage Films
The second film in Tim Kincaid’s (better known in the industry as Joe Gage) “Working Man Trilogy” of gay pornographic films, El Paso Wrecking Corp. stars Richard Locke and Fred Halsted.
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Sensational Janine
Herzog Filme
This 1976 movie is a little of everything—seriously, Wikipedia describes it as a “West German hardcore costume drama-sex comedy.” Also known by its much-longer German title, Josefine Mutzenbacher… wie sie wirklich war – 1. Teil, this movie actually has literary roots. It’s based on an anonymously penned Austrian novel called Josephine Mutzenbacher, which focused on the life of a fictional Viennese courtesan. In the movie version (which was pretty groundbreaking in its incorporation of comedy amid the hardcore scenes), Josefine is a Viennese teen who undergoes a major sexual awakening after losing her virginity to her neighbor’s lover (you know, as you do…in porn) that includes a relationship with her stepfather following her mother’s unexpected death and, eventually, a career as a prostitute.
Nothing Personal
Metro Interactive
A plot doesn’t have to be complicated to be good, and that’s more true in porn than probably any other genre around. This ’90s classic (emphasis on the ’90s) is about an Italian woman named Moana who embarks on a personal quest to improve her sex life and you have to respect a woman who knows exactly what her goals are and goes for them.
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Insatiable
I-Candy
This 1980 classic stars Marilyn Chambers as supermodel/heiress Sandra Chase and industry legend John Holmes as Sandra’s fantasy lover. In the movie, Sandra learns that no amount of money can buy satisfaction—but that doesn’t stop her from trying to find it with several of her costars while filming her first movie.
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The Grafenberg Spot
Mitchell Brothers Film Group
In this 1985 movie, a couple visits a sex therapist for help finding the elusive and magical (in 1985, at least) G-spot. The movie stars Ginger Lynn, Harry Reems, and Annette Haven and is considered a classic among porn aficionados.
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Flashpoint
Wicked Pictures
Flashpoint, starring legendary porn actress Jenna Jameson, was released in 1998 and it remains unique in the porn world thanks to its massive budget and impressive special effects and action sequences. The plot? Jenna plays a firefighter who’s habitually hot in more ways than one.
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Lebanon
Raging Stallion Studios
This award-winning 2006 gay pornographic film is part of is part of Collin O’Neal’s World of Men series of gay adult films. It’s noteworthy as being the first major porn movie to be filmed entirely on-location in the Middle East. Other titles in O’Neals World of Men series were filmed in Argentina, Australia, Colombia, East Berlin, Edinburgh, Miami, Santo Domingo, Serbia, Spain, and Turkey.
This movie is not readily available to stream online but is available to buy on DVD from several online retailers.
The Ultimate Pleasure
Vinegar Syndrome
Here’s another ’70s classic from back when plot and porn were much more linked than they are today. In The Ultimate Pleasure, an unhappily married couple jet to Vegas to indulge in their hedonistic sides when the husband finds a suitcase full of money in the back of his taxi.
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Babylon Pink
Command Cinema
This smoking hot classic takes viewers inside the sexual fantasies of several women, from a bored housewife and a lady boss businesswoman to an older woman and a curious teenager, touching on as many parts of the female sexual spectrum as you could expect a movie from 1979 to do.
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Sex Pursuits
Alpha Blue Archives
This classic is basically a who’s who of early ’70s porn actresses. The movie is a series of sexy, sexy vignettes and the film’s narrator acts as our tour guide on the erotic adventure quest. Yes, please.
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The Xterminator
Paradise Visuals
If you love a good porno parody, then The Xterminator deserves a spot on your personal watch list. If it weren’t evident from the title and DVD cover, this movie is a direct riff on 1984’s The Terminator, but instead of being a futuristic robot with a one-track mind for murder and destruction, the lead is a futuristic robot with a one-track mind for vintage, ’80s bangfests.
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Anissa Kate, La Veuve
Marc Dorcel
This super hot 2013 movie (whose title translates to Anissa Kate, The Widow) focuses on a woman named Anissa who inherits her late husband’s financial empire and is forced to contend with a businessman and his secretary, who are looking for every opportunity to take advantage of her. Spoiler alert: Anissa is not a submissive person. Anywhere.
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Barbara Broadcast
VCA Pictures
A reviewer called this flick “a playful, funny and beautifully made film for grownups, a celebration of carnality and earthly delights.” The movie is about Barbara Broadcast, a bestselling author who has a sexy interview with a journalist at a Manhattan restaurant.
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Perspective
Adult Time
This movie absolutely cleaned up at AVN (American Adult News) this year. This feature film is the definition of erotic art. A story of cheating, intense passion, and the ways people react when their fundamental views of the world are challenged, this takes everything you love about drama mixed with the sensuality of a great porn movie.
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A Taste of Joy
Petra Joy
From feminist porn director Petra Joy, A Taste of Joy features a series of three vignettes that turn, in her words, “existing porn stereotypes upside down.” The cinematography is gorgeous and the sex is steamy/female-focused—what more could you want?
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Last Tango
Sweet Sinema
Loosely based on Last Tango in Paris, this flick is about a woman who rents out a secret apartment to escape her fiancé, and ends up having an affair. The movie won The Feminist Porn Awards’ 2012 prize for “Most Arousing Adaptation,” and was lauded for its “haunting, explicit sex scenes” and “emotionally rich performances.” A must-watch for people who like a lot of romance and plot with their porn.
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Diary of Lust
Diary of Lust
Sexy researcher Carol Sharp comes to an ancient European castle to explore its history, one that turns out to be pretty darn erotic. There, she can’t help but to explore her own desires as well.
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Memories Within Miss Aggie
Cinépix Film Properties
This skin flick takes a classic plot device of the genre—a woman recounting her past sexual encounters—and weaves in elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, just for good measure.
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The Story of Joanna
Adult Video Corporation
An eccentric wealthy man dying of a mysterious illness. A young socialite. A plan for seduction. It’s the kind of plot that’s just out there enough to be kind of amazing.
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The Fashionistas
Amazon
When it comes to porn-with-plot, The Fashionistas, which follows a fashion designer exploring the underground S&M scene, is a must-watch. Considered by many porn aficionados to be one of the best adult films ever made, this ambitious undertaking was shot on 35mm film by pornographic actor-turned-director John Stagliano. The movie won 10 AVN awards and even spawned a critically-acclaimed stage show in Vegas.
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Pink Velvet 3 – A Lesbian Odyssey
Viv Thomas
The final installment in the Pink Velvet trilogy is widely considered one of the best lesbian adult films of recent years and is praised for its sensual love scenes, which feature real female orgasms.
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Half His Age: A Teenage Tragedy
Pure Taboo
If you like your porn with an undercurrent of thriller-esque drama, Half His Age might be for you. The movie, honored as one of the best adult movies of 2018, follows a teacher who is having an affair with a student and the drama that unfolds when another student discovers the secret and uses the information against him.
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Sexual Chronicles of a French Family
Courtesy
After a young boy is caught masturbating in his biology class, his French family recounts all of their tales of sexual desire and exploration. You definitely want to watch the uncensored version of this one for all the ripe sexiness.
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Justice League XXX: An Axel Braun Parody
Wicked Pictures
Even porn has gotten in on the superhero movie craze (completely unsurprisingly). 2017’s Justice League XXX: An Axel Braun Parody takes aim at, obviously, the Justice League. The movie, headlined by Romi Rain as Wonder Woman and Charlotte Stokely as Batwoman, took home an AVN award in 2018 for Best Parody.
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Missing: A Lesbian Crime Story
Girlsway
This six-part (!!!) epic is a lesson in how to mix melodrama and porn for a perfect blend of comedy, suspense, and, of course, sexiness. The movie also features some of the best girl-on-girl scenes in recent years.
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Babysitting The Baumgartners
Amazon
Based on the popular romance novel of the same name and produced by adult store Adam & Eve, Babysitting the Baumgartners is the story of a married couple who begin a menage a trois relationship with their babysitter. The movie version was lauded within the adult film community, winning the 2017 AVN award for Best Polyamory film.
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Marriage 2.0
IMDb
Marriage 2.0 explores the freedoms and struggles of modern romance through the lens of a young married couple who embark on a honest and committed, but sexually open, relationship—and navigate balancing the pleasures that come with their sexual freedom with the jealousy and vulnerability that come with them.
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The Walking Dead: A Hardcore Parody
BURNING ANGEL ENTERTAINMENT
The Walking Dead: A Hardcore Parody is essentially what you think it is: a sexy version of everyone’s favorite zombie show. And it’s actually really fun and amusing in a weird “oh, these zombies are having sex now” way. Also, please note that the tagline is: “A jizz shot was the only sure-fire way to return these undead creatures to the grave!” Iconic.
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The Bare Wench Project
Jim Wynorski
If pornographic spoofs of famous horror franchises do it for you, you should also add 2000’s The Bare Wench Project to your watch list. The movie is, obviously, a spoof of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project and, like its source of inspiration, it was filmed quickly and on a shoestring budget. The film was popular though, spawning several sequels.
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Dangerous Liaisons
Lucas Distribution
In 2005, Les Liaisons dangereuses (the French novel that inspired the 1998 movie Dangerous Liaisons and Cruel Intentions, among many, many other movies, plays, books, and TV shows) finally got the gay pornographic reimagining it’s always deserved. It’s not a huge leap from the source material to actual porn, after all.
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The Good Girl
Lust Films
The Good Girl is a 2004 short film by Erika Lust that flips the “delivery guy comes over with a pizza” trope seen in many cheesy porn films on its head, thanks to a female lens. Even better, you can rest assured that this movie was filmed on a safe set with safe conditions for the actors involved, because Lust is a marquee name in the feminist film industry, herself the recipient of several Feminist Porn Awards.
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The Friend Zone
New Sensations
New Sensations is a company known for its focus on female pleasure and the depiction of romantic sexual relationships (filmed with super pretty lighting), and The Friend Zone is one of their most lauded. The film follows two platonic friends, Kevin and Gina, whose relationship takes a turn for the sensual when Kevin creates an online dating profile in an attempt to win her heart. Think of it as a romantic comedy, with tons of sex.
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The Submission of Emma Marx
New Sensations
If you’re the type of person who saw Fifty Shades of Grey and thought, cool, but where is the sex? welcome to The Submission of Emma Marx. The movie, directed by Jackie St. James, who’s received multiple awards for her work, is a about a woman experimenting with the world of BDSM.
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The Bi Apple
Adam & Eve
Get it? Like the Big Apple, only bi. This porno about a college student’s research study of queer New York–dwelling couples was hailed by the Feminist Film Awards as one of the “best bisexual movies to come out in years.”
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The Obsession
Sweet Sinner
Speaking of Jacky St. James, The Obsession is her erotic thriller based on Single White Female. The plot is on-point (a woman is obsessed with her roommate—you know the drill), and the tension is real. “While researching for this film, what was most important to me was really getting into the ‘stalker’ character’s head,” St. James told AVN. “Motivation and intention are important. Villains typically don’t look at themselves as villains. Their internal monologue isn’t always riddled with judgment or self-criticism for their actions.” What more could you ask for from an erotic thriller?
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Pirates
Adam & Eve
Pirates is a total classic in the contemporary porn landscape—and is, naturally, based on Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s campy, at times cringe-y, and knows exactly how ridiculous it is. Oh, and it also has special effects thanks to a budget of $1 million—making it the most expensive porn movie ever at the time it was released (2005). While the movie was picking up awards, actress Stormy Daniels (yes, that Stormy Daniels) told the New York Times that plot-less porn films were her pet peeve, saying: “There’s nothing worse then when the pizza boy rings the doorbell, the girl says she doesn’t have a tip, and then they get it on.”
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Chemistry
Vivid Entertainment
In this reality TV show-meets-porn movie directed by feminist sex educator Tristan Taormino, the performers had total control over who they have sex with, how, when, and where. To quote the film’s description: “Seven stars. One house. 36 hours. No rules. No script. No schedule. Just sex…the way they want it. A 3-hour movie with 8 sex scenes.” And to quote Taormino, “I was really interested in creating an environment for porn performers where they could feel safe and comfortable, and they’d be in control of who they have sex with, when, where, and what they do. For me, this part of the process is about empowering the performers to participate in their own representation—to challenge the anti-porn notion that all porn performers are exploited objects.” Finally.
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The Opening of Misty Beethoven
Amazon
If you’re interests include “hair” and “the 1970s,” definitely check out this famous title based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Here’s the gist: A sexologist named Dr. Seymour Love embarks on a mission to transform a prostitute named Misty Beethoven into the best lover ever (total swan story). The movie is known for its extraordinarily high budget and art-y vibes, and is considered something of a hipster cult classic. (Seriously, it screened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, once.)
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Snapshot
Pink Label
Snapshot is an independently funded, award-winning suspense thriller staring queer people of color, and we are here for it. Written and directed by Shine Louise Houston, it’s worthy of praise outside the industry. It even has nods to Hitchcock, that’s how legit it is. “I’ve been working on this script for about four years on and off and I think it’s finally presentable,” Houston said in an interview. “I strive for what Hitchcock describes as pure cinema. Most of the talent I work with have very little acting experience so I write minimal but precise dialogue and film in a way that lets the editing do the acting.”
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Taboo (and Taboo II)
Dart Enterprises
No best porn list would be complete without Taboo, the completely insane and retro movie about—brace yourself—incest. Which, yes, is gross. But it’s also a subject that gets plenty of mainstream play. (Think: Game of Thrones.) It seems impossible to deny the impact this film has had on the industry, and interestingly it was written by a woman and has some very intense female-driven themes. If you ever watch it, take solace in the fact that everyone isn’t really related.
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Amanda by Night
Flickr
As one Reddit user succinctly put it, “This was the kind of porn that Boogie Nights was referring to when the industry wanted to begin providing plots.” The movie is a police mystery in which a detective teams up with a high-class prostitute to figure out who is killing her fellow call girls.
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Love, Anonymous
Adam & Eve
If you like your porn with a healthy dose of romance and some rom-com vibes, Love, Anonymous is for you. The movie is about a somewhat magical poem written by an anonymous author that leads to intimate, er, relations and affairs with several people. Think Love, Actually if the Martin Freeman part of the movie were…the whole movie.
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The Love Witch
The story of a young which who uses spells to seduce men, this classic film will make your head spin. When she meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved could send her into true murderous insanity. While not a strict porn movie, this one made more than one of us jump right into puberty.
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Behind the Green Door
Mitchell Brothers Film Group
If you liked the sexiest scenes in Eyes Wide Shut, you’ll love Behind the Green Door—a trippy, erotic classic from Porn’s Golden Age. The movie follows Gloria Saunders, a wealthy socialite who is taken against her will to an elite sex club where she has group sex with six women before being taken onto a stage through a green door. Onstage, Gloria engages in several more acts with several more partners, one of which includes a psychedelic ejaculation sequence—because it was the seventies, after all.
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School Girl
If you love Behind the Green Door, you should also check out 1971’s School Girl, which also starred Debra Allen and George S. MacDonald. The movie follows a college student who decides to research sex subculture by answering ads in her school’s underground paper. Fun fact: It made Time magazine’s Top 100 movies of all-time list.
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Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy
Cruiser Productions
The Golden Age of Porn keeps giving. Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy is just what it sounds like—a musical, pornographic comedy based on the children’s classic Alice in Wonderland. Famed film critic Roger Ebert gave the movie a positive review when it was released, writing that it was, “An X-rated musical comedy that actually has some wit and style to it. It’s also fairly mild, as X movies go; it could almost be an R, and it’s sexy rather than offensive.”
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Through the Looking Glass
Mastermind Productions
In spite of the title, this one is not based on a Lewis Carroll classic. Instead, this 1976 adult film is about a vain socialite who finds herself sexually aroused by a mirror, masturbates in front of it, and then eventually is brought to climax by ghosts from the mirror. It’s avant-garde, if you hadn’t already guessed. The film is not for everyone—it contains scenes of violence, sexual violence, incest, and the resulting trauma associated with all of the above. The film is notable for treating its sexually explicit scenes artistically.
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Maraschino Cherry
Video-X-Pix
This 1978 film, another product of the illustrious Golden Age of Porn, follows the titular character, Maraschino Cherry, who owns a high-class escort service in New York City. Cherry decides to teach her younger sister about the biz, and, in the process, both women think back on some of the most erotic highlights of their careers as escorts. The film was praised by critics for its wit and humor.
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Caligula
This film, based on the Roman Emperor Caligula’s life, is an “erotic historical drama” (sure) and has the distinction of being the only movie ever produced by Penthouse magazine. It also boasts actual Hollywood actor stars like Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, and Peter O’Toole and features unsimulated sex scenes (performed by extras, not by the aforementioned A-list actors).
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Deep Throat
This film starred Linda Lovelace and tells the age old story of a sexually-frustrated woman who learns that her clitoris is in her throat. It’s perhaps more famous for lending its name to the anonymous source in the Watergate scandal.
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Portrait of a Call Girl
This film, written and directed by Graham Travis, won a slew of adult film awards and has been compared to Steven Soderbergh’s mainstream film The Girlfriend Experience. The movie focuses on Elle, a call girl with a dark past who finds personal acceptance and freedom through a series of sexual experiences.
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Debbie Does Dallas
This 1978 classic starring Bambi Woods in a campy must-see for all porn lovers. The movie looks at a team of cheerleaders attempting to earn enough money to send Debbie Benton to Dallas, Texas, to try out for the famous “Texas Cowgirls” cheerleading squad. And, oh, the sexy hijinks do they get up to.
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I am Curious (Yellow and Blue)
These two films, beginning with Yellow in 1967, tested the limits of obscenity laws in the mid-20th century. Notably, Yellow passed U.S. standards when the Supreme Court ruled it wasn’t obscene thanks to the educational context of the film. This led to a movement in pornography known as “white coaters,” pornographic films that would begin with a doctor in a white coat introducing the film in order to pass obscenity rules under the educational exception.
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Erotic Nights of the Living Dead
If you love horror and erotica, this one is for you. The plot: A wealthy land developer buys an island and plans to build a luxury hotel there. The locals warn him that the island is cursed by voodoo magic and that it’s also home to zombies, but the businessman just doesn’t listen.
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Fuego
This 1969 Argentine sexploitation drama was written, produced, and directed by noted sexploitation filmmaker Armando Bó and starred Bó and his longtime muse/onscreen paramour Isabel Sarli. It’s also a favorite of John Waters, for whatever that’s worth.
WATCH IT
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