Sex and arthouse film go together like peanut butter and jelly, to such an extent that clips from Blue Is The Warmest Colour are streamable on Pornhub. Alternately great, gratuitous, or grotesque, the sex scenes in auteur films are designed less to titillate than they are to offend “bourgeois social norms”. In recent years, the un-simulated sex in Gaspar Noé’s Love, the necrophilia in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon, and the sadomasochism of Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy have forced spectators to reconsider what’s good taste — and the case for censorship. However, there’s no symbol of sexual or visual excess quite as impactful or memorable as the orgy scene.
Sadly, large-scale orgy scenes often veer towards the bizarre (i.e. that unsettling closing scene in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) or can be a symptom of an overall sensationalist approach, like in Lars von Trier’s frankly reprehensible 1998 film, The Idiots. However, when carried out with skill and sensitivity, the orgy scene can be beautiful, exciting, and down-right sexy. So, if you liked Eyes Wide Shut and think you’re ready to play with the grown-ups, we’ve rounded up the most memorable orgies on film for your viewing pleasure.
Disclaimer: as some of these are not for the faint-hearted, we’ve classified each film as either “hot or not” — à la Paris Hilton — so that you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Shortbus (2006)
With his film Shortbus, director John Cameron Mitchell attempted to; “employ sex in new cinematic ways, because it’s too interesting to leave to porn.” A worthy aim, even if the end result is an opening scene with a guy trying to self-administer oral sex. The erotic dramedy follows Sofia Lin (Sook-Yin Lee), an NY sex therapist seemingly incapable of orgasm (a painful irony, we know) who starts attending weekly sex parties in Brooklyn. Various sexploits and some serious tear-jerker moments ensue as sexual and emotional tensions between partygoers boil over. Making reference to the Northeast blackout, the climactic scene sees the eclectic mix of characters engage in a candle-lit orgy in the midst of a city-wide power shortage. Once Sofia (with help from another congenial guest) finally climaxes, the lights come on and the end credits start to roll. Subtle.
Verdict: A pansexual romp with serious mood lighting — hot.
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975)
Bologna-born Pier Paolo Pasolini became one of the most revered post-war Italian filmmakers with the innovative visual language of films like The Gospel According to Matthew. An outspoken Marxist and conflicted Catholic, his non-comic works are noted for their passion and brutality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his last film Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom. As a comment on the viciousness of fascism, Pasolini adapted the obscene Marquis de Sade novel, The 120 Days of Sodom, and relocated it to Mussolini’s republic. The result is, unsurprisingly, a film of horrific cruelty, where members of the social elite kidnap eighteen teenagers, forcing them to engage in a sustained sexual orgy, and submit them to mental and physical torture. Not one we’d ever (ever) recommend watching, but one of the most famous orgy depictions in cinematic history.
Verdict: More Dante’s Inferno than sensual heaven — not.
L’orgia (1978)
After the death of Spanish dictator Franco, state-regulated censorship came to an end. The result: a boom in feature films with elements of softcore pornography, widely screened in cinemas alongside mainstream films. This phenomenon, known as destape (literally the uncovering or undressing), flourished thanks to a nation-wide hunger for the kind of salacious content banned in the preceding decades. The roaring success of genre-defining films like El mundo maravilloso del sexo (The Marvellous World of Sex) gave rise to the release of seventeen “S” rated films in 1978 alone. For our noble purposes, the most important destape film has to be Francesc Bellmunt’s L’orgia — a Catalan flick about a house party that inevitably evolves into the film’s titular orgy. Don’t fret, it’s not all sex — there’s also ‘70s humour and churros y chocolate to savour.
Verdict: A fresh and fun precursor to Barcelona chemsex culture — hot.
J’aimerais pas crever un dimanche (Don’t Let Me Die on a Sunday, 1999)
Emblematic of New French Extremism —the murky cultural moment where French filmmakers seemed hell-bent on breaking every taboo possible — J’aimerais pas crever un dimanche is a post-AIDs-crisis exploration of sex and death from writer/director Didier Le Pêcheur. After Térésa (Élodie Bouchez) dies after taking ecstasy at a rave (this was the nineties after all), she is taken to a morgue, which inexplicably doubles up as some kind of sex club/ debate society. When morgue-worker Ben (played by von Trier fave, Jean-Marc Barr) decides to engage in some very questionable necrophilia with Térésa’s body, she suddenly comes back to life. From here, we watch the two characters embark upon an odyssey of sexual transgression, engaging in S&M, bondage and, you guessed it, group sex.
Verdict: Orgy scenes are the only saving grace in this brain-dead art house flop — not.
Scorpio Rising (1963)
Underground film-maker Kenneth Anger’s confrontational style is best exemplified by his 1963 short Scorpio Rising. Exploring themes of male beauty, fetishism, and the occult, the 28-minute, dialogue-free film hones in on the biker community and takes aim at symbols of American culture. Overlaying footage of real biker Richard McAuley and his gang with the visual imagery of Christianity and fascism, against a soundtrack of popular 1960s songs, the film is a controversial but influential cult classic. So controversial that Anger was forced to present his case before the California Supreme Court, in order to defend himself against charges of public obscenity. Whilst a sequence of McAuley desecrating a church is probably what ruffled the most feathers, the film’s standout sequence is a gay orgy in which the biker gang taking part is compared to Christ’s disciples. Who doesn’t like their softcore with a side of subversion?
Verdict: Bulging jeans and social commentary always get our motor running — hot.
Los amantes pasajeros (I’m So Excited!, 2013)
Nobody does camp quite like Pedro Almodóvar (sorry, John Waters) and Los amantes pasajeros is no exception. Blending pop culture and melodrama, the surreal comedy takes place in a plane headed for Mexico, which runs into serious technical difficulties along the way. As it turns out, nobody needed to listen to the safety demonstration; the cabin crew take it upon themselves to drug everyone in economy with sleeping pills, and hand out mescaline-laced cocktails to business class. Apparently a satirical dig at the perilous state of the Spanish government and economy, stylistically the film seems better aligned with early, movida madrileña-era Almodóvar. Certainly, the film’s climactic scene — an en masse initiation into the Mile High Club — is reminiscent of his sexploitation-style ’80s films like Laberinto de pasiones which, funnily enough, could also have made it onto this list.
Verdict: Sex on a plane certainly beats Snakes on a Plane — hot.
Shiroi yubi no tawamure (Delicate Skilful Fingers, 1972)
It has been noted by many a film critic that pinku eiga films — Japanese sex films, produced by independent studios and shot on 35mm — should not be judged solely for their erotic potential, since many films within the genre display experimental tendencies, stellar acting performances, and smooth direction. Tōru Murakawa’s Shiroi yubi no tawamure is no exception, particularly as it belongs to the Roman Porno genre, a higher-budget brand of pink film financed by the Nikkatsu studio. The film follows Yuki (Hiroko Isayama) a factory girl from the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, as she is introduced to a world of petty crime through pick-pocketer Taku (Ichirô Araki). After he is arrested, she is given free reign to explore her sexuality through trysts with both his ex-girlfriend and former cell-mate, culminating in a much-discussed bathroom orgy scene.
Verdict: Experimentation of both the sexual and filmic variety — hot.
The Overnight (2015)
Bonus round! Since you’ve stuck with us this far, we thought we’d round things off with a stellar orgy scene that we wouldn’t exactly describe as memorable, but which is definitely worth a watch. The film in question is actually the highly unmemorable The Overnight, starring Taylor Schilling (Piper from OITNB). New to LA, married couple Emily (Schilling) and Alex (Adam Scott) are desperate to make new friends. When mysterious couple Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) and Charlotte (Judith Godrèche) invite them over for a playdate between their sons, they think they’ve done just that. However, this couple has kink, rather than kindness, on the brain. After the kids fall asleep, a night of seduction, swinging and soul-searching ensues….
Verdict: Tackling adult loneliness and the perennial struggle to fit in, it’s less sexy, more sad — not (but in a good way?)
