Nerve and IFC's The 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema

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There’s a reason that any talk of sex in film comes back around to certain titles again and again. Getting two (or more) attractive actors to mash their faces together and huff and puff for the camera is relatively easy. Shooting a memorable sex scene is hard.

We here at IFC News and Nerve.com sat through a lot of movie sex to make this list — oh, we suffered through it somehow. But even after all that ranking, weighing and debating, we’d be hard pressed to define exactly what it is that makes a sex scene great — in true Justice Potter Stewart fashion, we just know it when we see it, whether it shocks us, titillates us, turns us on, breaks our hearts or confounds our expectations.

The oldest film on this list is from 1896; the newest is from last year. You’ll notice we decided to leave certain standards in the field off. And as always, these lists are a launching point for you to tell us what you think.