For a movie about single people trying to have sex during the one night a year when it’s legal, One Night Only doesn’t contain a lot of sex. In fact, it contains very little. Most of the early reviews pointed out how zipped up and chaste the film felt, given its premise, and once randoms started seeing it, social media was flooded with similar comments from people who roasted it for being really prudish. Director Will Gluck has since explained why he kept the characters so covered up, but his explanation has only made the outcry worse.
In an interview with Variety, Gluck said during the editing process for his last film, Anyone But You, he came across “long pages of empirical data” that show people these days get “uncomfortable” when they see adult situations or nudity in a theater with other people. He said people now prefer consuming that type of material in “private.” He said he still shot a lot of nudity for One Night Only thinking he might show it, but ultimately, he felt it took viewers “out of the movie.” Here’s a portion of his quote…
I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.
There are definitely a lot of people, especially in the younger generations, that loudly complain about nudity and sex scenes on the internet. We’ve all seen the studies Gluck is talking about, and we’ve all seen people complaining on X about how adult scenes are allegedly gratuitous and unnecessary. Let the record show, however, that there are plenty of other people who actually do want to see a little sex in their movies about sex.
In fact, X has been flooded in recent days with movie fans talking about how frustrating it is that Hollywood has gotten so celibate in recent years. Variety tweeted about Gluck’s comments, and hundreds of fans fired off snarky replies, many of which attracted thousands of likes. Here’s an example that got more than 10,000 likes…
Yeah what sick freak would want to see sex in a sex comedy about sex? https://t.co/9YAhqvo1MfAugust 7, 2026
The loud and negative response has cut across genders and generations too. Plenty of Gen Z commenters have angrily tweeted about how not everyone younger than a certain age is squeamish about movies and TV showing naked bodies or tackling adult subject matter. Likewise, plenty of men and women have made their feelings known on social media with many pointing out that the whole point of creating and consuming art is to examine what it means to be human, and sex is a major part of being a human.
For many, the argument has been that there are plenty of movies that don’t need sex and nudity, but if you’re making a movie that’s literally about sex, it's a weird move to not show the sex. Here’s a snarky tweet from writer Jeff Topolski that hammers that home, which also got more than 10,000 likes…
‘A Bug’s Life’ director cut out “so many bugs” because people dislike bugs on screen: “They’re gross” https://t.co/KsKryvyrc6August 8, 2026
Personally, I’m definitely on team sex and nudity here. If I’m watching an R-Rated movie about sex, my expectation is that I’m going to see sex. That doesn’t mean we need to show cut-to shots of nudity like we’re in a late 90s raunchy sex comedy, but to me, it does mean we need to watch the characters bond and grow and relate to each other through sex. It does mean we shouldn’t cut the movie in a clumsy, puritanical way that makes it obvious we’re intentionally avoiding even a glimpse of nudity.
Once upon a time, Hollywood had very rigid standards about what movies were allowed to show and what they weren’t allowed to show. In theory, we’ve moved past that, but in recent years, it has definitely felt like movie studios have started pulling back on difficult subject matter in mainstream movies. Maybe that’s because they think Gen Z doesn’t want to see that material. Maybe it’s because they think it takes people out of the movie.
It’s obviously a filmmaker’s right to make those editing choices, but this backlash is a good reminder that there are many people out there, myself included, who are adults that want to see art made for adults. We want to see movies that are willing to go there, and I think the success of some recent television sex-forward shows like Off Campus, The Hunting Party, Margo's Got Money Troubles and Heated Rivalry that have been willing to be more graphic are further evidence of that too.
Gluck said in his interview that the original cut of One Night Only contained a lot more sex and nudity and that it was slowly edited out one scene at a time. That’s led to fans jokingly asking the studio to release the Gluck Cut or the SoMuchNudity Cut. It’s a funny request, but it’s actually not as far fetched as it sounds. Fingers crossed it sees the light of day at some point.
