The weather’s changing, the leaves are falling, but one thing is still the same: there is a massive collection of sexually explicit movies on HBO Max. Though the days of watching Real Sex and Cathouse: The Series with an HBO Max subscription are long gone, the popular streaming service is home to its fair share of racy movies.
If you’re in the mood for some of the most sexually explicit movies on HBO Max, you’ve come to the right place. From steamy erotic thrillers to great A24 movies to iconic French arthouse films to one of John Waters’ most absurd cinematic experiences, and so much more, there’s a lot to unpack here.
The Substance (2024)
The Director: Coralie Fargeat
The Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid
What It’s About: After being fired from her aerobics show (by her disgusting monster of a boss), an aging actress turns to a revolutionary service to be younger, fitter, and more appealing to the masses. But there are some drawbacks…
What To Expect: Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is not only one of the best body horror movies in recent memory, but it’s also a biting critique of modern society. This story about incredible transformations will test you in more ways than one.
Gone Girl (2014)
The Director: David Fincher
The Cast: Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck, Carrie Coon
Based On: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
What It’s About: A man finds himself becoming the prime suspect in a missing persons case after his wife mysteriously disappears. This is only part of the story in this twisted tale.
What To Expect: Like other great David Fincher movies, Gone Girl is a twisted, thought-provoking, and shocking psychological thriller exploring a broken relationship. Intense, sexy, and surprisingly gory, this 2014 thriller has it all.
Sweetie (1989)
The Director: Jane Campion
The Cast: Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, Tomy Lycos
What It’s About: A woman’s life is thrown into disarray when her chaotic and free-living sister returns and makes a mess of things.
What To Expect: Jane Campion’s directorial debut, Sweetie, has everything you’d want in an Australian black comedy: over-the-top characters, situations caught between humor and distress, and teeth that don’t let go from start to finish.
The Hangover (2009)
The Director: Todd Phillips
The Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis
What It’s About: After losing their best friend, who is supposed to be getting married the next day, three degenerates retrace their steps in Las Vegas to find the missing groom-to-be.
What To Expect: The Hangover is arguably one of the best comedies of the 2000s, as well as one of the most absurd movies you can watch on HBO Max. With one joke (and insane situation) after another, some outrageous characters, and a story that gets crazier as it goes on, there’s so much going on here.
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
The Director: John Waters
The Cast: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Pearce
What It’s About: A traveling freak show known as The Cavalcade of Perversion travels from town to town robbing, and later killing, its patrons before things really get out of hand.
What To Expect: Those familiar with John Waters’ body of work know what they’re getting into here. However, those decent folks out there should note that Multiple Maniacs is a sick and depraved comedy that really has to be seen to be believed.
Midsommar (2019)
The Director: Ari Aster
The Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter
What It’s About: In the wake of a personal tragedy, a young woman travels with her boyfriend and his friends to a festival in Sweden where things aren’t as they seem.
What To Expect: One of the most intense horror movies in recent memory, Ari Aster’s Midsommar has a startling combination of beautiful locations and colors and unsettling images.
Emmanuelle (2024)
The Director: Audrey Diwan
The Cast: Noemie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Naomi Watts
Based On: Emmanuelle by Emanuelle Arsan
What It’s About: After being sent to evaluate a luxury hotel in Hong Kong, a woman finds herself on a journey of self-discovery, sensuality, and pleasure through a series of sexual encounters.
What To Expect: If you’ve come looking for a movie that explores eroticism, sensuality, and matters of the heart in exotic locations, Emmanuelle is going to do the trick.
Looking: The Movie (2016)
The Director: Andrew Haigh
The Cast: Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett
What It’s About: With their personal and professional lives up in the air, three close friends make one final push to find themselves and plan their futures in San Francisco.
What To Expect: A continuation and conclusion of the popular HBO original series of the same name, Looking: The Movie is full of comedy, drama, and some highly sexualized moments.
Your Monster (2024)
The Director: Caroline Lindy
The Cast: Tommy Dewey, Melissa Barrera, Meghann Fahy
What It’s About: An actress enduring multiple hardships finds her voice (and herself) again upon meeting and falling in love with a monster living in her closet (yes, you read that right).
What To Expect: Caroline Lindy’s Your Monster feels sort of like a more adult and modern version of Beauty and the Beast, but with less music, kidnapping, and enchanted furniture. Instead, there’s a lot of steamy and hot-and-heavy romance on display in this wildly fantastical romantic comedy.
There Is No ‘I’ In Threesome (2021)
The Director: Jan Oliver Lucas
What It’s About: A documentarian and his fiancée attempt to have an open relationship, but things don’t go according to plan.
What To Expect: There is No “I” in Threesome is at times a hilarious documentary about a couple attempting to step out of their comfort zones, but also an emotional exploration of jealousy, bitterness, and heartbreak. It’s not for the weak of heart, both in terms of sexual imagery and emotional distress.
Parasite (2019)
The Director: Bong Joon Ho
The Cast: Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-Dam, Kang-ho Song
What It’s About: A financially-distressed yet close-knit family slowly infiltrates the lives of a wealthy Seoul household, only to uncover a deep-seated and utterly terrifying truth along the way.
What To Expect: One of Bong Joon Ho’s best movies, Parasite became a global phenomenon back in 2019, eventually becoming a Best Picture winner by the time it was all said and done.
Love & Other Drugs (2010)
The Director: Edward Zwick
The Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt
Based On: Jamie Reidy’s Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman
What It’s About: A hotshot pharmaceutical salesman meets his match in a young woman diagnosed with Parkinson’s. What starts as a purely sexual relationship quickly turns into something richer and far more real than anyone would have expected.
What To Expect: Featuring two of the funniest (and sexiest) stars of the 21st century, Love & Other Drugs has its share of sexual encounters, awkward situations, and incredibly tender moments that’ll leave you on the edge of your seat.
Sinners (2025)
The Director: Ryan Coogler
The Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell
What It’s About: Returning home from Chicago, a pair of twins opens a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta, only to have their opening night crashed by a vicious vampire and his followers.
What To Expect: Easily one of the best horror movies of the year, Sinners is an achievement in filmmaking. With its electric performances, soulful score, and violent climactic fight between good and evil, this movie has it all, including some intense sex scenes.
Mickey 17 (2025)
The Director: Bong Joon Ho
The Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun
Based On: Edward Ashton’s Mickey7
What It’s About: In an attempt to escape a ruthless loan shark on Earth, a man joins the crew of a spaceship headed to a colony deep in space. However, in his haste, the man fails to realize that he has signed up to be an “expendable,” a worker cloned every time he is killed (which happens often).
What To Expect: As is the case with many of Bong Joon Ho’s movies, Mickey 17 is clever, it’s humorous, and it’s bleak as all hell.
Fallen Angels (1995)
The Director: Wong Kar-wai
The Cast: Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro
What It’s About: Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels contains two intertwined storylines: one follows a reluctant hitman wishing to leave his life of crime behind as gets caught between two lovers, and a second about a man on the run from police in Hong Kong.
What To Expect: Featuring some of the most iconic shots of ‘90s Hong Kong cinema, a gripping narrative filled with complex characters and devastating decisions, and some steamy romance, this is a bloody, stylized, and enchanting crime saga.
Stream Fallen Angels on HBO Max.
Carol (2015)
The Director: Todd Haynes
The Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson
Based On: Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt
What It’s About: A young photographer and a soon-to-be-divorced wealthy woman begin a forbidden romance in 1950s New York that could give them the one thing they’ve always wanted or cost them everything they’ve worked towards.
What To Expect: Todd Haynes’ 2015 adaptation of The Price of Salt is a remarkable film with a certain attention to detail that shouldn’t go unnoticed. It’s a bit of a slowburn, but this passionate exploration of forbidden love, passion, and what it means to break from the mainstream is stunning, to say the least.
Showgirls (1995)
The Director: Paul Verhoeven
The Cast: Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon
What It’s About: An aspiring dancer arrives in Las Vegas with hopes of being Sin City’s biggest showgirl, but soon finds out dreams aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
What To Expect: One of the most controversial and universally panned movies of all time, Showgirls is a cult film full of drama, excitement, and more nudity than just about anything else on HBO Max. Unlike the version that used to play on VH1 with the digital bras during the dancing sequences, this one goes all the way.
Parthenope (2025)
The Director: Paolo Sorrentino
The Cast: Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman
What It’s About: Told through a series of vignettes, Parthenope tells the story of an Italian woman whose hunger for knowledge, experiences, and life in general takes her to wild and unimaginable places.
What To Expect: Centering on a strikingly beautiful and charismatic woman (played by Celeste Dalla Porta), Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope is an exploration of love, loss, lust, and self-discovery.
It Follows (2014)
The Director: David Robert Mitchell
The Cast: Maika Monroe, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto
What It’s About: After sleeping with her boyfriend, a young woman finds herself being the latest person to be haunted by a mysterious force of evil passed down from one sexual partner to another.
What To Expect: David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows has a great premise and an even better execution. This tale of love, lust, and demonic forces passed along like a sexually transmitted disease is one of the most unique and terrifying horror flicks of the century.
The Brutalist (2024)
The Director: Brady Corbet
The Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce
What It’s About: A holocaust survivor and world-renowned architect immigrates to the United States after World War II in search of the American Dream, kicking off an ambitious, decades-long project in the process.
What To Expect: Though you won’t see The Brutalist’s 15-minute intermission on HBO Max, nothing else has been cut from Brady Corbet’s Oscar-winning epic. The agony and ecstasy of art, the deconstruction of the American Dream, and some intense sex scenes are found throughout this three-hour drama.
Open Your Eyes (1997)
The Director: Alejandro Amenábar
The Cast: Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, Chete Lera
What It’s About: After a tragic car crash takes everything from him, including his handsome face, a former heartthrob finds himself on a maddening and frightening journey, one where he can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
What To Expect: Alejandro Amenábar’s Open Your Eyes, which stars a young Penélope Cruz, is a wild and frenzied psychological thriller about one man’s downfall from being a highly sought-after bachelor to a disfigured prisoner.
Babygirl (2024)
The Director: Halina Reijn
The Cast: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde
What It’s About: A successful CEO (played by Nicole Kidman) finds her life at the office and at her home becomes increasingly more complicated after starting an affair with a much younger intern (played by Harris Dickinson)
What To Expect: A movie that took the world by storm, Babygirl isn’t for the faint of heart. With its fair share of sexually explicit moments throughout, and electric chemistry between the leads, this much-talked-about 2024 drama is worth watching.
Queer (2024)
The Director: Luca Guadagnino
The Cast: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman
Based On: William S. Burroughs’ Queer
What It’s About: An American expatriate (played by Daniel Craig) spends his days wasting away in the sun and his nights looking for young lovers in Mexico City until he meets an American GI (played by Drew Starkey), kicking off an intense romance.
What To Expect: Considering this is a Luca Guadagnino movie based on a William S. Burroughs novella, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see Queer as an intense, unrelenting, and unforgettable tale of love, loss, and lust.
A Different Man (2024)
The Director: Aaron Schimberg
The Cast: Adam Pearson, Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve
What It’s About: An actor (played by Sebastian Stan) with neurofibromatosis and crippling social anxiety undergoes a revolutionary procedure to change his appearance, only to discover that it doesn’t fix everything he doesn’t like about himself.
What To Expect: Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man is a bizarre, heartfelt, and unforgettable dark comedy about identity, image, and self-esteem in society. With a great story and outstanding performances (Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan in particular), the movie has a truly graphic sex scene.
MaXXXine (2024)
The Director: Ti West
The Cast: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney
What It’s About: Adult film star Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) is on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest stars on the planet when a dark secret from her past comes back and tries to bring it all crashing down.
What To Expect: The finale of Ti West’s blood-soaked trilogy, MaXXXine, doesn’t hold back when it comes to thrills, chills, and so much sexuality. Like its predecessors, this is one of the best sexy horror movies around.
We Live In Time (2024)
The Director: John Crowley
The Cast: Florence Pugh, Andrew Garfield
What It’s About: Presented in a non-linear narrative format, John Crowley’s We Live in Time tells the story of a young couple as they meet, fall in love, have a kid, and then come to terms with a serious illness that could upend everything they’ve built.
What To Expect: Though a movie about illness and loss, We Live in Time is very much a story of romance and passion, and that means we get some hot and heavy sex scenes along the way.
The Lure (2015)
The Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
The Cast: Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Kinga Preis
Based On: Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid
What It’s About: Not your standard adaptation of The Little Mermaid, The Lure follows two mermaid sisters as they become a popular routine at a Polish nightclub. But when one sister falls in love with a human, things take a turn for the worse…
What To Expect: If over-the-top and mind-bending versions of classic fairy tales are your thing, you’ll love The Lure.
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 and 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 build them in this crime thriller.
What To Expect: Love, lust, drama, and violence are in no short supply in Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding, one of the best thrillers of 2024.
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.
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.
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.
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 2013 HBO original movie, which doesn’t hold back on the excess that fueled Liberace’s life off-stage, as well as his attempts to preserve his public image, has more than a few explicit sex scenes.
Whether you’re a fan of erotic cult classics, decorated dramas, or everything in between, these steamy titles will certainly do the trick.
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