Despite the app changing its name multiple times over the past few years, one thing has remained the same, and that is the massive collection of sexually explicit movies on HBO Max. Though an HBO Max subscription won’t give you access to “late night” content like Real Sex or Cathouse: The Series (Taxi Cab Confessions is still around, by the way), 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, and so much more, there’s a lot to unpack here.
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. This is especially true for a certain sex scene in the film’s final moments.
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 going through multiple personal and professional 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 Lucks
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 distre
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. Comedy, horror, and a passionate sex scene are all on display here.
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.
What’s Your Number? (Ex-Tended Edition) (2011)
The Director: Mark Mylod
The Cast: Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor
Based On: Karyn Bosnak’s 20 Times a Lady
What It’s About: After being dumped, losing her job, and reading a magazine article with a terrifying statistic, a hopeless romantic tries to prove the world wrong by finding “Mr. Right,” no matter what it takes.
What To Expect: The “Ex-Tended” edition essentially has the same story as the movie released in theaters back in 2011, but with some extra and alternate scenes that proved to be too much for an R-rating.
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. Sure, there’s comedy and sex at times, but this movie is so much more than that.
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.
Fight Club (1999)
The Director: David Fincher
The Cast: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter
Based On: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
What It’s About: A chance encounter with a mysterious and charismatic figure leads a 30-something insomniac to make a radical change in his life. However, he soon learns that their “Fight Club” is just the beginning.
What To Expect: A 1999-defining movie, Fight Club is an angry, angsty, and unforgettable exploration of the male psyche and the depths to which people will go. There’s violence, there’s comedy, and yes, there’s a lot of sexuality.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Director: Joel Coen
The Cast: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore
What It’s About: After being mistaken for the wealthy businessman with the same name, a slacker known affectionately as the “Dude” is thrust into the middle of a kidnapping plot that just gets crazier and crazier.
What To Expect: The Big Lebowski, one of the Coen Brothers’ best movies, is one of those classics that just never gets old. With its hilarious story, unforgettable characters, and a bizarre dream sequence, this movie just keeps going off the rails.
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 was 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. This one just gets more confusing as it unfolds.
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, much-talked-about scenes, 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 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. On top of a great story and outstanding performances (Adam Pearson and Sebastian Stan in particular), the movie also has a rather graphic sex scene that is truly wild.
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: Using a non-linear narrative structure, 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. Don’t worry, they are shot tastefully in one of the best movies of 2024.
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. With sex and violence (as well as a great story about being true to yourself), this Polish horror flick is a rousing good time.
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 to 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.
Le Bonheur (1965)
The Director: Agnès Varda
The Cast: Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Marie-France Boyer,
What It’s About: A seemingly happy father of two has everything going for him in life until he meets and falls in love with a young postal worker.
What To Expect: Beautifully written and directed, Le Bonheur features tremendous performances from its cast, who participate in some artfully shot sex scenes. While nudity is present throughout most of these sequences, it is done ever so delicately.
Desert Hearts (1985)
The Director: Donna Deitch
The Cast: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley
What It’s About: Traveling to the desert to file for divorce, a college professor is swept off her feet by a free-spirited woman who exposes her to a life and kind of love she never knew existed.
What To Expect: This celebrated LGBTQ+ romance story is full of passion, new beginnings, incredible dialogue, and beautifully shot scenes of romance that push the envelope while not being over-the-top. This magical film about finding what it means to love and be loved is a gem.
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. This is one of those movies you definitely wouldn’t want your parents walking in on you watching on some late-night HBO showing back in the day.
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. But make sure to come back soon, as we’ll have newer (and sexier) movies to add.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
