Normal Peoplehas too many amazing sex scenes to choose just one. In episode 2, Marianne and Connell consummate their love and their first time is tender, real, and endearingly awkward. If you're in the mood for a good ol' fashioned sexy movie, you've arrived at the right place—and dare we say, the right year. As moviegoers finally returned to theaters for date nights, 2022's slate delivered the goods. So much that we're pretty sure that even superhero fare dared to be horny, right down to The Batman.

There are plenty of steamy scenes between Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson in HBO's Runand the chemistry they bring to every encounter between their characters, Ruby and Billy, is honestly jaw-dropping. Even more jaw-dropping? The fact that the sexiness we see on the show is toned down.Almost every episode of Outlandercomes with a handy Outlander sex scene for you to sweat over (YAY!), but nothing beats Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie's (Sam Heugen) wedding night—an epic display of intimacy that took almost half the season to get to. "Caitriona and I had already filmed a scene from episode 10," Heugen saidof the scene. "When we were filming, we shot two episodes ahead so we did a scene after [the wedding]—a big breakup. It was very physical and lustful. To do this somehow felt easier, but more intimate because this was more about discovering each other. Yeah, we were both slightly nervous, which I think helps. In the scene, it's part of them finding each other. We worked it out in rehearsals what we wanted the viewer to see and not see and how we wanted it to be portrayed. Again, we don't want [the sex] to be gratuitous but it's very important for the characters and what happens to their relationship." 'Sons of Anarchy' Professional motorcycle racer Bud Clay heads from New Hampshire to California to race again. Along the way he meets various needy women who provide him with the cure to his own loneliness, but only a certain woman from his past will truly satisfy him. A South Korean romantic comedy about workplace power dynamics, Jung Ji-woo enters a "play" contract with her male coworker after discovering his guilty secret: he's into male-submissive BDSM. Intrigued, she becomes his "master" and bosses him around the office until real feelings surprise them both. There are truly exceptional sex scenes in Hulu's Normal People, but the hottest by far came at the end of the series, when Connell and Marianne finally knew each other—and themselves—enough to have their most satisfying sex yet. The cast achieved the show's sexy realism in the same way good sex happens in real life—by setting clear boundaries and having open conversations about their comfort levels. I’d probably still do it today. I believe in Vincent as an artist, and I stand by the film,” she told Variety in 2016, adding, “It was a subversive act. It was a risk."

A British romantic period piece set after World War I, Mothering Sunday tells the story of Jane Fairchild, an orphaned maid who enjoys walking through the estate's library completely nude and running her fingers over their massive book collection. The sex scenes are not only intimate, but intricately choreographed. The graphic sex scene in the supernatural thriller — featuring what appeared to be oral sex performed by Sutherland — was buzzed about even before the film's release, and director Nicolas Roeg had to edit it in a fragmented manner to enable the film to receive an R rating in the US. In England, the film got an X rating. A self-diagnosed nymphomaniac recounts her erotic experiences to the man who saved her after a beating. Experimental road movie The Brown Bunny sees a motorcycle racer (Vincent Gallo) haunted by memories of his ex-girlfriend (Chloë Sevigny), and features a scene where Sevigny performs unsimulated oral sex on Gallo.The New Popedefinitely brought a new—or at least more literal—meaning to to the term "phone sex" with a scene starring Cécile de France. In spite of its religious themes, the show pushes all kinds of boundaries, especially when it comes to nudity and sexuality.

If masturbating on the set of a major motion picture sounds surreal, perhaps it's fitting that Pattinson was playing surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with Electra. Unaware of the effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed. Ita [O'Brien, the show's sex coordinator] would make sure Paul [Mescal] and I would discuss the boundaries and what we were and weren't comfortable with," Daisy Edgar-Jones, who plays Marianne, explained in an interview with The Sun. "We also agreed on touch and would say, 'this area is fine but please stay off this area,' or, 'I don’t feel comfortable with this.'” 'Weeds' Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs arguably remains the most sexually explicit (non-porn) British movie of all time. A failed London musician meets once a week with a woman for a series of intense sexual encounters to get away from the realities of life. But when he begins inquiring about her, it puts their relationship at risk.In one very memorable sex scene from Showtime's serial killer drama Dexter, the titular angel of death seemed like he was about to get his kill on with Hannah—but then got something else entirely on, instead. Masters of Sexhas plenty of hot and steamy scenes to choose from, but one of the most graphic and, well, scientific of the series came when Lizzy Caplan's Virginia Johnson and Michael Sheen's William Masters have sex for science while hooked up to monitors. A group of New Yorkers caught up in their romantic-sexual milieu converge at an underground salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality. Hulu's adaptation of Celeste Ng's novel Little Fires Everywherehad plenty of sexiness, but fans were particularly floored by a scene between Tiffany Boone (playing a younger version of Kerry Washington's character, Mia) and Anika Noni Rose (playing Pauline Hawthorne, a professor who becomes Mia's mentor). The actresses involved are clearly crazy hot, but the set-up added a layer of drama that took the can't-not-watch factor to the next level. In the scene, Boone's Mia is pregnant—with Pauline's child, which she is carrying as a surrogate for Pauline and her husband.

Movie sex scenes come in all forms and they don't always go to plan – frankly, some of them are just plain ridiculous – but there have been movies over the years that have gone one step further. Before von Trier was doing his thing and after Andy Warhol's Blue Story became the first movie featuring real sex to get a wide release in the US, there was Caligula, which starred the likes of Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren. The group of people gather at the house in Copenhagen suburb to break all the limitations and to bring out the "inner idiot" in themselves. In Netflix's The Defenders, fans didn't have to wait long for a verysteamy scene between Mike Colter's Luke Cage and Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple (and praise to the TV gods for that).Before he was setting up an Easter egg hunt in Ready Player One or getting plaudits as The Greatest Actor Of His Generation, Mark Rylance starred with Kerry Fox in Intimacy, which saw them play two people who meet weekly to have sex, no strings attached.