Five steamy movies perfect for a ‘Netflix and Chill’ weekend
A lot changes in a decade, especially with an erotic film, because what looked daring ten years ago might barely seem sexy today. A scene that once had people clutching their pearls can end up looking almost tame beside what came after. Screen desire has always moved with the times, and nobody understands it better than Netflix.
Hence, the platform keeps a wide range of steamy movies for its wide range of viewers, but you can’t argue with the fact that change is inevitable… And this doesn’t apply to just erotic cinema. Stick film from different years next to each other, and the change is hard to miss.
Cinema keeps shifting what intimacy looks like and how much filmmakers are willing to show while drawing that line between sensual and explicit.
So yes, this weekend’s “Netflix and chill” business comes with a little homework: compare the decades and see how much sexy cinema has changed under our noses.
Five steamy movies perfect for a ‘Netflix and Chill’ weekend:
Anora (Sean Baker, 2024)
Winning the Palme d’Or would have been enough bragging rights for most films, but Anora went on to take ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars and got Mikey Madison ‘Best Actress’ while putting Sean Baker on stage for Best Director, so yes, dear reader, this little Brooklyn whirlwind is a billion times more than a steamy Netflix watch. You see, the heat is baked into the premise, since Mikey Madison plays Ani, a sex worker who meets Vanya, the reckless son of a Russian oligarch, and what starts as paid companionship goes completely off the rails when the couple marry on impulse. Romantic? Maybe for about five minutes.
Then Vanya’s family finds out what their precious boy has done, and, well, the fairy tale gets shown the door. People are sent to New York to undo the marriage, and Sean Baker starts mixing all that lust with some class warfare as Ani doesn’t let herself get steamrolled. Madison has done an amazing job making Ani look like a person who can stand her ground. So yes, come for the steam if you fancy, but do not be shocked when the fallout turns out to be the part you cannot look away from.
Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)
Yup, another Oscar winner to the rescue. James Ivory won the Oscar for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ for this one, while Timothée Chalamet picked up a ‘Best Actor’ nomination, and the film still carries that sun-soaked reputation where people still quote it when unspoken romance comes into discussion. Guadagnino knows he does not need to shove the attraction in your face for you to feel it, and that is what makes Call Me by Your Name work so well.
Set in northern Italy in 1983, the story follows 17-year-old Elio, whose mundane holiday changes when 24-year-old graduate student Oliver comes to stay with his academic family and work with Elio’s father. From there, the two grow closer, and you can feel that clock ticking in the background. The romance gets its charge from yearning, and sure, there are steamy scenes in the film, but lust is not what this film’s trying to get you to watch.
Passages (Ira Sachs, 2023)
Passages got slapped with an NC-17 rating in the US; MUBI rejected it and released the film unrated instead, so yes, the “steamy” has lots of history attached to it before you have even met these people. But sex is only half the trouble, because director Ira Sachs is far more interested in what happens when three adults start disrespecting the boundaries of a marriage.
Franz Rogowski plays filmmaker Tomas, who begins an affair with schoolteacher Agathe, despite being married to Ben Whishaw’s Martin. Then Martin starts seeing someone else, and oh, Tomas does not enjoy that one bit. Funny how freedom loses its shine when your partner wants some too. The film picked up four Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best Feature, and if you enjoy a dash of jealousy with your erotic watches, then this Netflix film will not disappoint.
Obsessed (Kim Dae-woo, 2014)
Long before The Glory made Lim Ji-yeon a face Netflix viewers could spot in a second, Obsessed earned her Best New Actress honours at the Grand Bell Awards and from the Korean Association of Film Critics, which is quite the way to mark your entry. Not a bad way to get started, eh?
The film takes place in 1969, when decorated colonel Kim Jin-pyeong returns from Vietnam carrying trauma and finds himself trapped in an unhappy marriage, only for his new neighbour Ga-heun, the wife of a subordinate officer, to turn his life upside down. What starts as a fling soon turns into an affair and starts swallowing everything around it.
The scary part is the military hierarchy hanging over the whole thing, which makes it so much more than a forbidden romance. And the real thrill comes from the fear of being caught because everyone involved is living in such close quarters… You never know: one knock and game over.
The Tearsmith (Alessandro Genovesi, 2024)
Now, here, BookTok had already done half the marketing before The Tearsmith reached Netflix, because Erin Doom’s novel became Italy’s bestselling book of 2022 and picked up an enormous online following. So, by the time Alessandro Genovesi’s film was released, expectations were through the roof. And you can see why the book crowd latched onto it: with its gothic mood and enemies-to-lovers tension with teenage angst, it had all the right elements to be a hit.
So the story starts with Caterina Ferioli playing 17-year-old Nica, who leaves the orphanage where she grew up after the Milligans begin adopting her, only to discover that Rigel, another teenager from the same institution and someone she cannot stand, is joining the household as well. Awkward, considering the two can barely stand each other. Their shared past keeps pulling them back together as that hostility starts changing into something more tender, with the legend of the mysterious Tearsmith hanging over them. And because Nica and Rigel are teenagers, we are talking romantic tension here, not adult heat, so all yearning and melodrama, with feelings being enough to produce emotions you might not have asked for.