25 Streaming Movies With Hot Lesbian Sex Scenes

Lesbian sex: it’s a thing we have, but it’s also a thing we watch other people have on a screen! We love a good lesbian sex scene. These formative cinematic experiences have helped make us the gay sexual creatures we are today.

Five years ago, I solicited hot lesbian sex scene tips on twitter and combined that input with my own personal opinions, which includes the opinion that Elena Undone is a bad movie and nobody should have to watch it for any reason. That list has evolved over time into this list — an up-to-date collection of the best lesbian sex scenes that you can stream right this very moment.

This is not a comprehensive list, and only represents films available to stream. I imagine if you’re here with me today reading this, you’re probably not looking for recommendations on DVDs to mail-order. Just a hunch!

This post was originally written in 2018 and has been updated in 2024.


Kinky Lesbian Sex Scenes

Bound (1996)

Directed & Written By: Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski

Lesbian Sex Scenes: Jennifer Tilly tilts her head back as Gina Gershon kisses her neck.

Lana and Lilly were fans of sex-positive guru Susie Bright’s Lesbian Sex Worldso they sent her a package in the early ’90s that contained a draft of Bound, asking if she’d honor them with a cameo. (Lana and Lilly are sisters and trans women who at the time that this film was made were still presenting as male.) It wasn’t an unusual request or one that particularly interested her, but she was impressed by the studio they were associated with and thus sat down to read the script. She fell in love with it immediately and agreed to the cameo but also offered them a different type of support: “If you don’t think I’m too presumptuous, could I be your lesbian-sex consultant?,” she wrote. “I notice that whenever two lovers fall into an embrace, it doesn’t say exactly what happens next. On behalf of every moviegoer who can’t live through another syrupy, comb all lesbian love scene, could I please, please, please give you my words of advice on what two women like this would do in bed together?”  They said yes, and she did, and holy shit did that decision pay off! Bound is streaming on Paramount+.

The Duke of Burgundy (2015)

Directed & Written by: Peter Strickland

Lesbian sex scenes: A woman in white rubs the back of a woman wearing black tights.

The Duke of Burgundy involves an extensive, drawn-out dom/sub relationship between a lepidopterist (somebody who studies butterflies) and the maid she brings into her home who has a lot of very kinky desires. It’s a very… unique film? There’s no actual nudity but the lingerie they’re wearing is so hot that it sort of compensates for itself. The Duke of Burgundy is streaming on Pluto.

The Handmaiden (2016)

Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Written by: Chan-wook Park and Seo-Kyung Chung, adapted from Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

A fully dressed woman leans over with her thimble covered thumb inside a naked woman's mouth as that woman sits in a tub and watches her.

A beautiful, thrilling, meticulously plotted film; sumptuous and precise and erotically charged throughout. I could watch The Handmaiden ten times and it wouldn’t be enough but nothing will ever beat that first twisty time. Pajaba called it “the lesbian gothic psychosexual romantic thriller of our dreams.” Teo Bugbee at MTV called it “a film dedicated to getting off on the creative potential of sexuality, and by grounding that open exploration of desire in a story where two women find freedom through each other.” The sex itself isn’t kinky, but the movie is so directly about kink that it made the list anyhow. The Handmaiden is streaming on Prime Video.

Mommy is Coming (2012)

Written by: Sarah Schulman & Cheryl Dunye
Directed by: Cheryl Dunye

Lesbian sex scenes: A woman with short hair points a condom covered gun at her masc lover's head in the back of a cab.

Cheryl Dunye’s campy sex comedy set in the Berlin queer underground finds power femme Dylan (Lili Harlow) and charming masc Claudia (played by queer porn performer Papi Coxxx) looking to spice up their monogamous relationship with some sexual adventures. Dylan finds new experiences in a BDSM sex club and Claudia, now presenting as Claude, meets an older woman at the hotel where he works who turns out to be Dylan’s Mom! “With its embrace of older bodies, bodies of color, and bodies that do not fit into any one gender, the film also reflects an ever more fluid sense of erotic queer representation,” writes Julia Bryan-Wilson in ArtForum. “All manner of configurations of desire are on display here, as an astonishing array of objects and appendages are inserted and received in various orifices.” Mommy is Coming is streaming on Prime Video.

Professor Marston & The Wonder Women (2017)

Directed & Written by: Angela Robinson

A man watches on as one woman holds onto a rope that's tied around a younger woman who is dressed like Wonder Woman.

If you don’t want any men in your sex scenes, this isn’t the film for you. But if that element doesn’t turn you off, you’re in for a lesbian-written-and-directed DELIGHT. This movie is hot and kinky as hell and makes you feel like it’s okay to want what you want and it will probably inspire you to go out there and get what you want without shame or inhibition. Professor Marston & The Wonder Women is streaming on Tubi.

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Directed by: Rose Glass
Written by: Rose Glass & Weronika Tofilska

kristen stewart and katy o'brian kissing

Screenshot

We’ve got a transition from injecting steroids into making out, we’ve got toe-sucking, protein-shake licking, “I wanna stretch you and see how far you can go.” Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien talked a lot about the film’s lesbian sex scenes on their press tour, and how they wanted to do something different and authentic. Stewart told Them Magazine: “The ways that you let the person you’re with either take over or be consumed, those were choices, and they were very articulate, yet nonverbal decisions that we made together.” Love Lies Bleeding is streaming on VOD, including YouTube.


Wow Just a Lot of Lesbian Sex Happening

Better Than Chocolate (1999)

Directed by: Anne Wheeler
Written by: Peggy Thompson

Lesbian sex scenes: A woman leans back in ecstasy as another woman paints lines on her with yellow and brown paints.

I’m sorry everybody but this is a mediocre film and the sex scenes give me chronic internalized homophobia but so many of you brought this up on Twitter that I felt obligated to include it. It was, for its time, pretty wonderful, and was the first movie to show a trans woman with a lesbian friend group. It does have, to its credit, a lot of sexual content — we’ve got a sex toy collector, we’ve got bodypaint sex, we’ve got shower sex, we’ve got a mom discovering sex toys, we’ve got bathroom sex complete with a line of lesbians (patiently??!) waiting to use the bathroom where sex is being had. So much sex! Good on everybody involved in this seminal film for having sex! Better Than Chocolate is streaming on Tubi.

Concussion (2013)

Directed & Written By: Stacie Passon

Lesbian sex scenes: A fully dressed woman kisses a woman in lingerie as they both lie down on a bed.

After a concussion, a lesbian mom decides to become a sex worker who only sees women clients, leading to a bunch of small trysts and one complicated affair. Once upon a time I was feeling not particularly sexual but knew sex was on the agenda for that evening so I turned off all the lights and watched this movie with as much devoted attention as I possibly could muster and you know what, it worked! Concussion is streaming on Vudu.

Drive Away Dolls (2024)

Directed By: Ethan Cohen
Written By: Tricia Cooke & Ethan Cohen

Marian and Jamie kissing in Drive-Away Dolls

Drive-Away Dykes Dolls is a sex comedy. It’s pointedly raunchy and has a wide variety of lesbian sex from the silly to the sexy to the romantic to the silly/sexy/romantic all at once. It’s also a very dildo-heavy movie which isn’t something we see very often! Despite its brisk runtime, this movie has lots and lots of sex. And, according to co-writer Tricia Cooke, her and Ethan Coen’s next film will somehow have even more. Drive-Away Dolls is streaming on Peacock.

Duck Butter (2018)

Directed by: Miguel Arteta
Written by: Miguel Arteta, Alia Shawkat

Alia Shawkat has her eyes open looking away as she lies in bed facing another woman.
In her review, Heather Hogan wrote that the sex scenes, “which feel real and are not male gaze-y in any way,” were a highlight of this mumblecore movie. Naima (Shawkat), a struggling actor in Los Angeles; and Sergio (Laia Costa); meet at a club and hook up and decide to spend a sleepless 24 hours together, having sex once an hour. Duck Butter is streaming on Netflix.

A Perfect Ending (2012)

Written & Directed by: Nicole Conn

A young woman leans into kiss an older woman whose face she cradles.

A very hot mommi has never had an orgasm and her lesbian friends are like “okay you need to see someone” and by “someone” they mean an escort, played by undeniably absurdly hot lesbian actress Jessica Clark!! A steamy affair ignites in a film that finds a new way to be extra at every turn. A Perfect Ending is streaming on Prime Video.

Ride or Die (2021)

Directed By: Ryûichi Hiroki
Written By: Nami Yoshikawa and Ching Nakamura

A wide shot of two fully clothed women about to kiss on a hotel bed.

This two and a half hour epic may start with a heterosexual — and bloody — sex scene but the rest of the movie is filled with lesbian longing and the consummation of that longing. Kiko Mizuhara and Honami Sato have incredible chemistry and make this gratuitous (in every sense) murder drama a real delight. Ride or Die is streaming on Netflix.

Room in Rome (2010)

Written & Directed by: Julio Medem

Two naked women embracing in a bathtub

This is a terrible film you should probably only watch on drugs if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s also a film composed almost entirely of lesbian sex scenes and the two women involved in those scenes having conversations about their feelings and childhood trauma. Room in Rome is streaming on Prime Video.


Romantic Lesbian Sex Scenes

Ammonite (2020)

Written & Directed By: Francis Lee

Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet caress each other's faces in bed.

This movie is as dull as the fossils it wants us to mediate on but might possibly actually be worth it for the sex scenes? They come straight out of the grey skies and sit right on your face! Full nudes! Kate Winslet finally takes that dress off!! Ammonite is streaming on VOD, including Prime Video.

I Can’t Think Straight (2008)

Directed by: Shamim Sarif
Written by: Shamim Shaif, Kelly Moss

A naked woman kisses down the back of another naked woman as both smile.

I Can’t Think Straight is a tale of what happens when two very attractive women sustain intense amounts of sexual tension for a series of minutes, breaking every now and then to release that tension through sex scenes. Erin loved it! I Can’t Think Straight is streaming on Tubi.

Kiss Me / Kyss Mig (2011)

Directed By: Alexandra-Therese Keining, Therese Keining
Written By: Alexandra-Therese Keining

One way to check if you’re really falling in love or not is to have sex. Just ask these two ladies who are about to become step-sisters! It’s complicated, sure, but any lesbian could tell you that complicated is just another word for “irresistibly hot.”  Kiss Me is streaming on Tubi.

Summertime / La Belle Saison (2016)

Directed by: Catherine Corsini
Written by: Catherine Corsini & Laurette Polmanss

The poster for this film is not lying to you: The two women at the center of this story do indeed spend a lot of time naked. Set in 1971, Catherine Corsini’s sex and protest filled romance is about a young woman from the French countryside who moves to Paris to get away from her parents, where she falls in with a group of politically engaged feminists and falls in love with their leader Carol. They even have great French countryside sex! Summertime is streaming on VOD including Prime Video.


There’s Only One Lesbian Sex Scene But It Sure Is Hot!

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Directed By: David Leitch
Written By: Kurt Johnstad

Charlize Theron kisses a woman against a wall in dark pink neon lighting

My jaw dropped right there in the movie theater when this sex scene began because it was so hot and so real and there it was in a mainstream movie! “Honestly I really thought Atomic Blonde was the best I’ve ever seen,” wrote @nollers on Twitter, “which sounds ridiculous because the scenes are so short, but the heat felt real and the progression felt natural and sincere. It was so passionate and honestly, I’m a sucker for the little bit of danger.” Atomic Blonde is streaming on VOD including Prime Video.

Bruised (2020)

Directed By: Halle Berry
Written By: Michelle Rosenfarb

Lesbian sex scenes: Sheila Atim kisses Halle Berry's neck as she reaches her arm around while they're both naked in bed.

Halle Berry showed a lot of directorial talent in her debut feature and that talent included shooting an incredible lesbian sex scene between herself and Sheila Atim! It’s tender and erotic and specific and marks a real shift for her character. Some sex scenes are frivolous — this is one of the best parts of the whole film. But it still makes this category because it is, above all else, very hot. Bruised is streaming on Netflix.

Chloe (2010)

Directed by: Atom Egoyan
Written by: Erin Cressida Wilson

Amanda Seyfried holds Julianne Moore's hand and leans toward her as Moore looks away.

An erotic thriller that sees Catherine (Julianne Moore) hiring Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to attempt to seduce her husband but, of course, we know how these things go. She finds Chloe’s descriptions of hooking up with her husband to be kinda hot and before you know it the two ladies have a romp of their own. Can you endure the entire ridiculous film for three minutes of Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried having lesbian sex? There’s only one way to find out! Chloe is streaming on VOD, including Apple TV.

The Hunger (1983)

Directed By: Tony Scott
Written By: James Costigan and Michael Thomas

Catherine Deneuve holds Susan Sarandon up against a wall.

While this is a film filled from beginning to end with a dangerous sexuality, there is one scene that stands out. If you’ve seen the film, you know the scene. Susan Sarandon spills sherry on her see-through white t-shirt and Catherine Deneuve is like you better change and then the two of them are in bed surrounded by billowy white curtains and they’re fucking and sucking and sucking blood. Forty years later it’ll still make you swoon. The Hunger is streaming on VOD, including Prime Video.

Je, tu, il, elle (1974)

Written & Directed by: Chantal Akerman

Two naked women embrace one another in bed in a black and white wide shot.

Chantal Akerman’s body of work always rewards patience. That’s true in this film when it comes to cinema and lesbian sex. After spending most of the film hiding in her room and then traveling with a man, the protagonist played by Akerman arrives at her ex’s apartment. The film ends with 15 straight minutes of full-on fully-naked clawing folding connecting yearning lesbian sex. Je Tu Il Elle is streaming on Max.

The Watermelon Woman (1997)

Written & Directed By: Cheryl Dunye

Lesbian sex scenes: Cheryl Dunye and Guinevere Turner lie on top of each other naked and touch tongues

Video store clerk and filmmaker Cheryl is making a documentary about Fae Richards, a Black actress as “The Watermelon Woman” who is rumored to have dated her white female director. Amid this research, Cheryl begins her own complicated relationship with Diana (Guinevere Turner). Eventually the two women find themselves having lesbian sex that the Philadelphia City Paper described as “the hottest dyke sex scene ever recorded on celluloid” when it premiered in the late 90s. The Watermelon Woman is streaming on Max.


There’s Only One Lesbian Sex Scene But It Sure Is Exciting!

The Carmilla Movie (2017)

Directed By: Spencer Maybee
Written By: Alejandro Alcoba and Jordan Hall

Elise Bauman kisses Negovanlis' back.

The two women in question shed their period outfits before settling into a solid five minutes or so of lesbian sex, executed with loving, genuine detail. Bonus points for setting it to Uh Huh Her, my own personal Sex Soundtrack of 2007. The Carmilla Movie is streaming on Prime Video.

Carol (2015)

Directed by: Todd Haynes
Written by: Phyllis Nagy, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith

Lesbian sex scenes: Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara nakedly embrace

Have you heard of this movie? There’s a very nice May/December lesbian romance that eventually consummates itselfCarol is streaming on VOD and will be streaming on Netflix starting 6/17/2024.

Disobedience (2018)

Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
Written by: Sebastián Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on the novel by Naomi Alderman

Lesbian sex scenes: Rachel McAdams opens her mouth wide and sticks her tongue out as Rachel Weisz spits in her mouth.

The first thing anybody ever learned about Disobedience was that it included a lesbian sex scene involving somebody spitting into somebody else’s mouth. “All the wetness, the spitting in the mouth, the pubic hair, the vaginas, but also leaving some of it to the audience to imagine,” said Rachel Weisz to Heather Hogan on the actual telephone, regarding this 6-minute sex scene. “Where is the other woman’s mouth, where are her fingers? It was important for him to focus on our faces to really capture that desire. There’s something very spiritual about their sex. I’m really proud of it.” Disobedience is streaming on Starz

Gia (1997)

Directed By: Michael Cristofer
Written By: Jay McInerney, Michael Cristofer

Angelina Jolie stares intently as she kisses a woman's shoulder.

An erotically-charged photoshoot involving lesbian groping through a chain-link fence, followed by intense lesbian sex, followed by and also honestly preceeded by a lot of “Angelina Jolie with her shirt off.” There’s a lot of physical intimacy with her on-again-off-again girlfriend in this film, which is ultimately a tragic, heartbreaking story, based on a heartbreaking real life. Gia is streaming on Max.

Multiple Maniacs (1970)

Written and Directed By: John Waters

Mink Stole gives Divine a rosary job in church.

The only lesbian sex scene on this list involving a drag queen and the only one where a rosary is used as anal beads! The beauty of this scene is that it manages to be hilarious, sacrilegious, and still hot. There’s an irreverent sexuality here that could only be from the mind of John Waters. Multiple Maniacs is streaming on Max.


There’s Only One Sex Scene But It Sure Is Revelatory!

Anaïs in Love (2021)

Written & Directed By: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

Lesbian sex scenes: An older woman sucks on the hand of a younger woman on a beach.

The titular character of this beautiful French farce follows her desires without shame. So when her fascination with her lover’s wife turns erotic, she follows that impulse. This culminates in an extremely hot and life-changing beach scene that disproves once and for all anyone who complains that beach sex is too sandy. Anaïs in Love is streaming on Hulu.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)

Directed by: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Brian Wayne Peterson and Jamie Babbit

Clea Duvall kisses Natasha Lyonne's neck in low lighting.

This entire film was notoriously de-sexed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating, but the tender, softly soundtracked furtive sex scene between Graham and Megan at conversion camp holds a special place in our hearts. “But I’m a Cheerleader’s sex scene didn’t make me gay,” wrote @DeepLezPower on twitter, “but it definitely helped.” But I’m a Cheerleader is streaming on Paramount+.

Desert Hearts (1985)

Directed By: Robert Louis Stevenson, Donna Deitch
Written By: Jane Rule, Natalie Cooper

A middle aged blonde woman lifts her head up in ecstasy

Desert Hearts features the first lesbian sex scene in a lesbian-made movie to get a major theatrical release. Drew describes it as “still one of cinema’s greatest lesbian love stories.”  Desert Hearts is streaming on Max.

Mars One (2022)

Written & Directed By: Gabriel Martins

Lesbian sex scenes: A woman with blue braids kisses up another woman's neck to her chin.

This family drama would be a remarkable movie even if it didn’t include a brief but important lesbian sex scene. Every member of our central family has big dreams despite a society that makes mere survival a challenge. Eunice’s brother dreams of going to space — Eunice just dreams of her own apartment where she can lead a free queer life. She gets a taste of this dream and puts an empty apartment to good use by having sex with her girlfriend. Mars One is streaming on Netflix.

Saving Face (2005)

Written & Directed By: Alice Wu

Lesbian sex scenes: Lynn Chen and Michelle Krusiec nakedly embrace on a bed

Coming in at #2 on our 50 Best Lesbian Movies of All Time list, Saving Face is one of the best romcoms of all time period. Its sex scene is brief, but it’s such a rewarding and joyful sexual experience for the characters, who are by the way naked. Saving Face is streaming on Tubi.


Obviously not every great moment in cinematic lesbian sex was included here, which means I bet you’ll have some to add in the comments! FYI: Below Her Mouth, When Night is Falling, and If These Walls Could Talk 2 are not available to stream, so they are not included here.

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3251 articles for us.

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 605 articles for us.

83 Comments

  1. I’ve never excitedly asked a friend if they fucked cause if my friends want to tell me they will on their own, but if I ever do I’m going to ask if they made contact with the operative

  2. I had completely forgotten about Chloe until just now so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s not worth watching except for those 3 minutes.

    I watched Bound, Gia, and But I’m A Cheerleader on repeat in college. And High Art but I can’t remember if that one has an actual sex scene and also it’s a super depressing movie.

    • Yes, totally agree. I miss it on the top 200 list, really. Its summertime, whatch it again. Its playfull and sweet. Elena Anaya, a lesbian in real life, seems to really enjoy this role. She play it in such a light way.

  3. The only compliment I will ever Below Her Mouth is that I thought the sex scenes were good. The filmmakers should have just made a porn with all the bad acting that took place in that movie.

  4. I forget where I saw a review for it, but one site told me Elena Undone had a sex scene worth watching so I did. Plus, my other options were to re-watch girltrash all night long, my summer of love, and a few others that I had seen. Yeah, that movie was pretty terrible, with an okay sex scene.

    Side note, in some countries, Kiss Me is called With Every Heartbeat(I think that’s the English title) and in the first paragraph on their wiki page is a link to an autostraddle list “8 Pretty Great Lesbian Movies You Haven’t Seen Yet.” I don’t remember the sex scene, but thought it was a good movie.

  5. Many people describe Carol/Therese relationship as May/December romance but it seems a little off to me. Carol is in her mid-thirties and Therese is 20 in the film. Cate Blanchett was 46 and Rooney Mara was 30 when Carol was released.

    So, May/September maybe?

  6. I wouldn’t classify The Handmaiden as kinky sex. They didn’t really do anything that involved kink, even though Hideko was involved in kinky scenes elsewhere in the film.

  7. The best thing about “Better Than Chocolate” was the love song/musical number to Julie Christie..”Julie Christie! She makes me go misty!!” Can’t hate a film with a lesbian love song about Julie Christie..

  8. Love The Carmilla Movie, Saving Face, Better Than Chocolate, and I Can’t Think Straight.

    But I’m A Cheerleader will always hold a special place in my heart because it was the first lesbian movie I saw. The music used for the love scene is beyond beautiful.

  9. Thank you for mentioning If These Walls Could Talk 2 (and its unavailability). The 1970s segment is 100% responsible for my self realization. :)

    To my fellow Canada residents, we’ve got Duck Butter, Carol, and Princess Cyd on Netflix.

    • Love If these walls could talk. The girl with the motorbike, is my inspiration. I could never be that effortlessly sexy and cool though. Concussion is a very hot film and Carol. I enjoyed High Art and But I’m a Cheerleader although as I’m getting older the latter irritates me a little. Can you grow out of a film?

    • My wife and I saw your comment together. She agreed that “Any time I see two women with blow-outs I’m like ‘no'”. And I (the less feminine of the two of us) claimed “No! What? That happens! Sure it does!” And then it turns out I have no idea what a blow-out is.

      • That’s another one that’s lost on me too. A “blow out”, where I’m from, used to mean having had too much to eat.

        I should probably just not comment. Still most of those women look like the young mothers (with husbands) in my street.

    • dont buy into queer femme-invisibility!

      *as an aside i think the mainstream cis-het world is less comfortable with gender-bending (whether thats a woman who is MOC or a nonbinary person who is androgynous or a transfemme person, etc) so that could also contribute to the decision to have two cis-femme of center folks as the focus of these scenes.

  10. Thanks, Riese!
    I watched The Duke of Burgundy last night because of this list and really enjoyed it for what it is. Really interesting storytelling, also loved the costumes, soundtrack, and filming.

    FYI- it’s on Hulu if you have it

  11. “Do people really 69 as much as they do in lesbian movies directed by men? Asking for a friend!” Umm… yes??

    (But definitely not so much scissoring. And definitely not so much butt-sex-after-all-that-spaghetti.)

  12. I love this list, but one movie on this list that I absolutely DESPISE is The Duke of Burgundy. When I first watched it, I was excited to see a kinky lesbian story, but what I ended up watching was a sad story of an abusive relationship. The abusive nature of the relationship is not related to the bdsm at all. But, rather, the abuse is found in the way one party selfishly only thinks about her own happiness, while completely ignoring any wants the other party has. The abused partner ends up feeling like she has to squish down all her own needs into nothing, and live to please her partner, and somehow she’s never quite good enough… It was absolutely chilling to watch, and not in a good way.

    The ending was very unsatisfying and not at all what I was hoping for.

  13. I just watched The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love for the first time this past week and you can find it split up in pieces on Youtube! The quality is kind of grainy and bad but the movie was so enjoyable and sweet that to me it didn’t really matter but FYI if anyone wants to find the movie, that’s where!!

  14. I think it’s worth pointing out that The Handmaiden has a very dark and disturbing child abuse narrative. It seems that most people aren’t affected or bothered by it, because I’ve yet to see anyone comment about this online, but for me that meant I didn’t experience the film as erotic.

  15. I love when you update old posts and I get to revisit my comments from 3 years ago.

    BUT. How did I not notice until now that Jay McInerney was one of the writers of Gia? I went through a “Bright Lights Big City” phase circa 1999 because of the off-Broadway musical version of it, and Gia has such a similar vibe which now makes total sense. (This has nothing to do with lesbian sex, I’m sorry. FWIW that chain link fence scene takes my breath away every time.)

    • GREAT LIST! But please update for 2023. Forgot “Blue is the Warmest Color” and one that came out in 2020 “The World to Come” which I loved because its a period piece and different from a lot of the others I’ve seen. Also I feel that “Fingersmith” and “Tipping The Velvet” deserve a mention.

  16. One lesbian movie I liked was Lianna. No hot sex scenes, but a very realistic portrayal of the “new lesbian” experience. The fact that you are suddenly noticing women much more. The gradual acceptance of your “new life,” and so on.

    If course it is a very dated movie. But it is exactly what a number of lesbians “of a certain age” experienced.

  17. “Blue is the warmest color” has the ultimate lesbian sex scene of all time. It’s a French film so the sex is real and the sex itself is definitely directed by lesbians for lesbians. It’s real, raw lesbian sex the way we have it not the way men think we do . I promise you will not be disappointed. It’s about seven full minutes of thigh drenching footage. I used to know the exact time but it’s not coming to me. I’m thinking 34 minutes or possibly 43 minutes in. It’s worth looking for

    • Personally I did not enjoy the sex scenes, they were definitely filmed through the male gaze. Something that the actresses kinda confirm with their version of what filming those scenes were really like. ”The two lead actresses speak out about the demanding and “horrible” shooting conditions that Kechiche subjected them to, particularly when it came to the sex scene, which Seydoux said took ten days to film. “Once we were on the shoot, I realized that he really wanted us to give him everything,” said Exarchopoulos. “Most people don’t even dare to ask the things that he did, and they’re more respectful — you get reassured during sex scenes, and they’re choreographed, which desexualizes the act.”

  18. I will ALWAYS defend Elena Undone. There is nothing I see that is inherently problematic with this film! The last fifteen minutes are questionable, mildly, I’ll allow that, but I am baffled as to how this film continuously gets panned! It is and always will be one of my TOP FIVE and I will train your cats to turn on you if you challenge me on this!

  19. Professor Marston & The Wonder Women is based, moderately accurately as I understand it, on the throuple that were behind Wonder Woman (hence the title) and also hence a lot of the lesbian and bondage not-really-subtext in Wonder Woman.

    I’m not sure exactly how we’d label them now, but I think he was straight, they were both bi is probably the closest, and maybe they were all switches. But after he died, the two women had fairly long and happy life together.

    It’s more in the nature of a biopic than anything else, but there are definitely some fun, kinky lesbian sex scenes with him in the role of bound voyeur. It’s not going to suit everyone, and I have no desire to do that in real life thank you, but within the film I found I didn’t mind it. It was their relationship, their kink, and it was shown as working for them, and that came through to me as well.

  20. “There’s Only One Sex Scene But It Sure Is Revelatory!”

    While there’s only one full-on sex scene, there’s the ending of 2nd, and then (perhaps my favorite) that beautiful naked afterglow scene (afterglow of make-up sex!) in the hotel window, the city lights of Reno spread out beneath them. Just a gorgeous scene.

    In the “Only One Sex Scene” list I’d add “Mulholland Dr.”

  21. I FINALLY saw “Watermelon Woman” recently. And I have to say: while I may be on Old-Fashioned Dyke, I like my sex scenes to be, if not Love Scenes, to at least have the barest (ahem!) *possibility* that love might arise between the women involved? And I didn’t find that scene in WW believable (potential for love) in the slightest.

  22. Atomic Blonde is soooo good. Just aesthetically, it’s so stunning and Charlize Theron has never looked hotter. I’m not even ashamed to say that I saw it 4 times in theaters.

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