The 65 Best Porn Movies of All Time
The 65 Best Porn Movies of All Time
Go ahead and be honest: You landed here for a reason. Pornography is a universal interest and a booming business, something that pretty much everyone on the planet has some sort of experience with. It's no shock, then, that the subject of porn has seen itself on the big (and small) screen over and over again. Sometimes movies about porn can be as sensuous and titillating as the real thing—especially since a handful of them have featured A-list actors who have bravely bared all in front of the camera.
Movies about porn run the gamut from dark and gritty dramas, hijinks-heavy comedies, and documentaries about the entertainers themselves. Whatever your desire, here are a bunch of porn movies you won't be embarrassed to talk about with your friends after the credits roll.
After Porn Ends
It should comes as no surprise that a career in porn comes to an end eventually. But this documentary, featuring former porn performers who are now out of the game, offers a compelling look at what life after porn is really like.
After Porn Ends 2
This sequel follows even more porn stars, who reveal where their post-porn lives have taken them.
After Porn Ends 3
And here’s another entry into the After Porn Ends trilogy in which former performers give an inside look at their lives once the cameras stop rolling.
The Amateurs
Nothing brings a small town together quite like a challenge. Jeff Bridges stars as a lovable loser who enlists his neighbors to make a porno.
Aphrodesia's Diary
In Aphrodesia’s Diary, a woman relives her greatest sexual experiences by rereading her old diaries in a luxurious hotel room. The film was released during a period in the 70’s known as the “Golden Age of Porn,” when erotic films were widely released.
The Bite
Considered a “pink film” in Japan, which means that it was theatrically released despite sex and nudity, Esa, a.k.a.The Bite or The Pimp in the U.S.,features a young gigolo who seduces young woman for the enjoyment of older women who watch behind a two-way mirror.
Blonde Ambition
“If you liked Deep Throat and Singing in the Rain,” the poster for 1980’s Blonde Ambition read, you’ll love this parody of 40’s MGM studio musicals infused with real, hardcore porn.
Blue Movie
Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie was a game changer, and the first pornographic film to get a theatrical release in America. The artsy film also kicked off the “Golden Age of Porn” in the 70’s when erotic films were widely available to view.
Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough film is this ensemble-driven epic, starring Mark Wahlberg as a well-endowed young man who is seduced by the glamour and rush of the porn industry that peaked in late '70s California.
Cabaret Desire
Directed by Sweden’s Erika Lust, Cabaret Desire, which won the 2012 Film of the Year award at the Feminist Porn Film Festival, follows a group of people who meet up to hear erotic stories and poetry.
The Cheerleaders
There’s a new way to win football games, and it was discovered by the horny teen cast of 1973’s The Cheerleaders. Fueled by school spirit, a group of cheerleaders decide to exhaust the opposing team by having sex with them the night before so that they won’t have energy for the big game.
The Devil in Miss Jones
If you’re starved for plot, The Devil in Miss Jones has you covered. This 1973 film follows a woman sent back from the afterlife as the embodiment of lust to earn her place in Hell.
A Dirty Western
Though there are very few erotic films in the Western genre—shocking when you have cowboys at your disposal—the Wild West makes for a great setting in this 1975 classic.
Don Jon
Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed, and starred in this film about a good-hearted New Jersey meathead who struggles with intimacy issues thanks to an overpowering porn addiction.
The Dreamers
Starring Penny Dreadful’s Eva Green, The Dreamers is about an American tourist who visits France and has a sexual experience with a pair of siblings—a kind of taboo that is very French.
Elektra Luxx
Carla Gugino stars in this comedy about a retired porn star whose straight life is in chaos—so she takes a job as a sex-ed teacher at a local high school.
Emmanuelle
A 1974 French drama based on the best-selling erotic novel of the same name, Emmanuelle’s success spurned nine sequels including Emmanuelle in Space. The softcore classic explores a woman who cheats on her husband for the first time as she plans on visiting him overseas. Sounds like the perfect time!
Emmanuelle in Space
The final frontier for "Emmanuelle," a 1974 French drama character that was so popular that she garnered nine sequels. Like James Bond’s Moonraker or Fast & Furious 9, it’s only inevitable that a franchise that becomes larger than life must venture out into the unknown.
Black Emmanuelle
A spinoff of the nine-film "Emmanuelle" franchise, Black Emmanuelle sent the softcore French film star, now played by Laura Gemser, on a globe-trotting trip throughout Italy, Spain, and Nairobi, Kenya.
Finding Bliss
An NYU film school graduate gets an internship at a pornographic studio called Grind Productions after failing to strike it big in Hollywood. Hoping to turn her luck around, she directs her own movies at night and employs the porn actresses to try out some “real” acting.
Flashpoint
No, this Flaashpoint film isn’t when The Flash entered the speed force, but instead when “The Queen of Porn,” Jenna Jameson, was given a massive $220,000 budget to make a movie about a sexy female firefighter.
Flesh Gordon
A parody of the cult science-fiction film Flash Gordon, the aptly named Flesh Gordon proved that X-rated parodies could do everything the original could even on a much-smaller budget… and with sex.
The Fluffer
Here’s an unconventional romance, in which a gay porn “fluffer”—who gets the stars ready before their scenes—falls for a gay-for-play actor.
The Girl Next Door
What happens when a former porn star moves in next door? You definitely try to get her to go to prom with you.
Hardcore
Paul Schrader directs this dark and bleak crime thriller about a man (George C. Scott) whose all-American and conservative world is shattered when he discovers that his missing daughter has turned up in a dirty movie.
Hot Girls Wanted
Rashida Jones produced this Netflix original documentary that explores young women who work in the porn industry and the working conditions that make their jobs so unique.
Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On
Following the success of Hot Girls Wanted, Netflix launched this six-part docu-series that gives a more expansive view of how technology has changed the contemporary porn industry.
Hotel Erotica
Welcome to the most exotic place on Earth… Hotel Erotica, where sexy singles come to have special Cinemax porn encounters.
Humpday
Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard star as two straight buds who accept the ultimate dare: to film—and star in—an amateur porn film together.
Inserts
An X-rated film that follows a silent picture director that refuses to move on to “talkies,” Inserts stars Richard Dreyfuss and premiered in the same year as Jaws. He turns his Hollywood mansion into a massive porn studio and loses his mind as he churns out one erotic film after another.
Inside Deep Throat
This documentary looks at the most famous pornographic film in film history and its effect on both the porn industry and popular culture.
The Jade Pussycat
Half XXX-rated porn and half heist film, The Jade Pussycat follows a man named Johnny Wadd who is searching for the priceless, titular art piece. Reportedly, Paul Thomas Anderson had the entire cast of Boogie Nights watch The Jade Pussycat before filming the famous Mark Wahlberg porn industry film.
King Cobra
This dark drama, based on a true story, follows two porn producers who try to steal the up-and-coming gay entertainer Brent Corrigan from his contract—a devious plot that leads to murder.
Kink
Produced by James Franco (who also starred in King Cobra), Kink is a documentary about Kink.com, the former go-to spot online for BDSM content.
Lovelace
Deep Throat is perhaps the most iconic dirty movie ever made—and achieved iconic pop-culture status thanks to its adjacency to the Watergate scandal. Amanda Seyfried plays the film’s infamous star, Linda Lovelace, whose on-camera skills turned her into an unlikely star.
Meet Monica Velour
When a teenage boy discovers that his favorite porn actress (Kim Cattrall) is performing at a strip club in Indiana, he takes the trip to visit her in hopes that she’ll have sex with him only to discover that she’s aged a bit since starring in adult films in the 80’s.
Mona
One of the earliest releases during the 70’s "Golden Age of Porn," Mona starred Fifi Watson as a young bride-to-be who must contend to her nefarious mother who forbids sex before marriage.
The Nice Guys
Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling play bumbling L.A. detectives searching for a woman who has gone missing after starring in an amateur porn in Shane Black’s comedic crime thriller.
The Notorious Bettie Page
Bettie Page (played by Gretchen Mol) was one of the most infamous sex icons in American history, a woman whose steamy bondage pin-up photos caught the attention of the United States senate.
Once Upon a Girl
Including animation from actual Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera animators, Once Upon a Girl follows a series of vignettes as Mother Goose tells the “true stories” of several children’s classics.
The Opening of Misty Beethoven
Considered the “crown jewel” of the 70’s Golden Age of Porn, The Opening of Misty Beethoven is a comedy that incorporated sex into its whimsical, My Fair Lady-inspired story. The film follows a prostitute who is transformed into a master of lovemaking by sexologist Dr. Seymour Love.
Orgazmo
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone star in this screwball comedy, written a directed by Parker, about a nice young Mormon boy who embarks on a missionary trip to Los Angeles—where he gets caught up in the sleazy world of pornography.
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt is perhaps one of history’s most notorious pornographers. Woody Harrelson earned an Oscar nomination for this biopic that depicts Flynt’s efforts to shake society’s puritanical status quo.
Perspective
One of the newest films on the list, 2019’s Perspective, which depicted the drama of a married couple who have affairs behind their significant other’s back, won multiple awards at the 2020 Adult Video News Awards.
Pirates
A parody of Pirates of the Caribbean and one of the most highly watched adult films of the past 20 years, Pirates starred Jesse James--who guest starred in a couple episodes of HBO’s Entourage--as the first mate of a 1760's pirate crew.
Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge
The success of the first Pirates porn parody upped the budget of its sequel to $8 million, and one of the most expensive porn films ever produced. Jesse James reprised her role as Jules, first officer of Captain Reynolds’ horny pirate crew, as they take on Chinese pirate empress Xifeng.
Pleasure
In Pleasure, director Ninja Thyberg’s debut to the big screen, Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel) travels to Los Angeles as a newcomer who wants to reach the pinnacle of the adult film world.
Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy is probably the unlikeliest porn star to achieve such international fame, and this documentary gives an inside look into his unexpected—yet extremely prolific—film career.
The Pornographers
A classic Japanese satire from 1966 depicts an ordinary everyman in Mr. Ogata who leads a fairly ordinary life despite his extraordinary job as a dirty film director.
Rated X
The Mitchell Brothers, influential siblings that ran the famous O'Farrell Theater strip club in San Francisco bicker in this biopic about the porn industry starring real-life brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.
Red Rocket
Falling on hard times after reaching the top of the XXX market, adult film star Mikey Saber returns home to Texas and tries to start a new life. Instead, he ends up angering everyone around him, including his estranged wife, a marijuana dealer, and a young teen being groomed into a porno actress.
Respectable: The Mary Millington Story
Respectable tells the tale of Mary Millington, a famous British porn star in the ‘70s that rose to the height of the industry until she was photographed topless outside of the Prime Minister's residence.
Rocco
Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi offers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at his life and career on the eve of his retirement from the porn business.
Score
Based on the 1971 Off-Broadway play, Score features a tennis match that slowly becomes an erotic experience. Anyone who has ever joked about tennis player grunts will completely understand what kind of material Score is working with. Sylvester Stallone also appears as a young repairman.
Sex Tape
A married couple (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) accidentally upload a particularly steamy home movie onto the cloud—and hilarity ensues when they go to extreme lengths to prevent their friends from watching it.
Star 80
Bob Fosse directs this mockumentary-style biopic of Dorothy Stratten, telling the tragic story of the Playboy playmate’s rise to fame—a career cut brutally short thanks to her violent boyfriend and manager.
Starlet
In Sean Baker’s unassuming indie dramedy, an unlikely friendship forms between an 85-year-old woman named Sadie and a 21-year-old woman named Jane, the latter of whom is an up-and-coming porn actress.
Tonight for Sure
Written and directed by The Godfather’s Francis Ford Coppola, Tonight for Sure depicted a Sunset Strip burlesque show. Two men in the audience, tortured by previous sexual experiences and dying for a night of mischief, rig the electrical box at the venue to blow at midnight.
A Very Natural Thing
A young man leaves the monastery to pursue his first gay relationship in A Very Natural Thing, a coming-of-age LGBTQ+ drama, was one of the first films about normalizing gay relationships intended for a mainstream audience.
Women in Trouble
The film that gave us Elektra Luxx, a porn star character that later starred in her own film, Women in Trouble consists of ten vignettes about porn actresses whose lives become unexpectedly intertwined.
Wonderland
Val Kilmer stars as the well-endowed John Holmes, an actor whose post-porn life spins out of control—and into the dark, criminal underbelly of Los Angeles.
X
Shooting a porno flick in rural Texas called The Farmer’s Daughter, the actors in X soon find themselves threatened by a killer reminiscent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The SXSW favorite, which pays homage to classic slasher films and 70’s pornographic films, also stars Mia Goth and Kid Cudi.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star in this Kevin Smith-directed comedy as a pair of roommates and best friends who come up with an enterprising way to pay their rent—although they didn’t expect starring a porno would complicate their friendship.
8mm
Nicolas Cage stars in this unhinged (naturally for Cage) noir about a private investigator who believes that he spots a girl he’s looking for get murdered for real in a snuff film. Directed by Joel Schumacher, 8mm also stars Joaquin Phoenix as adult video store employee Max California.
9to5: Days in Porn
A German documentary about the porn industry that portrays the profession as a functioning workplace full of producers, actors, and a doctor who attempts to keep the working women healthy and safe.
From dark and gritty dramas, hijinks-heavy comedies, and documentaries about the entertainers themselves, here are a bunch of porn movies you won't be embarrassed to watch.