Nudity in film
Encyclopedia
Nudity in film is any presentation in motion pictures of people while naked
or wearing less clothing than contemporary norms consider modest. Many actors and actresses have appeared nude, or exposing parts of their bodies or dressed in ways considered provocative by contemporary standards
at some point in their careers. Most nude scenes have been justified as being part of the story, in the the concept of "artistically justifiable nudity," while other nudity has been viewed as "superfluous" or "gratuitous".
Nudity in film should be distinguished from sex in film. Nudity of a sexual nature
is common in pornographic films. In softcore
films there are limitations, such as avoiding the appearance of a penis although it may be depicted. Erotic films are suggestive of sexuality, but need not contain nudity. A film on naturism
or about people where nudity is common may contain non-sexual nudity, and some other non-pornographic films show some seconds or fractions of seconds of nude scenes, but the vast majority of nudity in film dis in pornographic films.
Nude scenes can be controversial in some cultures because they may challenge some people's standards of modesty. These standards vary by culture, and depend on the type of nudity, who is exposed, which parts of the body are exposed, the duration of the exposure, the pose, the context, and other aspects. Regardless, in many cultures nudity in film is subject to censorship or rating regimes which control the content of films, with the intention of limiting content that is deemed by the classification authorities and/or the movie industry to be harmful or undesirable, morally or otherwise.
For this reason, it has been said that many directors and producers apply self censorship, limiting nudity (and other content) in their films, to avoid external censorship or a strict rating, in countries that have a rating system. Thus adults are denied images just because these images are not considered suitable for teenagers. This applies even for scenes explicitly about a character showing or seeing nudity. Directors and producers may choose to limit nudity because of objections from actors involved, or for a wide variety of other personal, artistic, genre-bound or narrative-oriented reasons.
. If the exposure is within the standards of modesty of a given culture and setting (e.g. wearing a bikini
at a non-nude beach), terms such as nudity, partial or otherwise, are not normally used. If however, the degree of exposure exceeds the cultural norms of the setting, or if the activity or setting includes nudity as an understood part of its function, such as a nude beach
, terminology relating to nudity and degrees thereof are typically used. Toplessness
is regarded by most people as partial nudity.
Full frontal nudity refers to nudity when the subject is facing forward with the whole front of the body exposed, including intimate part
s such as a man's penis
or woman's vulva
, including pubic hair
. Partial frontal nudity or toplessness
typically only refers to the exposure by a woman of the breast
s. Non-frontal nudity describes nudity where the whole back side of the body, including the buttocks
, is exposed, or a side-view from any other direction.
(1835–1868). A series of Menken photos survive in near pristine clarity.
Sarah Bernhardt
early in her career posed topless on several occasions for French photographer Felix Nadar. She is nevertheless seen with her top covered in surviving stills of these sessions. At least one later topless photograph of the young Bernhardt made in 1873 survives. These nude sessions were not meant for outright public consumption but for the encouraging of theatrical employers or personal guests. Thus nude photos of women like Menken and Bernhardt are known only to scholars and perhaps theater buffs.
If total nudity was not achieved, then sheer nudity was. Skin-tight flesh-colored attire existed in the era immediately before the invention of motion pictures. Stage actresses would pose in very provocative attire leaving little to the imagination, for roles such as Lady Godiva
.
In the 1880s Eadweard Muybridge
, at the dawn of the invention of the motion picture, used a device he called a zoopraxiscope
to project a series of successive still photographs. The photos would then be played one after the other giving the illusion of movement. Sometimes the same sequence would be filmed using several cameras. Many of Muybridge's photographic sessions using the zoopraxiscope had nude anonymous models, both female and male, and indeed even Walt Whitman
and George Bernard Shaw
posed nude for a session.
, and other states threatened more. Under pressure, the Motion Picture Association of America brought in the Hays Code, which brought an end to nudity in all its forms in Hollywood films. The Code was adopted in 1930, and began to be effectively enforced in 1934. Social and official attitudes to nudity have eased since those days and the Code came under repeated challenge in the 1950s and 60s. In 1958, the New York Court of Appeal ruled, in the context of prohibition of screenings of films, that a film that merely contains nudity was not obscene. The Code was abandoned in 1968, in favor of a MPAA film rating system.
Inspiration
, a silent film released in 1915, is believed to be the first American
motion picture with a leading actor in a nude scene. The context of the nudity in the film was that of an artist's model, played by Audrey Munson
, at work. Munson appeared nude again in a similar role in the 1916 film Purity
. Annette Kellerman
, the famous Australian swimming star, appeared fully nude in an active role in A Daughter of the Gods
in 1916. Kellerman had appeared in several lost films prior to 1912, but whether she did nude scenes in them is unknown. A couple of her films from 1910, thought to have been lost, have been rediscovered in Australia.
Several early films of the silent era and early sound era
included nude scenes, presented in a historical or religious context. One such film was the anticlerical Hypocrites
(1915), directed by Lois Weber
, which contained a sequence with a nude woman posing as a statue and impressive (for 1915) traveling double exposure
sequences of a young woman nude. Nell Shipman
appeared nude in Back to God’s Country (1919). Fox produced The Queen of Sheba
in 1921 starring Betty Blythe
. The film, now lost
, was a huge hit for Fox and Miss Blythe displayed ample nudity even when wearing 28 different diaphanous costumes.
After the silent era ended, movies with sound that included brief glimpses of nudity appeared as early as 1931 with The Yellow Ticket
. Cecil B. DeMille
, later known as a family entertainment specialist, included several nude scenes in his early epics such as The Sign of the Cross
(1932). Other filmmakers followed suit, particularly in historical dramas such as The Scarlet Empress
(1934) – which shows topless women being burned at the stake – and contemporary stories filmed in exotic, mostly tropical, locations. Bird of Paradise
, directed by King Vidor
in 1932, featured a nude swimming scene with Delores del Rio, and Harry Lachman
's Dante's Inferno featured many naked women suffering in hell
. The early Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller
featured at least partial nudity justified by the natural surroundings in which the characters lived; in Tarzan and His Mate
in 1934, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan
, doubled by Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim
) swims in the nude. Nudity of natives was portrayed (often by editing in stock documentary footage) in jungle epics and South Seas island pictures such as Trader Horn
(1931), Moana (1926) and Tabu
(1931).
In response to objections voiced by several groups – provoked at least partly by the notorious 1933 Czech
film Ecstasy
, which featured a nude scene by Hedy Lamarr
– scenes of nudity were forbidden in films from the major film studios from 1934 until the late 1960s under the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays Code. During this time, the only acceptable cinematic displays of nudity in the U.S. were in naturist quasi-documentary film
s and in foreign films. Other portrayals were in early pornographic films which, due to limited means of distribution, were not widely seen.
were not bound by the Hays Code, but still had to remain within censorship guidelines, one of which pemitted educational films. These films dealt with taboo topics such as drug parties, prostitution, and sexually transmitted infections. In the course of presenting the message nudity at times made an appearance. These films, which emerge in the 1930s, were obliged to play in independent theaters or traveled across the United States in "roadshow" fashion. They were normally low-budget, and described as sensationalized exploitation films. Using this framework, brief nude scenes of women appeared in Maniac
(1934), Sex Madness
(1937), and nude swimming sequences in Damaged Lives
(1933), Marihuana
(1936) and Child Bride
(1938).
Nudist films are a genre of films associated with the 1950s and 1960s, although the genre has roots dating back to the 1930s with such titles as This Nude World (1933) and The Unashamed (1938). Nudist films claim to depict the lifestyles of members of the nudism or naturist movement, but were largely a vehicle for the exhibition and commercial exploitation of female nudity within the context of public theatrical screenings.
Famous examples of nudist films are Garden of Eden (1954) directed by Max Nosseck
and Naked Venus (1958) from Damaged Lives director Edgar G. Ulmer. Other producers and directors active in the genre included David F. Friedman
, Herschell Gordon Lewis
, and Barry Mahon
. Filmmaker Doris Wishman
was probably the most active producer/director in the genre, with seven nudist films to her credit between 1960 and 1964. Exploitation producer George Weiss
released films such as Nudist Life (1961), by editing together vintage nudist camp footage. That same year in England, Harrison Marks
released Naked as Nature Intended starring Pamela Green
to box office success. (Marks soon went to make softcore pornographic and caning/spanking fetish films.)
(1959) by Russ Meyer
, in which the main character was overcome with fantasies of nude women, was the first non-naturist feature film to openly exhibit nudity and is, because of that, widely considered the first pornographic feature. For the next few years a wave of films known as "Nudies" or "Nudie-cuties" were produced for grindhouse
theatres. Examples from this era include Doris Wishman's science fiction spoof Nude on the Moon
(1963), the Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman film The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961), and Ed Wood's horror-nudie, Orgy of the Dead
(1965) with its bevy of topless dancers from beyond the grave, following his western screenplay, Revenge of the Virgins
(1959), which shows a fierce tribe of bare-breasted Indian women hunting a group of treasure seekers.
By 1964, underground films with a harder edge such as Russ Meyer's Lorna
, and Joseph P. Mawra's misogynistic Olga's House of Shame and White Slaves of Chinatown marked the end of the nudie and the ascent of a mix of sex and violence known as "roughie" sexploitation
. Prime examples include R. Lee Frost's The Defilers (1965), a study in abduction and sadism, The Sexploiters (1965), Bad Girls Go to Hell
(1965), The Agony of Love (1966), Michael Findlay
's psycho-killer trilogy starting with The Touch of Her Flesh (1967), and Frost's Love Camp 7
(1968), which was the forerunner of the women in prison and Nazi exploitation
subgenres.
's film Peeping Tom
(1960
) contains what may be the first female nude scene in a postwar English language mainstream feature film: a model (Pamela Green
) lies naked on the bed to be photographed. Earlier in the movie Green exposes her breasts. The movie was panned by the critics at the time and it destroyed Powell's career. The film was subsequently re-edited leaving out the nude scenes. Martin Scorsese
released the film in 1979. It is now a cult classic and a critical favourite, revered as one of the most important films of British postwar cinema and often described as the British Psycho
.
In 1963, Tommy Noonan
persuaded Jayne Mansfield
to become the first mainstream American actress to appear nude with a starring role in Promises! Promises!
. Photographs of a naked Mansfield on the set were published in Playboy
. In one notorious set of images, Mansfield stares at one of her breast
s, as does her male secretary and a hair stylist, then grasps it in one hand and lifts it high. The sold-out issue resulted in an obscenity charge for Hugh Hefner
, which was later dropped. Promises! Promises! was banned in Cleveland, but it enjoyed box office success elsewhere. As a result of the film's success, Mansfield landed on the Top 10 list of Box Office Attractions for that year. The autobiographical book, Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World, she wrote together with Mickey Hargitay
, was published right after Promises! Promises! and contains 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.
The Pawnbroker
(1964) was controversial for its breaches of the Motion Picture Production Code by depicting nude scenes in which actresses Linda Geiser
and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts. The nudity resulted in a "C" (condemned) rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency
. Allied Artists refused to cut the film and released it to theaters without a Production Code seal.
unveiled a new Production Code. The new Code replaced specific rules, including those on nudity, with more general principles advising caution in matters like nudity and sexual intimacy. It gave the MPAA the power to label certain films as "Suggested for Mature Audiences". Only a handful of Hollywood films dared to show a fleeting glimpse of partial nudity, usually a bare breast seen from a distance or in a dark setting.
In November 1968, the MPAA abandoned the Production Code altogether and replaced it with the voluntary rating system. Nudity could then be legitimately included in a commercially distributed film. Many movie theaters still refused to show films with X ratings, which was frequently a barrier to commercial success. A few X-rated films have been critical successes, including A Clockwork Orange
(1971), Last Tango in Paris
(1973), and Midnight Cowboy
(1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Picture
.
At present, genital nudity is still rare in U.S. cinema. Anything more than a very small amount of genital nudity, especially in a sexual context, often leads to an NC-17 (or X, in the past) rating. (One notable exception is Porky's
(1982), a broad sex comedy with an R rating that featured several full-frontal nude scenes with multiple men and women, though never both together.)
In the 2000s, most nude scenes led only to an R rating from the MPAA, instead of NC-17. Broken Flowers
(2005) was rated R for containing "graphic nudity", though it only contains one brief nude scene featuring Alexis Dziena
(her vulva is visible in the scene). Similarly, the 2003 film The Cooler
received an NC-17 rating specifically for a scene in which Maria Bello
's pubic hair
is exposed. Bello appeared in several full-frontal nude scenes in A History of Violence
, which was rated R. Many films that were once rated X have been "re-rated" R; the rating on Midnight Cowboy, for instance, was so changed in late 1970 (the year after its original release).
Few mainstream American films show male or female genitalia (in what is often called a full frontal nudity scene). While it is not entirely uncommon for women to appear in full frontal nude scenes, female genitalia commonly remain obscured by pubic hair. In 2007, Judd Apatow
announced "I'm gonna get a penis in every movie I do from now on. . . . It really makes me laugh in this day and age, with how psychotic our world is, that anyone is troubled by seeing any part of the human body." The cases where a penis appears fully or semi-erect
in mainstream films are very limited, in part due to ratings pressure from the MPAA, which finds it more acceptable for a male's genitals to be depicted in a flaccid state.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
(2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall
(2008), Zack and Miri Make a Porno
(2008), The Hangover
(2009) and Observe and Report
(2009) all featured male frontal nudity in the context of comedy. Another movie, the mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
, has a brief scene in which Borat shows a full-nude frontal picture of his son. Borat and his producer, Azamat Bagatov, have a full nude fight scene, where Borat's genitals were censored with a black bar. Azamat, because of his weight, did not need one, because it was not visible during the film. The film was rated R by the MPAA.
The tastefulness of nude scenes is hotly debated in the United States. In the 2000s, adding nudity to films may hurt a film's commercial potential. Some movie critics view gratuitous nudity (that which is not necessary for the plot) negatively. Various actors have refused to appear on film in the nude, citing either their personal morals or the risk to their reputations and/or careers. Since 2000s, very few American films featured the nudity of A-list actresses (most of them are arthouse films), like Kate Winslet
in The Reader (2008), Amanda Seyfried
/Julianne Moore
in Chloe
(2010), Anne Hathaway
in Love & Other Drugs (2010) and Michelle Williams
in Blue Valentine
(2010). Still, some nudity-required dramatic roles in upscale films could still help some young actresses to gain more acting opportunities in Hollywood, like Eva Green
in The Dreamers (2003), Emily Blunt
in My Summer of Love
(2004), Abbie Cornish
in Somersault
(2004), Noomi Rapace
in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and Elizabeth Olsen
in Martha Marcy May Marlene
(2011).
was filmed performing exotic dance routines for French cinema. The 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film Häxan
contained nude scenes, torture and perversion; an edited version was shown in the U.S. The 1929 Russian film Man with a Movie Camera
by Dziga Vertov
features nudity within the context of naturism.
The 1931 Greek film Daphnis and Chloe by Orestis Laskos featured the first nude scene in a European fiction film, showing Chloe bathing in a fountain.
The opening sequence in Leni Riefenstahl
's Olympia
, a documentary of the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, is noteworthy for its idealized, non-exploitive use of male and female nudity. Another less artistic film from Germany, Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956), featured Marion Michael
as a topless female variant on the Tarzan
legend.
Other notable examples from Europe include Gustav Machatý
's Extase (1933, with Hedy Lamarr
), Era Lui, Si Si (1952, with Sophia Loren
), Ingmar Bergman
's Summer with Monika
(1953), Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur
(1956, with Isabelle Corey
, then aged 16), François Truffaut
's Shoot the Piano Player
(1960), Brigitte Bardot
's casual nude scenes in Contempt
(1963) by Jean-Luc Godard
, the French film The Game is Over (1966, with Jane Fonda
), Luis Buñuel
's Belle de jour (1967, with Catherine Deneuve
), and Isadora
(1968, with Vanessa Redgrave
).
In 1966, the British-Italian film Blowup
became the first mainstream English-language film to show a woman's pubic hair, although the particular shot was only a few seconds long. (Some sources, such as Playboy magazine's History of Sex in Cinema series, have stated that the pubic hair exposure was unintended.)
Two Swedish films from 1967, I Am Curious (Yellow)
and Inga, were ground-breaking—and notorious—for showing explicit sex and nudity. Both were initially banned in the U.S., and were rated X when they were shown in 1968.
In the United Kingdom, the Ken Russell
film Women in Love
(1969) was especially controversial for showing frontal male nudity in a wrestling scene between Oliver Reed
and Alan Bates
. Glenda Jackson
won the Academy Award for Best Actress
in that film, the first performer to win for a role that included nude scenes.
The films of Catherine Breillat
, a French filmmaker, are notorious for containing explicit nudity. Her film Une vraie jeune fille (1975) contains close-ups of actress Charlotte Alexandra
's vulva and actor Bruno Balp's penis, some of which are particularly graphic in nature (including a sequence where an earthworm is inserted into Alexandra's vagina). This resulted in the film not officially being released until 1999. Other actresses who have appeared in explicit full-frontal nude scenes in Breillat's films include Caroline Ducey in Romance
(1999) and Roxane Mesquida
in Sex is Comedy
(2002).
European attitudes towards depictions of nudity tend to be relatively relaxed and there are few taboos around it. Showing of full frontal nudity in movies, even by major actors, is common and it is not considered damaging to the actors' careers. In recent years explicit unsimulated sexual intercourse occurs in movies which target the general movie-going audience, albeit those usually labeled 'arthouse' product; for example, Michael Winterbottom
’s 9 Songs
and Lars Von Trier
’s The Idiots
.
The Finnish documentary Steam of Life
about men in saunas shows nudity throughout the film.
In the Dutch movie All Stars 2: Old Stars the main characters stay in a nudist campsite
. Much full frontal nudity is displayed, but not of any of the main characters.
in the historical story In the Realm of the Senses
. However, the unexpurgated version of the film has never been shown in Japan, and the film negatives had to be secretly shipped out of the country to France for developing.
However, a number of recent films have lifted this taboo. Among them are: the full-frontal appearance of Hong Kong Chinese actor Michael Lam
, who was the lead in Bugis Street
(1995), as his clothes and underwear are torn off by his lover, fully exposing his genitals; a variety of East Asian actors in The Pillow Book
(1996); of Hong Kong Chinese lead actor Sunny Chan
in a bathroom scene as he enters a shower, fully revealing his genitals for a few moments, in Hold You Tight
(1997); of mainland China lead actor Liu Ye in Lan Yu (2001), whose genitals are shown as lies naked on a bed; a variety of East Asian actors in Under One Roof
(2002); of French Vietnamese actor Steve Tran
whose genitals are shown as he walks naked in a high school locker room in Cold Showers
(2005); of Singapore Chinese actor/director Zihan Loo
, who removes all his clothes, uncovering his genitals, and while waiting to meet a prostitute, masturbates on camera, eventually revealing his fully erect penis, in Pleasure Factory
(2007); a variety of Taiwanese Chinese actors who dare each other to skinnydip in Winds of September
(2008), and of lead actor Ron Heung
and the Hong Kong National Baseball Team
, who are shown naked in City Without Baseball
(2008), with their genitals fully revealed on camera. South Korean lead actor Song Kang-ho
appears frontally naked in Thirst
(2009). Hong Kong Chinese actors Sean Li
and Osman Hung
appear frontally naked in Permanent Residence
(also 2009), as do the lead Hong Kong Chinese actors Byron Pang
and Hong Kong half-Chinese/half-British actor Thomas Price in Amphetamine (2010), and numerous Hong Kong Chinese actors in the film Love Actually... Sucks!
(2011). These appearances contrast with those nearer the beginning of the decade: the much briefer nude (side) appearance of young mainland Chinese actor Cui Lin (in which his genitals are shown) at the beginning of the shower scene in Beijing Bicycle
(2001), and the brief full-frontal appearance of a Singapore Chinese actor in the film 15
(2003), and of Japanese puppeteer Sota Sakuma, whose body and genitals are fully revealed but shown briefly, in a nude beach scene in EuroTrip
(2004), and even the brief frontal view of mainland China lead actor Guo Xiaodong in Summer Palace
, later in the decade (2006).
The appearances of mainland Chinese teenage lead actor Xu Dialing in Red Cherry
(1995), of Lee Kang-sheng
in The Wayward Cloud
(2005), of Joseph Chang
and Bryant Chang
in Eternal Summer
(2006), of Korean lead actors Lee Yeong-hoon and Kim Nan-gil in No Regret
(also in 2006), of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in Lust, Caution (2007), and of Qin Hao
and Chen Sicheng
in Spring Fever
(2009), are all described as featuring full-frontal nudity, although no genitals are shown.
Another example of nudity (but with simulated genitals) in East Asian cinema is the Japanese film Hanzo the Razor (1972). It is the first part of a trilogy, depicting Officer Hanzo Itami's foiling of a plot by corrupt officials in Edo period Japan. Simulated male and female genitals are shown in various scenes. There are also scenes showing Hanzo using sexually aggressive tactics in order to extract secrets from women who associated with Hanzo's suspects.
In animated films in the U.S., nudity is limited. Only a few mainstream animated films like Fritz the Cat
, Fantastic Planet
, and Heavy Metal
have contained significant nudity. The Simpsons Movie
(2007) has a brief scene in which Bart Simpson
is fully nude, and carries a PG-13 rating. Another famous exception is South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999), which carries an R rating, and shows both nude female breasts and full frontal male nudity.
In the Franco-Belgian Kirikou
animated films, full-frontal nudity of the titular little boy appears throughout the film, in addition to female nudity in the form of exposed breasts.
In Canada, Rock & Rule
(1983) features brief female toplessness.
In Japanese cinema, nudity taboos have evolved greatly since the dawn of animation, and anime
, the general category of animated films, includes some films with a spectrum of nudity and sexual situations. The Toei Animation
films Hols: Prince of the Sun
in the 1960s and Tatsu no ko Taro
in the '70s include brief full nudity of their titular characters. The popularity of OVA (Original Video Animation
) direct-to-video series in Japan has been a major factor in the unique blend of content in Japanese anime. Starting in the mid-1980s when video tape players became common home appliances, themes of nudity and sexual content flourished in Japanese animation with the hallmarks of many modern sub-genres being established early with such films and OVA series as Lolita Anime
, Cream Lemon
and Urotsukidōji
. Such sexually explicit films or those with significant nudity are referred to as hentai
outside of Japan.
Nudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
or wearing less clothing than contemporary norms consider modest. Many actors and actresses have appeared nude, or exposing parts of their bodies or dressed in ways considered provocative by contemporary standards
Modesty
Standards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged....
at some point in their careers. Most nude scenes have been justified as being part of the story, in the the concept of "artistically justifiable nudity," while other nudity has been viewed as "superfluous" or "gratuitous".
Nudity in film should be distinguished from sex in film. Nudity of a sexual nature
Nudity and sexuality
In most societies and cultures, human nudity is often associated with sexuality. Many people are sexually attracted to nudity, which they find to be erotic and sexually arousing...
is common in pornographic films. In softcore
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...
films there are limitations, such as avoiding the appearance of a penis although it may be depicted. Erotic films are suggestive of sexuality, but need not contain nudity. A film on naturism
Naturism
Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....
or about people where nudity is common may contain non-sexual nudity, and some other non-pornographic films show some seconds or fractions of seconds of nude scenes, but the vast majority of nudity in film dis in pornographic films.
Nude scenes can be controversial in some cultures because they may challenge some people's standards of modesty. These standards vary by culture, and depend on the type of nudity, who is exposed, which parts of the body are exposed, the duration of the exposure, the pose, the context, and other aspects. Regardless, in many cultures nudity in film is subject to censorship or rating regimes which control the content of films, with the intention of limiting content that is deemed by the classification authorities and/or the movie industry to be harmful or undesirable, morally or otherwise.
For this reason, it has been said that many directors and producers apply self censorship, limiting nudity (and other content) in their films, to avoid external censorship or a strict rating, in countries that have a rating system. Thus adults are denied images just because these images are not considered suitable for teenagers. This applies even for scenes explicitly about a character showing or seeing nudity. Directors and producers may choose to limit nudity because of objections from actors involved, or for a wide variety of other personal, artistic, genre-bound or narrative-oriented reasons.
Terminology
Full nudity refers to complete nudity, while partial nudity refers to less than full nudity, with parts of the body covered in some manner. The term partial nudity is sometimes used to refer to exposure of skin beyond what the person using the expression considers to be within the limits of modestyModesty
Standards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged....
. If the exposure is within the standards of modesty of a given culture and setting (e.g. wearing a bikini
Bikini
The bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as "a woman's scanty two-piece bathing suit" or "a...
at a non-nude beach), terms such as nudity, partial or otherwise, are not normally used. If however, the degree of exposure exceeds the cultural norms of the setting, or if the activity or setting includes nudity as an understood part of its function, such as a nude beach
Nude beach
A nude beach is a beach where users are legally at liberty to be nude. Sometimes the terms clothing-optional beach or free beach are used. Nude bathing is one of the most common forms of nudity in public. As beaches are usually on public lands, any member of the public is entitled to use the...
, terminology relating to nudity and degrees thereof are typically used. Toplessness
Toplessness
Toplessness is the state in which a female's breasts are uncovered, with the areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. It can also refer to a female not wearing any clothing above the waist, which is the female equivalent to a male barechestedness.The history and even the present-day...
is regarded by most people as partial nudity.
Full frontal nudity refers to nudity when the subject is facing forward with the whole front of the body exposed, including intimate part
Intimate part
An intimate, personal, or private part is a place on the human body which is customarily kept covered by clothing in public venues and conventional settings, as a matter of decency, decorum, and respectfulness...
s such as a man's penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
or woman's vulva
Vulva
The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....
, including pubic hair
Pubic hair
Pubic hair is hair in the frontal genital area, the crotch, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the legs; these areas form the pubic region....
. Partial frontal nudity or toplessness
Toplessness
Toplessness is the state in which a female's breasts are uncovered, with the areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. It can also refer to a female not wearing any clothing above the waist, which is the female equivalent to a male barechestedness.The history and even the present-day...
typically only refers to the exposure by a woman of the breast
Breast
The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
s. Non-frontal nudity describes nudity where the whole back side of the body, including the buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
, is exposed, or a side-view from any other direction.
Nude photography before cinema
The first entertainer to pose nude for photographs was undoubtedly the stage actress Adah Isaacs MenkenAdah Isaacs Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken was an American actress, painter and poet.-Life and career:There are significant inconsistencies in the various accounts of Menken's early life. In her autobiographical "Some Notes of her life in her own Hand,", Menken claimed she was born Marie Rachel Adelaide de Vere Spenser...
(1835–1868). A series of Menken photos survive in near pristine clarity.
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
early in her career posed topless on several occasions for French photographer Felix Nadar. She is nevertheless seen with her top covered in surviving stills of these sessions. At least one later topless photograph of the young Bernhardt made in 1873 survives. These nude sessions were not meant for outright public consumption but for the encouraging of theatrical employers or personal guests. Thus nude photos of women like Menken and Bernhardt are known only to scholars and perhaps theater buffs.
If total nudity was not achieved, then sheer nudity was. Skin-tight flesh-colored attire existed in the era immediately before the invention of motion pictures. Stage actresses would pose in very provocative attire leaving little to the imagination, for roles such as Lady Godiva
Lady Godiva
Godiva , often referred to as Lady Godiva , was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants...
.
In the 1880s Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard J. Muybridge was an English photographer who spent much of his life in the United States. He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible...
, at the dawn of the invention of the motion picture, used a device he called a zoopraxiscope
Zoopraxiscope
The zoopraxiscope is an early device for displaying motion pictures. Created by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879, it may be considered the first movie projector. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The...
to project a series of successive still photographs. The photos would then be played one after the other giving the illusion of movement. Sometimes the same sequence would be filmed using several cameras. Many of Muybridge's photographic sessions using the zoopraxiscope had nude anonymous models, both female and male, and indeed even Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
posed nude for a session.
Overview
Film-making started in the 1890s, with the first feature length film being produced in 1896. From the introduction of the new invention nude scenes were filmed. In the 1910s and 20s, Hollywood produced several films which were considered risqué. Various groups objected to films that contained nude scenes on moral grounds, and several states set up film censorship boards, arguing that the scenes are obsceneObscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
, and other states threatened more. Under pressure, the Motion Picture Association of America brought in the Hays Code, which brought an end to nudity in all its forms in Hollywood films. The Code was adopted in 1930, and began to be effectively enforced in 1934. Social and official attitudes to nudity have eased since those days and the Code came under repeated challenge in the 1950s and 60s. In 1958, the New York Court of Appeal ruled, in the context of prohibition of screenings of films, that a film that merely contains nudity was not obscene. The Code was abandoned in 1968, in favor of a MPAA film rating system.
Early films
Inspiration (1915 film)
Inspiration is a 1915 American silent film written by Virginia Tyler Hudson and directed by George Foster Platt and starring Audrey Munson. It is notable for being the first non-pornographic American film to feature full nudity of a woman....
, a silent film released in 1915, is believed to be the first American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
motion picture with a leading actor in a nude scene. The context of the nudity in the film was that of an artist's model, played by Audrey Munson
Audrey Munson
Audrey Munson was an American artist's model and film actress, known variously as "Miss Manhattan," "the Exposition Girl," and "American Venus." She was the model or inspiration for more than 15 statues in New York City and appeared in four silent films.-Life and career:Audrey Marie Munson was...
, at work. Munson appeared nude again in a similar role in the 1916 film Purity
Purity (film)
Purity is an American silent film written by Clifford Howard and directed by Rae Berger and starring Audrey Munson. It is notable for its nude scenes.The film was called Reinheit in Germany.-Preservation status:...
. Annette Kellerman
Annette Kellerman
Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville and film star, and writer...
, the famous Australian swimming star, appeared fully nude in an active role in A Daughter of the Gods
A Daughter of the Gods
A Daughter of the Gods is a silent film that featured Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman.The film was controversial because of the sequences of what was regarded as superfluous nudity by the main character, Nydia, played by Kellerman...
in 1916. Kellerman had appeared in several lost films prior to 1912, but whether she did nude scenes in them is unknown. A couple of her films from 1910, thought to have been lost, have been rediscovered in Australia.
Several early films of the silent era and early sound era
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
included nude scenes, presented in a historical or religious context. One such film was the anticlerical Hypocrites
Hypocrites (film)
Hypocrites is a 1915 silent drama film directed by Lois Weber .The film contained several full nude scenes of an uncredited Margaret Edwards as Naked Truth, including a sequence with her posing nude as a statue...
(1915), directed by Lois Weber
Lois Weber
Lois Weber was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director, who is considered "the most important female director the American film industry has known", and "one of the most important and important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films". Film historian...
, which contained a sequence with a nude woman posing as a statue and impressive (for 1915) traveling double exposure
Multiple exposure
In photography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more individual exposures to create a single photograph. The exposure values may or may not be identical to each other.-Overview:...
sequences of a young woman nude. Nell Shipman
Nell Shipman
Nell Shipman was a Canadian actress, author and screenwriter, producer, director, and animal trainer. She was a Canadian pioneer in early Hollywood. She is best known for her work in James Oliver Curwood stories and for portraying strong, adventurous women...
appeared nude in Back to God’s Country (1919). Fox produced The Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba (film)
The Queen of Sheba is a silent film produced by Fox studios about the story of the ill-fated romance between Solomon, King of Israel, and the Queen of Sheba. Written and directed by J. Gordon Edwards, it starred Betty Blythe as Sheba and Fritz Leiber as King Solomon...
in 1921 starring Betty Blythe
Betty Blythe
Betty Blythe was an American actress best known for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films such as The Queen of Sheba .-Career:...
. The film, now lost
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
, was a huge hit for Fox and Miss Blythe displayed ample nudity even when wearing 28 different diaphanous costumes.
After the silent era ended, movies with sound that included brief glimpses of nudity appeared as early as 1931 with The Yellow Ticket
The Yellow Ticket
The Yellow Ticket is a 1931 drama film based on a play by Michael Morton, produced by the Fox Film Corporation and directed by Raoul Walsh. The film starred Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore and featured Boris Karloff...
. Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
, later known as a family entertainment specialist, included several nude scenes in his early epics such as The Sign of the Cross
The Sign of the Cross (film)
The Sign of the Cross is a pre-Code epic film released by Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman, and based on the original 1895 play by Wilson Barrett....
(1932). Other filmmakers followed suit, particularly in historical dramas such as The Scarlet Empress
The Scarlet Empress
The Scarlet Empress is a 1934 historical drama film made by Paramount Pictures about the life of Catherine the Great. It was directed and produced by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Eleanor McGeary, loosely based on the diary of Catherine arranged by Manuel Komroff...
(1934) – which shows topless women being burned at the stake – and contemporary stories filmed in exotic, mostly tropical, locations. Bird of Paradise
Bird of Paradise (1932 film)
Bird of Paradise is a 1932 American film directed by King Vidor, starring Dolores del Río, Joel McCrea, and Richard "Skeets" Gallagher and released by RKO Radio Pictures.-Plot:...
, directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
in 1932, featured a nude swimming scene with Delores del Rio, and Harry Lachman
Harry Lachman
Harry B. Lachman was an American artist, set designer, and film director.Born La Salle, Illinois, Lachman was educated at the University of Michigan before becoming a magazine and book illustrator, contributing 4 colour illustrations to the 1907 work John Smith, Gentleman Adventurer by Charles...
's Dante's Inferno featured many naked women suffering in hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
. The early Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...
featured at least partial nudity justified by the natural surroundings in which the characters lived; in Tarzan and His Mate
Tarzan and His Mate
Tarzan and His Mate is a Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the second in the Tarzan film series to star Johnny Weissmuller....
in 1934, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...
, doubled by Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim
Josephine McKim
Josephine Eveline McKim was a champion American swimmer who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics and 1932 Summer Olympics....
) swims in the nude. Nudity of natives was portrayed (often by editing in stock documentary footage) in jungle epics and South Seas island pictures such as Trader Horn
Trader Horn (1931 film)
Trader Horn is the first non-documentary film shot on location in Africa. The 1931 movie tells of the adventures of real-life trader and adventurer Alfred Aloysius "Trader" Horn on safari in Africa. It featured many authentic shots of African wildlife and a great deal of inauthentic plot. It was...
(1931), Moana (1926) and Tabu
Tabu (film)
Tabu is a 1931 film directed by F.W. Murnau. The film is split into two chapters, the first called "Paradise" depicts the lives of two lovers on a South Seas island until they are forced to escape the island when the girl is chosen as a holy maid to the gods...
(1931).
In response to objections voiced by several groups – provoked at least partly by the notorious 1933 Czech
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
film Ecstasy
Ecstasy (film)
Ecstasy – Extase in Czech, Ekstase in German – is a Czech film made in 1933 by the Czech director Gustav Machatý. It stars Hedy Lamarr, credited under her original surname Kiesler, and Zvonimir Rogoz....
, which featured a nude scene by Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
– scenes of nudity were forbidden in films from the major film studios from 1934 until the late 1960s under the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays Code. During this time, the only acceptable cinematic displays of nudity in the U.S. were in naturist quasi-documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
s and in foreign films. Other portrayals were in early pornographic films which, due to limited means of distribution, were not widely seen.
Exploitation and nudist films
Film producers who were outside the studio systemStudio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
were not bound by the Hays Code, but still had to remain within censorship guidelines, one of which pemitted educational films. These films dealt with taboo topics such as drug parties, prostitution, and sexually transmitted infections. In the course of presenting the message nudity at times made an appearance. These films, which emerge in the 1930s, were obliged to play in independent theaters or traveled across the United States in "roadshow" fashion. They were normally low-budget, and described as sensationalized exploitation films. Using this framework, brief nude scenes of women appeared in Maniac
Maniac (1934 film)
Maniac, also known as Sex Maniac, is a 1934 black-and-white exploitation/horror film, directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Black Cat", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue"...
(1934), Sex Madness
Sex Madness
Sex Madness is an exploitation film directed by Dwain Esper, along the lines of Reefer Madness, supposedly to warn teenagers and young adults of the dangers of venereal diseases, specifically syphilis....
(1937), and nude swimming sequences in Damaged Lives
Damaged Lives
Damaged Lives is a Canadian / American exploitation film produced by Columbia Pictures and directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The film is based on the French play Les Avariés by Eugène Brieux, about a couple that contracts a venereal disease....
(1933), Marihuana
Marihuana (film)
Marihuana is a 1936 exploitation film directed by Dwain Esper, and written by Esper's wife, Hildegarde Stadie.- Pot :Burma is a confused girl who likes to party. One day, she meets some strangers in a bar who invite her and her group to a party...
(1936) and Child Bride
Child Bride
Child Bride, also known as Child Brides , is a 1938 film directed by Harry Revier. Set in a remote town in the Ozarks, it claims to be an attempt to draw attention to the lack of laws banning child marriage in many states...
(1938).
Nudist films are a genre of films associated with the 1950s and 1960s, although the genre has roots dating back to the 1930s with such titles as This Nude World (1933) and The Unashamed (1938). Nudist films claim to depict the lifestyles of members of the nudism or naturist movement, but were largely a vehicle for the exhibition and commercial exploitation of female nudity within the context of public theatrical screenings.
Famous examples of nudist films are Garden of Eden (1954) directed by Max Nosseck
Max Nosseck
-Selected filmography:* Aventura oriental * Oranje Hein * Overture to Glory * Gambling Daughters * The Brighton Strangler * Black Beauty* Dillinger * And Who Is Kissing Me?...
and Naked Venus (1958) from Damaged Lives director Edgar G. Ulmer. Other producers and directors active in the genre included David F. Friedman
David F. Friedman
David Frank Friedman was an American filmmaker and film producer.-Life and career:Friedman first became interested in entertainment after spending part of his childhood in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama, traveling carnival sites. He met exploitation film pioneer Kroger Babb during his stay in...
, Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror...
, and Barry Mahon
Barry Mahon
Barry Mahon, born Jackson Barrett Mahon , was an American film director, cinematographer and producer.-Early years:...
. Filmmaker Doris Wishman
Doris Wishman
Doris Wishman was an American film director, screenwriter and independent film producer....
was probably the most active producer/director in the genre, with seven nudist films to her credit between 1960 and 1964. Exploitation producer George Weiss
George Weiss (producer)
George Weiss was an American film producer who specialized in independent 'road show' exploitation Z movies during the 1950s and sexploitation shockers in the '60s that openly defied the motion picture production code of the day.-Glen or Glenda:Weiss is best known as the producer who funded the...
released films such as Nudist Life (1961), by editing together vintage nudist camp footage. That same year in England, Harrison Marks
Harrison Marks
George Harrison Marks was a British glamour photographer and director of nudist, and later, pornographic films who was active in the fields for several decades.-Kamera and Pamela Green:...
released Naked as Nature Intended starring Pamela Green
Pamela Green
Pamela Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s...
to box office success. (Marks soon went to make softcore pornographic and caning/spanking fetish films.)
Nudie-cuties and sexploitation
The Immoral Mr. TeasThe Immoral Mr. Teas
The Immoral Mr. Teas is the first commercially successful film of director Russ Meyer.-Etymology:The name "Teas" is a homophone of the word tease, and one of the meanings of "tease" includes to sexually excite another person by subtle means, usually explicitly avoiding advancement to more...
(1959) by Russ Meyer
Russ Meyer
Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer....
, in which the main character was overcome with fantasies of nude women, was the first non-naturist feature film to openly exhibit nudity and is, because of that, widely considered the first pornographic feature. For the next few years a wave of films known as "Nudies" or "Nudie-cuties" were produced for grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
theatres. Examples from this era include Doris Wishman's science fiction spoof Nude on the Moon
Nude on the Moon
Nude on the Moon is a 1961 sexploitation film co-written and co-directed by Doris Wishman and Raymond Phelan under the shared pseudonyms "O. O. Miller" and "Anthony Brooks". The film was produced in 1960 but was not released theatrically until 1961. Doris Wishman went on to become a significant ...
(1963), the Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman film The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961), and Ed Wood's horror-nudie, Orgy of the Dead
Orgy of the Dead
Orgy of the Dead is an unrated 1965 film directed by Stephen C. Apostolof under the alias A. C. Stephen. The screenplay was adapted by cult film director Edward D. Wood, Jr from his own novel...
(1965) with its bevy of topless dancers from beyond the grave, following his western screenplay, Revenge of the Virgins
Revenge of the Virgins
Revenge of the Virgins is a 1959 American film directed by Peter Perry Jr. aka Bethel Buckalew.- Plot summary :Tenderfoot Burton and his wife join forces with an old prospector to search for the rich gold strike the old-timer claims to know of...
(1959), which shows a fierce tribe of bare-breasted Indian women hunting a group of treasure seekers.
By 1964, underground films with a harder edge such as Russ Meyer's Lorna
Lorna (film)
Lorna is a 1964 film by Russ Meyer. Shot mainly on the small main street that runs through the town of Locke, California in September 1963, this was Meyer's first film in 35 mm. It was Meyer's first film to employ a dramatic storyline, the most expensive film he had filmed to date, and the first of...
, and Joseph P. Mawra's misogynistic Olga's House of Shame and White Slaves of Chinatown marked the end of the nudie and the ascent of a mix of sex and violence known as "roughie" sexploitation
Sexploitation
Sexploitation, or "sex-exploitation", describes a class of independently produced, low-budget feature films generally associated with the 1960s and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films...
. Prime examples include R. Lee Frost's The Defilers (1965), a study in abduction and sadism, The Sexploiters (1965), Bad Girls Go to Hell
Bad Girls Go to Hell
Bad Girls Go to Hell is an American 1965 sexploitation film, written, produced and directed by Doris Wishman. The film stars Gigi Darlene, George La Rocque, Barnard L...
(1965), The Agony of Love (1966), Michael Findlay
Michael Findlay
Michael Findlay, along with his wife Roberta Findlay, directed and produced numerous sexploitation movies. They have been described as "the most notorious filmmakers in the annals of sexploitation"....
's psycho-killer trilogy starting with The Touch of Her Flesh (1967), and Frost's Love Camp 7
Love Camp 7
Love Camp 7 is a 1969 U.S. women-in-prison B-movie directed by Lee Frost and written by Wes Bishop and Bob Cresse, the latter of whom also acts as a sadistic camp commandant.-Plot:...
(1968), which was the forerunner of the women in prison and Nazi exploitation
Nazi exploitation
Nazi exploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film and sexploitation film that involves villainous Nazis committing criminal acts of a sexual nature often as camp or prison overseers in World War II settings...
subgenres.
1960 - 1965
Michael PowellMichael Powell (director)
Michael Latham Powell was a renowned English film director, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger...
's film Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom (film)
Peeping Tom is a 1960 British psychological thriller directed by Michael Powell and written by the World War II cryptographer and polymath Leo Marks. The title derives from the slang expression 'peeping Tom' describing a voyeur...
(1960
1960 in film
The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
) contains what may be the first female nude scene in a postwar English language mainstream feature film: a model (Pamela Green
Pamela Green
Pamela Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s...
) lies naked on the bed to be photographed. Earlier in the movie Green exposes her breasts. The movie was panned by the critics at the time and it destroyed Powell's career. The film was subsequently re-edited leaving out the nude scenes. Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
released the film in 1979. It is now a cult classic and a critical favourite, revered as one of the most important films of British postwar cinema and often described as the British Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
.
In 1963, Tommy Noonan
Tommy Noonan
Tommy Noonan was a comedy genre film performer, screenwriter and producer. He acted in a number of 'A' and 'B' pictures from the 1940s through the 1960s, and he is best known for his supporting performances as Gus Esmond, Marilyn Monroe's wealthy boyfriend, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , and as the...
persuaded Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
to become the first mainstream American actress to appear nude with a starring role in Promises! Promises!
Promises! Promises!
Promises! Promises! is a 1963 unrated sex comedy film, released after the demise of the Hays code and before the MPAA film rating system became effective, produced by Tommy Noonan . It was the first Hollywood motion picture release of the sound era to feature a mainstream star—Jayne Mansfield—in...
. Photographs of a naked Mansfield on the set were published in Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
. In one notorious set of images, Mansfield stares at one of her breast
Breast
The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
s, as does her male secretary and a hair stylist, then grasps it in one hand and lifts it high. The sold-out issue resulted in an obscenity charge for Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
, which was later dropped. Promises! Promises! was banned in Cleveland, but it enjoyed box office success elsewhere. As a result of the film's success, Mansfield landed on the Top 10 list of Box Office Attractions for that year. The autobiographical book, Jayne Mansfield's Wild, Wild World, she wrote together with Mickey Hargitay
Mickey Hargitay
Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay was an actor and Mr. Universe 1955. Born in Budapest, Hungary, he was married to Jayne Mansfield, and the father of actress Mariska Hargitay...
, was published right after Promises! Promises! and contains 32 pages of black-and-white photographs from the film printed on glossy paper.
The Pawnbroker
The Pawnbroker (film)
The Pawnbroker is a 1964 drama film, starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters and Jaime Sánchez and directed by Sidney Lumet. It was adapted by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from the novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant....
(1964) was controversial for its breaches of the Motion Picture Production Code by depicting nude scenes in which actresses Linda Geiser
Linda Geiser
Linda Geiser is a Swiss film and television actress best known for her role in the Swiss TV series Lüthi und Blanc as Johanna Blanc....
and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts. The nudity resulted in a "C" (condemned) rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency
National Legion of Decency
The National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...
. Allied Artists refused to cut the film and released it to theaters without a Production Code seal.
1966 – present day
In autumn 1966 the Motion Picture Association of AmericaMotion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
unveiled a new Production Code. The new Code replaced specific rules, including those on nudity, with more general principles advising caution in matters like nudity and sexual intimacy. It gave the MPAA the power to label certain films as "Suggested for Mature Audiences". Only a handful of Hollywood films dared to show a fleeting glimpse of partial nudity, usually a bare breast seen from a distance or in a dark setting.
In November 1968, the MPAA abandoned the Production Code altogether and replaced it with the voluntary rating system. Nudity could then be legitimately included in a commercially distributed film. Many movie theaters still refused to show films with X ratings, which was frequently a barrier to commercial success. A few X-rated films have been critical successes, including A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange (film)
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
(1971), Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris is a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman...
(1973), and Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John...
(1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
.
At present, genital nudity is still rare in U.S. cinema. Anything more than a very small amount of genital nudity, especially in a sexual context, often leads to an NC-17 (or X, in the past) rating. (One notable exception is Porky's
Porky's
Porky's is a 1982 comedy film about the escapades of teenagers at the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida in 1954. It was released in the United States in 1982, and spawned two sequels: Porky's II: The Next Day and Porky's Revenge! and influenced many writers in the teen film genre...
(1982), a broad sex comedy with an R rating that featured several full-frontal nude scenes with multiple men and women, though never both together.)
In the 2000s, most nude scenes led only to an R rating from the MPAA, instead of NC-17. Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers is a 2005 French/American comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and produced by Jon Kilik and Stacey Smith. The film focuses on an aging "Don Juan" who embarks on a cross-country journey to track down four of his former lovers after receiving an anonymous letter...
(2005) was rated R for containing "graphic nudity", though it only contains one brief nude scene featuring Alexis Dziena
Alexis Dziena
-Early life :Dziena was born in New York City of Irish, Italian and Polish descent. She attended the private Saint Ann's School alongside her Bringing Rain costar, Paz de la Huerta. She spent many of her summers growing up in the small South Jersey shore town of Sea Isle City...
(her vulva is visible in the scene). Similarly, the 2003 film The Cooler
The Cooler
The Cooler is a 2003 romantic drama film directed by Wayne Kramer. The original screenplay was written by Kramer and Frank Hannah. In gambling parlance, a "cooler" is an unlucky individual whose presence at the tables results in a streak of bad luck for the other players.- Plot :Unlucky Bernie...
received an NC-17 rating specifically for a scene in which Maria Bello
Maria Bello
Maria Elena Bello is an American actress and singer known for her appearances in the movies Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Permanent Midnight, Thank You for Smoking, A History of Violence, Payback, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. For television she is known for her role as Dr...
's pubic hair
Pubic hair
Pubic hair is hair in the frontal genital area, the crotch, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the legs; these areas form the pubic region....
is exposed. Bello appeared in several full-frontal nude scenes in A History of Violence
A History of Violence (film)
A History of Violence is a 2005 American crime thriller film directed by David Cronenberg and written by Josh Olson. It is an adaptation of the 1997 graphic novel of the same name by John Wagner and Vince Locke...
, which was rated R. Many films that were once rated X have been "re-rated" R; the rating on Midnight Cowboy, for instance, was so changed in late 1970 (the year after its original release).
Few mainstream American films show male or female genitalia (in what is often called a full frontal nudity scene). While it is not entirely uncommon for women to appear in full frontal nude scenes, female genitalia commonly remain obscured by pubic hair. In 2007, Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is well known for his work in comedy films, especially for films he has been involved with throughout the latter half of the 2000s. He is the founder of Apatow Productions, a film production company that also developed the...
announced "I'm gonna get a penis in every movie I do from now on. . . . It really makes me laugh in this day and age, with how psychotic our world is, that anyone is troubled by seeing any part of the human body." The cases where a penis appears fully or semi-erect
Erection
Penile erection is a physiological phenomenon where the penis becomes enlarged and firm. Penile erection is the result of a complex interaction of psychological, neural, vascular and endocrine factors, and is usually, though not exclusively, associated with sexual arousal...
in mainstream films are very limited, in part due to ratings pressure from the MPAA, which finds it more acceptable for a male's genitals to be depicted in a flaccid state.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a 2007 music comedy film written and produced by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan, directed by Kasdan and starring John C. Reilly...
(2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Nicholas Stoller and starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand...
(2008), Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a 2008 romantic comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, distributed by The Weinstein Company, and starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. It is Smith's second film not to be set within the View Askewniverse and the first not set in New Jersey. It was...
(2008), The Hangover
The Hangover (film)
The Hangover is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Todd Phillips and written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha and Jeffrey Tambor...
(2009) and Observe and Report
Observe and Report
Observe and Report is a 2009 American comedy film written and directed by Jody Hill, starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and Ray Liotta.-Plot:...
(2009) all featured male frontal nudity in the context of comedy. Another movie, the mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, often referred to simply as Borat, is a 2006 mockumentary comedy film directed by Larry Charles and distributed by 20th Century Fox...
, has a brief scene in which Borat shows a full-nude frontal picture of his son. Borat and his producer, Azamat Bagatov, have a full nude fight scene, where Borat's genitals were censored with a black bar. Azamat, because of his weight, did not need one, because it was not visible during the film. The film was rated R by the MPAA.
The tastefulness of nude scenes is hotly debated in the United States. In the 2000s, adding nudity to films may hurt a film's commercial potential. Some movie critics view gratuitous nudity (that which is not necessary for the plot) negatively. Various actors have refused to appear on film in the nude, citing either their personal morals or the risk to their reputations and/or careers. Since 2000s, very few American films featured the nudity of A-list actresses (most of them are arthouse films), like Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
in The Reader (2008), Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...
/Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
in Chloe
Chloe (film)
Chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller directed by Atom Egoyan, a remake of the 2004 French film Nathalie.... This version stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried in the title role...
(2010), Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway (actress)
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. She played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries...
in Love & Other Drugs (2010) and Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams (actress)
Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. After starting her career with television guest appearances in the early 1990s, Williams achieved recognition for her role as Jen Lindley on the WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek, which she played from 1998 to 2003...
in Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine (film)
Blue Valentine is a 2010 romantic drama film written and directed by Derek Cianfrance. The film premiered in competition at the 26th Sundance Film Festival. Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis wrote the film, and Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling played the lead roles...
(2010). Still, some nudity-required dramatic roles in upscale films could still help some young actresses to gain more acting opportunities in Hollywood, like Eva Green
Eva Green
Eva Gaëlle Green is a French actress and model.Green performed in theatre before making her film debut in The Dreamers , which generated controversy over her numerous nude scenes. She achieved greater fame for her parts in Kingdom of Heaven , and in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale, for...
in The Dreamers (2003), Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is an English actress best known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada , The Young Victoria , and The Adjustment Bureau . She has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award...
in My Summer of Love
My Summer of Love
My Summer of Love is a 2004 British drama film directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski and Michael Wynne. Based on the novel of the same name by Helen Cross, the film explores the relationship between two young women from different classes and backgrounds...
(2004), Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
in Somersault
Somersault (film)
Somersault is an Australian independent film, written and directed by Cate Shortland and released in September 2004. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival...
(2004), Noomi Rapace
Noomi Rapace
Noomi Rapace is a Swedish actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish/Danish film adaptations of the "Millennium series": The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest...
in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and Elizabeth Olsen
Elizabeth Olsen
Elizabeth Chase Olsen is an American actress and is the younger sister of Mary-Kate Olsen, Ashley Olsen, and Trent Olsen...
in Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a 2011 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Sean Durkin, and starring Elizabeth Olsen , John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and Hugh Dancy...
(2011).
European cinema
Europeans were more relaxed about nudity in film than the U.S. As early as the 1920s a topless Josephine BakerJosephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
was filmed performing exotic dance routines for French cinema. The 1922 Swedish/Danish silent film Häxan
Häxan
Häxan is a 1922 Swedish/Danish silent horror film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen...
contained nude scenes, torture and perversion; an edited version was shown in the U.S. The 1929 Russian film Man with a Movie Camera
Man with a Movie Camera
Man with a Movie Camera , sometimes called The Man with the Movie Camera, The Man with a Camera, The Man With the Kinocamera, or Living Russia is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov, edited by his wife Elizaveta...
by Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
features nudity within the context of naturism.
The 1931 Greek film Daphnis and Chloe by Orestis Laskos featured the first nude scene in a European fiction film, showing Chloe bathing in a fountain.
The opening sequence in Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
's Olympia
Olympia (1938 film)
Olympia is a 1938 Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The film was released in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit . It was the first documentary feature...
, a documentary of the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, is noteworthy for its idealized, non-exploitive use of male and female nudity. Another less artistic film from Germany, Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956), featured Marion Michael
Marion Michael
Marion Michael was a German film actress and singer. She was best known for her role in the 1956 film, Liane, Jungle Goddess...
as a topless female variant on the Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
legend.
Other notable examples from Europe include Gustav Machatý
Gustav Machatý
Gustav Machatý was a Czech film director, screenwriter and actor. He directed 17 films between 1919 and 1955, including Ecstasy...
's Extase (1933, with Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
), Era Lui, Si Si (1952, with Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
), Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
's Summer with Monika
Summer with Monika
Summer with Monika is a 1953 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It sparked controversy abroad for its frank depiction of nudity, and along with the film One Summer of Happiness from the year before, directed by Arne Mattsson, it started the reputation of Sweden as a sexually liberated...
(1953), Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur
Bob le flambeur
Bob le flambeur is a 1956 French gangster film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The film stars Roger Duchesne as Bob...
(1956, with Isabelle Corey
Isabelle Corey
Isabelle Corey is a French film actress appearing in French and Italian films in the 1950s and early 1960s.She was discovered by Jean-Pierre Melville, walking the streets of Montmartre.-Filmography:-External links:*...
, then aged 16), François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's Shoot the Piano Player
Shoot the Piano Player
Shoot the Piano Player is a 1960 French film directed by François Truffaut, starring Charles Aznavour.The film is loosely based on the novel Down There by David Goodis.- Plot summary :...
(1960), Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
's casual nude scenes in Contempt
Contempt (film)
Contempt is a 1963 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, based on the Italian novel Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia. It stars Brigitte Bardot.-Plot:...
(1963) by Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, the French film The Game is Over (1966, with Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
), Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's Belle de jour (1967, with Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
), and Isadora
Isadora
Isadora is a 1968 biographical film which tells the story of celebrated American dancer Isadora Duncan. It stars Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox and Jason Robards....
(1968, with Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
).
In 1966, the British-Italian film Blowup
Blowup
Blowup is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, his first English-language film.It tells of a British photographer's accidental involvement with a murder, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" , translated also as Blow-Up, and by the life...
became the first mainstream English-language film to show a woman's pubic hair, although the particular shot was only a few seconds long. (Some sources, such as Playboy magazine's History of Sex in Cinema series, have stated that the pubic hair exposure was unintended.)
Two Swedish films from 1967, I Am Curious (Yellow)
I Am Curious (Yellow)
I Am Curious is a 1967 Swedish drama film written and directed by Vilgot Sjöman and starring Sjöman and Lena Nyman. It is a companion film to 1968's I Am Curious ; the two were initially intended to be one 3½ hour film...
and Inga, were ground-breaking—and notorious—for showing explicit sex and nudity. Both were initially banned in the U.S., and were rated X when they were shown in 1968.
In the United Kingdom, the Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
film Women in Love
Women in Love
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow , and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an...
(1969) was especially controversial for showing frontal male nudity in a wrestling scene between Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
and Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
. Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in that film, the first performer to win for a role that included nude scenes.
The films of Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat is a French filmmaker, novelist and Professor of Auteur Cinema at the European Graduate School.-Life and career:Breillat was born in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, but grew up in Niort...
, a French filmmaker, are notorious for containing explicit nudity. Her film Une vraie jeune fille (1975) contains close-ups of actress Charlotte Alexandra
Charlotte Alexandra
Charlotte Alexandra is an English film actress born in 1955. She is best known for her appearance in several controversial, sexually-explicit feature films in the mid- to late-1970s....
's vulva and actor Bruno Balp's penis, some of which are particularly graphic in nature (including a sequence where an earthworm is inserted into Alexandra's vagina). This resulted in the film not officially being released until 1999. Other actresses who have appeared in explicit full-frontal nude scenes in Breillat's films include Caroline Ducey in Romance
Romance (1999 film)
Romance is a 1999 French movie written and directed by Catherine Breillat. It stars Caroline Ducey, pornographic actor Rocco Siffredi, Sagamore Stévenin and François Berléand. The film features explicit copulation scenes, especially one showing Caroline Ducey's coitus with Rocco Siffredi...
(1999) and Roxane Mesquida
Roxane Mesquida
Roxane Mesquida is a French actress and model based in Los Angeles.Mesquida grew up in Le Pradet, a little town located in South of France. Her mother, writer Françoise Mesquida, is French/Spanish and her father is Italian/American but Mesquida never got to know him...
in Sex is Comedy
Sex is Comedy
Sex Is Comedy is a 2002 French film written and directed by Catherine Breillat.-Overview:Sex Is Comedy revolves around a director and her troubles filming an intimate sex scene between two actors who cannot tolerate each other....
(2002).
European attitudes towards depictions of nudity tend to be relatively relaxed and there are few taboos around it. Showing of full frontal nudity in movies, even by major actors, is common and it is not considered damaging to the actors' careers. In recent years explicit unsimulated sexual intercourse occurs in movies which target the general movie-going audience, albeit those usually labeled 'arthouse' product; for example, Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
’s 9 Songs
9 Songs
9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film...
and Lars Von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
’s The Idiots
The Idiots
The Idiots is a 1998 Danish film directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme '95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2...
.
The Finnish documentary Steam of Life
Steam of Life
Steam of Life is a Finnish documentary film directed by Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen. The movie was produced by Joonas Berghäll. It opened theatrically in New York City on July 30th, 2010 and opened in Los Angeles on August 6th, 2010 at the 14th Annual DocuWeeks.It was selected as the...
about men in saunas shows nudity throughout the film.
In the Dutch movie All Stars 2: Old Stars the main characters stay in a nudist campsite
Campsite
A campsite or camping pitch is a place used for overnight stay in the outdoors. In British English a campsite is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight using tents or camper vans or caravans; this British English use of the word is synonymous with the...
. Much full frontal nudity is displayed, but not of any of the main characters.
East Asian cinema
Full-frontal male nudity (in which genitals are fully revealed) has traditionally been taboo in cinema from East Asia (and for actors of East Asian origin living outside East Asia), in sharp contrast to the situation in mainland Europe, but similar to the US. A rare example of a challenge to this taboo occurred in Japan in 1976, with explicit sexual scenes featuring Tatsuya FujiTatsuya Fuji
Tatsuya Fuji is a Japanese film actor. He has appeared in 50 films since 1964, and was the first Japanese actor to appear in full-frontal nudity with explicit sexual scenes in a non-pornographic Japanese film, In the Realm of the Senses, which was released worldwide in 1976, but has yet to be...
in the historical story In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses
is a 1976 Franco-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe...
. However, the unexpurgated version of the film has never been shown in Japan, and the film negatives had to be secretly shipped out of the country to France for developing.
However, a number of recent films have lifted this taboo. Among them are: the full-frontal appearance of Hong Kong Chinese actor Michael Lam
Michael Lam
Michael Lam Wai-Leung is a Hong Kong Chinese film actor. He has appeared in numerous films, in several of which he has played the lead role. He first appeared in the film The Night Rider....
, who was the lead in Bugis Street
Bugis Street (film)
Bugis Street is a 1995 Hong Kong-Singapore co-production directed by Yonfan, about the lives of Singaporean transvestites in a bygone era...
(1995), as his clothes and underwear are torn off by his lover, fully exposing his genitals; a variety of East Asian actors in The Pillow Book
The Pillow Book (film)
The Pillow Book is a 1996 film by United Kingdom director Peter Greenaway, which stars Vivian Wu as Nagiko, a Japanese model in search of pleasure and new cultural experience from various lovers...
(1996); of Hong Kong Chinese lead actor Sunny Chan
Sunny Chan
Sunny Chan Kam-Hung is a Hong Kong television and film actor. His breakout film role was in the internationally multi-award-winning 1998 Hong Kong film Hold You Tight, for which he won the coveted Silver Screen Award for Best Actor at the Singapore International Film Festival in...
in a bathroom scene as he enters a shower, fully revealing his genitals for a few moments, in Hold You Tight
Hold You Tight
Hold You Tight is a multi-award-winning 1998 Hong Kong romantic drama film directed by Stanley Kwan....
(1997); of mainland China lead actor Liu Ye in Lan Yu (2001), whose genitals are shown as lies naked on a bed; a variety of East Asian actors in Under One Roof
Under One Roof (film)
Under One Roof is a 2002 independent gay-themed romantic comedy-drama directed by Todd Wilson . Shot on digital video, the film tells the story of a young gay Chinese-American man's search for true love and family acceptance within a framework of traditional norms.Under One Roof played worldwide at...
(2002); of French Vietnamese actor Steve Tran
Steve Tran
Steve Tran is a French Vietnamese film and television actor. He has appeared in numerous titles, and in 2009, he recorded the soundtrack 'We Can Make It' for the film Tricheuse.-Filmography:* Beur sur la ville...
whose genitals are shown as he walks naked in a high school locker room in Cold Showers
Cold Showers
Cold Showers is a 2005 French film directed by Antony Cordier. It was a Directors' Fortnight Selection at 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of three teenagers, a girl, Vanessa, and two boys, Mickael and Clement, who face changes and problems over a period of three months as they...
(2005); of Singapore Chinese actor/director Zihan Loo
Zihan Loo
Zihan Loo is a gay Singaporean actor, film director and dancer.He has been open about both his own homosexuality and depicting gay themes in his films, despite the subject being particularly taboo in Southeast Asian society. His first film, Solos, was withdrawn from its début screening at the 20th...
, who removes all his clothes, uncovering his genitals, and while waiting to meet a prostitute, masturbates on camera, eventually revealing his fully erect penis, in Pleasure Factory
Pleasure Factory
Pleasure Factory is a 2007 docudrama film set in Geylang, the red-light district of Singapore. Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham, the film was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival....
(2007); a variety of Taiwanese Chinese actors who dare each other to skinnydip in Winds of September
Winds of September
Winds of September is a 2008 Taiwanese film, set in 1996 in Hsinchu, that focuses on a gang of teenage boys who drink, smoke and gamble, and the relationships between them...
(2008), and of lead actor Ron Heung
Ron Heung
Ron Heung Tze-Chun/Chi Chung is a Hong Kong Chinese film actor and art director. He has appeared in a lead role in two films and as a supporting player in two others. He was also Art Director for the film Permanent Residence, and worked in the Art Department for Amphetamine...
and the Hong Kong National Baseball Team
Hong Kong national baseball team
The Hong Kong national baseball team is the representative team for Hong Kong in international baseball competition. The team finished 6th in the 2007 Asian Baseball Championship....
, who are shown naked in City Without Baseball
City Without Baseball
City Without Baseball is a 2008 Hong Kong movie drama starring Ron Heung and other members of the Hong Kong National Baseball Team. It is directed by South African-born Hong Kong filmmaker Lawrence Ah Mon, about a city where baseball is almost unknown, and where the team plays to empty stadia...
(2008), with their genitals fully revealed on camera. South Korean lead actor Song Kang-ho
Song Kang-ho
Song Kang-ho is a leading South Korean film actor.- Career:Song Kang-ho never professionally trained as an actor, beginning his career in social theater groups after graduating from Kimhae High School...
appears frontally naked in Thirst
Thirst (2009 film)
Thirst is a 2009 horror/drama film, written, produced and directed by Park Chan-wook. It is loosely based on the novel Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola. The film tells the story of a priest—who is in love with his friend’s wife—turning into a vampire through a failed medical experiment. Park has...
(2009). Hong Kong Chinese actors Sean Li
Sean Li
Sean Li Jia-Hao is a Hong Kong Chinese film actor. He was born in Hong Kong and educated in the United Kingdom and the United States.-Education:...
and Osman Hung
Osman Hung
Osman Hung Chi-Kit is a Hong Kong Chinese film and television actor, and a singer/songwriter of the popular Cantopop group EO2 in Hong Kong.-Life and career:...
appear frontally naked in Permanent Residence
Permanent Residence (film)
Permanent Residence is a 2009 Hong Kong movie starring Sean Li and Osman Hung, and directed by acclaimed Hong Kong Chinese film-maker Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung, whose stage name is Scud. It explores several themes traditionally regarded as 'taboo' in Hong Kong society, in an unusually open,...
(also 2009), as do the lead Hong Kong Chinese actors Byron Pang
Byron Pang
Byron Pang Koon Kei/Kwun Ki is a Hong Kong Chinese film and TV actor and a former model. He first appeared as a runner-up contestant for Mr. Hong Kong in 2005. His appearances include the leading role in the 2010 film Amphetamine , in The Storm Warriors , and in publicity photographs connected to...
and Hong Kong half-Chinese/half-British actor Thomas Price in Amphetamine (2010), and numerous Hong Kong Chinese actors in the film Love Actually... Sucks!
Love Actually... Sucks!
Love Actually... Sucks! is a 2011 Hong Kong movie, directed by award-winning Hong Kong Chinese film producer Scud . It will be released at the 47th Chicago International Film Festival, in October 2011...
(2011). These appearances contrast with those nearer the beginning of the decade: the much briefer nude (side) appearance of young mainland Chinese actor Cui Lin (in which his genitals are shown) at the beginning of the shower scene in Beijing Bicycle
Beijing Bicycle
Beijing Bicycle is a 2001 Chinese drama film by Sixth Generation Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai, with joint investment from the Taiwanese Arc Light Films and the French Pyramide Productions. The film stars first-time actors Cui Lin and Li Bin, supported by the already established actresses Zhou...
(2001), and the brief full-frontal appearance of a Singapore Chinese actor in the film 15
15 (film)
15: The Movie, also known simply as 15, is a 2003 Singaporean film about teenage gangsters in the Singapore suburbs. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Royston Tan, the film is an expanded version of Tan's 2002 award-winning short film, also titled 15...
(2003), and of Japanese puppeteer Sota Sakuma, whose body and genitals are fully revealed but shown briefly, in a nude beach scene in EuroTrip
EuroTrip
EuroTrip is a 2004 teen comedy film directed by Jeff Schaffer and written by Alec Berg, David Mandel and Schaffer. The main plot follows Scotty "Scott" Thomas from Hudson, Ohio who travels across Europe to search for his German pen pal Mieke , whom he initially mistakes for a man named Mike...
(2004), and even the brief frontal view of mainland China lead actor Guo Xiaodong in Summer Palace
Summer Palace (film)
Summer Palace , is a 2006 Chinese film and the fourth feature film by director Lou Ye. The film was a Chinese-French collaboration produced by Dream Factory, Laurel Films, Fantasy Pictures and Sylvain Bursztejn's Rosem Films...
, later in the decade (2006).
The appearances of mainland Chinese teenage lead actor Xu Dialing in Red Cherry
Red Cherry
Red Cherry is a 1995 film directed by Ye Ying . The Director of Photography was Zhang Li, a fifth generation filmmaker and classmate of Chen Kaige. Red Cherry won Best Picture at the 1996 Golden Rooster Awards....
(1995), of Lee Kang-sheng
Lee Kang-sheng
Lee Kang-sheng is a Taiwanese actor, film director, and screenwriter. He has appeared in all of Tsai Ming-liang's feature films. Lee's directorial efforts include The Missing in 2003 and Help Me Eros in 2007.-Career:...
in The Wayward Cloud
The Wayward Cloud
The Wayward Cloud is a 2005 film directed by Tsai Ming-liang. The cast includes Lee Kang-sheng and Chen Shiang-chyi. The film was Taiwan's official entry for the 78th Academy Awards in the foreign-language category...
(2005), of Joseph Chang
Joseph Chang
Joseph Chang is a Taiwanese actor. He is best known for his role in the critically acclaimed 2006 Taiwanese flim Eternal Summer, which earned him two Golden Horse Awards nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best New Performer for his role as Yu Shouheng...
and Bryant Chang
Bryant Chang
Bryant Chang is a Taiwanese actor.He won the award for Best New Performer at the 2006 Golden Horse Awards for his performance in Eternal Summer.-Filmography:*Eternal Summer 盛夏光年 *Summer's Tail 夏天的尾巴...
in Eternal Summer
Eternal Summer
Eternal Summer is a 2006 Taiwanese film starring Joseph Chang, Bryant Chang and Kate Yeung. It was directed by Leste Chen. In 2006 the film received four nominations at the 44th Golden Horse Awards, including Best Supporting Actor and Best New Performer for Joseph Chang, and Bryant Chang won Best...
(2006), of Korean lead actors Lee Yeong-hoon and Kim Nan-gil in No Regret
No Regret (film)
No Regret is a 2006 South Korean film and the feature film directorial debut of Leesong Hee-il, based on his earlier short Good Romance...
(also in 2006), of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in Lust, Caution (2007), and of Qin Hao
Qin Hao
Qin Hao is a Chinese actor. He is known for starring in the 2009 film Spring Fever.-Early life:In 1996, Qin entered China's Central Academy of Drama...
and Chen Sicheng
Chen Sicheng
Chen Sicheng is a Chinese actor. He graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, and has a leading role in the 2009 film Spring Fever.- External links :...
in Spring Fever
Spring Fever (2009 film)
Spring Fever is a 2009 Chinese film directed by Lou Ye. The production of the film is in defiance of a five-year ban on filmmaking imposed by China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television for his previous film, Summer Palace. The film was reportedly surreptitiously shot in the city...
(2009), are all described as featuring full-frontal nudity, although no genitals are shown.
Another example of nudity (but with simulated genitals) in East Asian cinema is the Japanese film Hanzo the Razor (1972). It is the first part of a trilogy, depicting Officer Hanzo Itami's foiling of a plot by corrupt officials in Edo period Japan. Simulated male and female genitals are shown in various scenes. There are also scenes showing Hanzo using sexually aggressive tactics in order to extract secrets from women who associated with Hanzo's suspects.
Animation
- See also: adult animationAdult animationAdult animation is a term used to describe animation that is targeted at adults. Animated films and television shows may be considered adult for a number of reasons. Some productions are noted for experimental storytelling and animation techniques, or sophisticated storytelling...
which includes a mix of adult themes and situations including nudity
In animated films in the U.S., nudity is limited. Only a few mainstream animated films like Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
, Fantastic Planet
Fantastic Planet
Fantastic Planet is a 1973 animated science fiction film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by...
, and Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal (film)
Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian fantasy-animated film directed by Gerald Potterton and produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine....
have contained significant nudity. The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress...
(2007) has a brief scene in which Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
is fully nude, and carries a PG-13 rating. Another famous exception is South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999), which carries an R rating, and shows both nude female breasts and full frontal male nudity.
In the Franco-Belgian Kirikou
Kirikou and the Sorceress
Kirikou and the Sorceress is a 1998 Franco-Belgian animated film written and directed by Michel Ocelot. Drawn directly from West African folk tales, it tells of how a newborn boy saves his village by ridding them of the evil witch Karaba...
animated films, full-frontal nudity of the titular little boy appears throughout the film, in addition to female nudity in the form of exposed breasts.
In Canada, Rock & Rule
Rock & Rule
Rock & Rule is a 1983 Canadian animated film from the animation studio Nelvana. It was produced and directed by the company's founders, Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith. The film features the voices of Greg Salata, Susan Roman, and Don Francks, with Catherine O'Hara, Chris...
(1983) features brief female toplessness.
In Japanese cinema, nudity taboos have evolved greatly since the dawn of animation, and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, the general category of animated films, includes some films with a spectrum of nudity and sexual situations. The Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
films Hols: Prince of the Sun
Hols: Prince of the Sun
, also known as The Little Norse Prince or Little Norse Prince Valiant, is an anime film released in 1968. It was director Isao Takahata's feature film début. Hayao Miyazaki, Yasuo Ōtsuka, Yoichi Kotabe, and Yasuji Mori, among others, worked as animators in this movie, providing many designs, story...
in the 1960s and Tatsu no ko Taro
Tatsu no ko Taro
Tatsu no ko Taro is a 1979 film adaptation of a famous Japanese folk tale, and the novel Taro, the Dragon Boy by Miyoko Matsutani.-Cast:Mîna Tominaga ... Aya Kazuo Kitamura ... Niwatori-chouja Kazuo Kumakura ... Red Oni...
in the '70s include brief full nudity of their titular characters. The popularity of OVA (Original Video Animation
Original video animation
, abbreviated as media , are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. The term originated in relation to Japanese animation...
) direct-to-video series in Japan has been a major factor in the unique blend of content in Japanese anime. Starting in the mid-1980s when video tape players became common home appliances, themes of nudity and sexual content flourished in Japanese animation with the hallmarks of many modern sub-genres being established early with such films and OVA series as Lolita Anime
Lolita Anime
The series was the first ever hentai original video animation , created by a studio called Wonder Kids. It ran from February 1984 to May 1985 and consisted of six episodes...
, Cream Lemon
Cream Lemon
is an erotic anime series with some in-depth storylines and classic artwork. The first Cream Lemon OVA was released in 1984, though Cream Lemon was not the first hentai OVA...
and Urotsukidōji
Urotsukidoji
is a Japanese manga and an Original Video Animation releases.-History:Urotsukidōji was created by Toshio Maeda, in 1986, and was a huge departure from his earlier works in that it mixed erotica with humor, and the supernatural...
. Such sexually explicit films or those with significant nudity are referred to as hentai
Hentai
is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and computer games. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 and 態...
outside of Japan.
Nudity in film
- Midnight CowboyMidnight CowboyMidnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John...
(1969) - BraveheartBraveheartBraveheart is a 1995 epic historical drama war film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace...
(1995) - Primal FearPrimal Fear (film)Primal Fear is a 1996 American crime drama thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. The film tells the story of a defense attorney, Martin Vail , who defends an altar boy, Aaron Stampler , charged with the murder of a Catholic archbishop. The movie is an...
(1996) - The Devil's AdvocateThe Devil's Advocate (film)The Devil's Advocate is a 1997 American horror film directed by Taylor Hackford starring Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino and Charlize Theron, and based on a novel by Andrew Neiderman....
(1997) - American History XAmerican History XAmerican History X is a 1998 American drama film directed by Tony Kaye and starring Edward Norton and Edward Furlong. It was distributed by New Line Cinema....
(1998) - Reindeer GamesReindeer GamesReindeer Games is a 2000 American film, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, and Charlize Theron. It was Frankenheimer's final theatrically released film and received poor reviews.-Plot:...
(2000) - The CoolerThe CoolerThe Cooler is a 2003 romantic drama film directed by Wayne Kramer. The original screenplay was written by Kramer and Frank Hannah. In gambling parlance, a "cooler" is an unlucky individual whose presence at the tables results in a streak of bad luck for the other players.- Plot :Unlucky Bernie...
(2003) - Martha Marcy May MarleneMartha Marcy May MarleneMartha Marcy May Marlene is a 2011 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Sean Durkin, and starring Elizabeth Olsen , John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and Hugh Dancy...
(2011)
See also
- Depictions of nudity
- No-nudity clauseNo-nudity clauseA no-nudity clause is a paragraph or a section in a performer’s legal contract that stipulates the performer may not perform nude in a theatrical, television, cinematic, or other type of production. This clause may amount to a performer's right not to perform in the nude, or it may specify that a...
- Nudity in American televisionNudity in American televisionNudity in American television has always been a controversial topic. Aside from a few exceptions, nudity has traditionally not been shown on terrestrial television...
- Sex in filmSex in filmSex in film refers to the presentation in motion pictures of sexuality and sex acts, including love scenes. Sex scenes have been depicted in film since the silent era of cinematography. Many actors and actresses have exposed parts of their bodies or dressed and behaved in ways considered sexually...
- List of mainstream movies with unsimulated sexUnsimulated sex in filmUnsimulated sex in mainstream cinema was at one time restricted by law and self-imposed industry standards such as the Motion Picture Production Code. Films showing explicit sexual activity were confined to privately distributed underground films, such as stag films or "porn loops"...
Further reading
- Hosoda, Craig (2001). The Bare Facts Video Guide. Bare Facts. ISBN 0-9625474-9-2.
- Jones, Marvin (1996). Movie Buff Checklist: Male Nudity in the Movies. (5th ed.) Panorama City, Cal.: Campfire Productions. ISBN 1-888211-04-0.
- Mr. Skin (2004). Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia: the A-to-Z guide to finding your favorite actresses naked. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-33144-4.
- Storey, MarkMark StoreyMark Storey is a board member of the Naturist Action Committee and has testified at anti-nudity legislation hearings all over the United States....
(2003). Cinema au Naturel: a history of nudist film. Naturist Education Foundation. ISBN 0-9740844-0-9.