Last Updated on 1st December 2022 by Charlie Walsh
Picture this. It’s a Saturday night and you’re settling into the couch to watch an Academy Award Best Picture nominated movie with your family. You hit play, only to find out the movie is perhaps not as family-friendly as you first thought. Cue awkwardness!
As a public service to you all, we have analysed over 250 Academy Award Best Picture nominated movies from the last 50 years, to come up with a list of films you should definitely never watch with your parents.
The Sexiest Films
Stephen Daldry’s 2008 flick The Reader takes the number one spot on our list of movies, ranked by the number of sex scenes and on-screen nudity, with a total of 11 minutes and 36 seconds out of its 124-minute run time. Now that’s a long stint of cringe!
Coming in at a close second is the 1971 sci-fi drama A Clockwork Orange, with 10 minutes and 24 seconds of sexiness out of its 136-minute run time. It also ranks as having the highest amount of on-screen nudity and sex scenes, totalling a huge 12 times, just beating The Wolf of Wall Street which has 11.
Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning film The Piano is another movie we’d recommend you definitely don’t watch with your parents, unless you want to sit through 6 minutes and 41 seconds of discomfiture!
Which Actors & Actresses Get the Most Action?
When it comes to a simulated bump and grind in these Oscar-nominated movies, actress Kate Winslet gets down and dirty for a total of 8 minutes and 30 seconds thanks to her starring roles in The Reader and Titanic. Natalie Portman bares all in the psychological horror film Black Swan for a total of 5 minutes and 18 seconds. And Mena Suvari turns up the heat in the 1999 romance drama American Beauty for 4 minutes and 1 second.
Men are also stripping down in the name of entertainment — Malcolm McDowell leads our list of a-list actors for his steamy role in A Clockwork Orange, where he racks up 5 minutes and 16 seconds of sexy screen time. Fatal Attraction star Michael Douglas has six passionate scenes, totalling 3 minutes and 59 seconds. And Harvey Keitel rounds out our list for his role in The Piano, with 3 minutes and 38 seconds of hot-under-the-collar scenes that you definitely don’t want to watch with your parents.
Is Sex in Best Picture Nominated Movies Becoming More Common?
Moving through the decades since the ‘70s, explicit visual depictions of sexuality are becoming more commonplace, mainly because (let’s face it) sex sells.
Although the 1971 hit A Clockwork Orange ranks second on our list of movies you shouldn’t watch with your parents, the decade from which it came has a relatively low rate of explicit movies nominated for the Academy Award Best Picture. Only 4% to be exact!
The ‘80s bucks that trend with no movies nominated deemed as ‘sexually explicit’. From the ‘80s onwards, however, we can see a slow rise in sexually provocative movies, with the ‘90s raising the bar back up to 4% of Best Picture nominated films having a ‘severe’ rating for on-screen sex and nudity.
At the turn of the century, the rate of films entered into this category doubled to 8%, thanks to the likes of American Beauty, Brokeback Mountain and The Reader. And for the most recent decade, it’s a modest increase to 9% of Best Picture nominated films.
This means that as a society we’re consuming more sexual content and, in turn, really need to do our research to avoid those super awkward moments in the family living room.
Hitting ‘Stop’ on Family Awkwardness
Although Academy Award Best Picture nominated movies have big budgets, big names and big hype, they can also have a lot of sex and nudity. While these scenes can add to a storyline, they can also add to the level of awkwardness depending on, of course, who you watch them with.
We hope this list equips you with the tools needed to press skip on those cringe-worthy blockbuster moments at your next family movie night!
This research was compiled by Bathmate, the world’s largest retailer of hydrotherapy penis pumps.
