The 25 Most Important Full Frontal Nude Scenes in Movies

As titillating as the phrase "full frontal nudity" may sound, baring it all on screen is not always a sexy endeavor. Truth be told, nudity can be as frightening for an audience as it is for the thespian tasked with dropping trou (see The Shining). It can also be hilarious (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), depressing (Requiem for a Dream), politically-charged (Salò), gratuitous (Showgirls), painful (Blue Velvet), or just plain strange (Antichrist).

Then there's also the gender aspect to consider, the fact that women are more often the ones to bare it all, while shots of naked men on film, for whatever reason, consistently causes a stir. Going back to the Forgetting Sarah Marshall example. It's easy to recall how often the movie became known for that Jason Segel dick scene in the first act. But if a man appears erect on film, for example, it can cause a whole rating scandal. That's why you're mostly unlikely to see it in mainstream cinema. Essentially, you'll never see an "R" film with a fully naked dude.

But regardless of its origins (and controversies on representation), naturism has a unique ability to generate a response—be it outrage or otherwise—when viewed through a director’s lens. The best uses of birthday suits in film history go more than skin deep. For nakedness that will stir your mind as much as your loins, check out The 25 Most Important Full Frontal Nude Scenes In Movies. And check out which of these nudity-filled flicks are streaming on Netflix right now.

As titillating as the phrase "full frontal nudity" may sound, baring it all on screen is not always a sexy endeavor. Truth be told, nudity can be as frightening for an audience as it is for the thespian tasked with dropping trou (see The Shining). It can also be hilarious (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), depressing (Requiem for a Dream), politically-charged (Salò), gratuitous (Showgirls), painful (Blue Velvet), or just plain strange (Antichrist).

Then there's also the gender aspect to consider, the fact that women are more often the ones to bare it all, while shots of naked men on film, for whatever reason, consistently causes a stir. Going back to the Forgetting Sarah Marshall example. It's easy to recall how often the movie became known for that Jason Segel dick scene in the first act. But if a man appears erect on film, for example, it can cause a whole rating scandal. That's why you're mostly unlikely to see it in mainstream cinema. Essentially, you'll never see an "R" film with a fully naked dude.

But regardless of its origins (and controversies on representation), naturism has a unique ability to generate a response—be it outrage or otherwise—when viewed through a director’s lens. The best uses of birthday suits in film history go more than skin deep. For nakedness that will stir your mind as much as your loins, check out The 25 Most Important Full Frontal Nude Scenes In Movies. And check out which of these nudity-filled flicks are streaming on Netflix right now.

25. M*A*S*H (1970)

 

Actor who stripped down: Sally Kellerman

Why they're fully nude: An innocent shower turns into an all-out prank.

Spontaneity and authenticity were the two things that made a Robert Altman set "A Robert Altman Set," with not even the actors knowing whether they were being filmed at any given moment. Which meant that one always needed to be on his or her toes. Sally Kellerman learned that lesson the hard way when she voiced her lack of enthusiasm for engaging in a split second of full-frontal nudity.

As the uptight "Hot Lips" Houlihan, Kellerman's natural assets come into question in the age-old "carpet versus drapes" debate. Her colleagues devise a simple plan for determining the answer: raise the shower flap while she's scrub-a-dub-dubbing away. Easy enough. Except Kellerman wasn't having any of it.

Each time the curtain was raised, Kellerman would scramble to the ground before the camera could capture the goods. Uh-uh—not authentic enough for Altman. So on the final take, the ever-inventive director and Gary Burghoff (who played "Radar" O'Reilly) dropped their own pants before the curtain was lifted, stunning Kellerman just long enough to get the shot Altman wanted.

24. Last Tango in Paris (1973)

 

Actor who stripped down: Maria Schneider
Why they're fully nude: A relationship based on anonymous sex is bound to have some nudity.

A funny thing happened in Hollywood in the late 1960s and early 1970s: The director became king. Following the success of such counterculture hits as Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, Easy Rider, and M*A*S*H, a new generation of kid directors—better known as "The New Hollywood"—took over the power positions previously held by studio heads. They made the rules, had final cut, and no one was about to tell them differently. Not even when it came to gratuitous amounts of carnality.

Like Tropic of Cancer before it (in which an unknown—and uncredited—Ellen Burstyn dons nothing but a come-hither expression), Bernardo Bertolucci's tale of anonymous sex between an American widower (doughy Marlon Brando) and a betrothed Parisian (Maria Schneider) is a testament to the power that filmmakers held in the 1970s, so much so that they could get a major release for an X-rated film.

Though some dismissed the film as nothing more than A-list pornography, the sex in Last Tango in Paris is not without a deeper meaning (albeit a rather nihilistic one). Inspired by Bertolucci's own fleshly fantasies, the film shows that very bad things happen when the veil of anonymity is lifted and a sexual relationship turns personal. When love enters the picture, things can only end badly. At least if you're Brando.

23. Salò (1975)

 

Actors who stripped down: Too many to mention
Why they're fully nude: Because the fascist powers that be said so.

Still banned in certain corners of the world today, when it comes to daring to plumb the deepest, darkest places of the human psyche even The Human Centipede movies (obvious descendants) have got nothing on Salò. Based on the Marquis de Sade's book The 120 Days of Sodom, Salò uses nudity as a tool for exploring larger ideas of corruption, perversion, and fascism.

Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the film tells the story of four men of power—The Duke, The Bishop, The Magistrate, and The President—who kidnap 18 young men and women, whom they then subject to various forms of physical, mental, and sexual torture (with four middle-aged prostitutes helping to devise new and even more humiliating ways to up the ante). Fecal consumption, scalping, and branding are just a few of the tactics that are used.

Though it can't technically be classified as a horror film, that didn't stop the Chicago Film Critics Association from giving it the number 65 spot on their Top 100 Scariest Movies list. The film's unrelenting violence and wall-to-wall full-frontal nudity are as effective a statement on power and corruption today as they were upon the film's release more than 35 years ago. Salò still shocks.

22. Carrie (1976)

 

Actor who stripped down: Sissy Spacek
Why they're fully nude: High school. Gym class. Showers.

Back before he was making crap like Snake Eyes and Mission to Mars, Brian De Palma was a master of suspense, creating memorably unsettling tones in movies like Sisters and Carrie, the first big-screen adaptation of a Stephen King story. And before women's locker rooms became a place for peeping (see Porky's), De Palma made them a place for higher learning. About womanhood and what happens when you cross a teen with telekinetic powers.

De Palma aims for uncomfortable in the opening scene of Carrie and scores a direct hit as soft music and lighting give way to absolute terror when gawky teen Carrie White (Sissy Spacek, in her first of six Oscar-nominated performances) mistakes the onset of her menstrual cycle for imminent death and frantically charges her classmates in all her naked terror.

Like all good teen movies, this one's got its fair share of mean girls, who teach Carrie the facts of life by pelting her with a stockpile of tampons. What her peers fail to realize is that anger is the trigger for Carrie's psionic powers...so they're all going down.

21. American Gigolo (1980)

 

Actor who stripped down: Richard Gere
Why they're fully nude: It's a living.

Full frontal nudity is an equal opportunity sport in American Gigolo, Paul Schrader's iconic '80s tale of popular male prostitute Julian Kaye (Richard Gere) and his rotating stable of lonely and able-bodied housewives. Julian is a shallow man operating in a shallow world—one where flashy clothes and cars are the main attraction. But when he becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation following a particularly kinky gig with a married couple, Julian's bells and whistles start to tarnish and fade; in order to clear his name he must strip it all away until there's nothing left—not even his boxers.

Though it's widely recognized as the first film in which a big-name actor appears entirely in the buff, that was never the intention. It was Gere himself who made the decision—one, he claims, that evolved naturally during the course of filming. "If I recall, [the nudity] wasn't in the script," Gere told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year. "It was just in the natural process of making the movie."

20. The Shining (1980)

 

Actors who stripped down: Lia Beldam, Billie Gibson
Why they're fully nude: The product of a married man's fertile imagination. (Or is it?)

No one has ever accused Stanley Kubrick of being a prude. If it weren't for his painterly eye, some of his movies might be considered downright pornographic (we're looking at you, A Clockwork Orange). While he showed a bit more restraint with The Shining, the man just couldn't help himself from throwing in one (well, two) fully naked women. And showing that female nakedness can be both arousing and scary...sometimes almost simultaneously.

When Jack Torrance's (Jack Nicholson) young son claims that he was attacked by a woman in Room 237 of The Overlook Hotel, the abandoned resort the family is watching after in the off-season, Jack wants to see for himself. Instead what he encounters is a buxom young blonde—mid-bath—who seems ready to party.

But when the hottie becomes an old ghoul in an instant, so too does the canoodling that was revving up between them. Good thing Jack's got a lifetime ahead of him in this hotel, because that's just about how long it will take for him (and us) to erase the image of the older version of Jack's fantasy gal from his mind.

19. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

 

Actors who stripped down: Just about everyone
Why they're fully nude: It's not called Fully-Clothed Holocaust

First things first: You can't really have a cannibal movie without a flash of flesh or two. But if any movie ever proved that nudity is NOT always sexy—and is probably best in small doses—it's Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato's infamous version of a National Geographic documentary gone terribly, horribly, impossibly wrong. The nudity here is rampant, and part of the film's statement on the struggle between civilized and uncivilized societies (which the director intended as a slur against the Italian media).

The original "found footage" movie (you're welcome, The Blair Witch Project), Deodato may have been striving for a bit too much authenticity when shooting Cannibal Holocaust, mixing professional actors with real Amazonian tribesmen and women. The director was actually arrested on obscenity charges 10 days after the film's release, when the finished product was believed to be a snuff film, with rumors swirling about some of the on-camera deaths being legitimate murders. (The director had to track down a few of the actors and bring them to court to prove that they were indeed still alive.)

One aspect that was real: the killing of several animals, many of them by machete. Those charges did stick and succeeded in preventing this film to ever be widely released, leading this Holocaust to be named one of the most controversial flicks of all time.

18. Porky's (1982)

 

Actors who stripped down: Kim Cattrall and a handful of nubile co-eds
Why they're fully nude: That's just what happens in locker rooms.

Before there was American Pie there was Porky's (plus Porky's 2 and 3, though it's probably to forget about them), the original "group of male high school students intent on losing their virginity" movie and the one that set the bar for all future scenes that would depict a ladies' locker room/bathroom/etc. as a magical place where all male erotic fantasies come true (i.e. Revenge of the Nerds).

It's in said locker room where all the real nudity goes down, first when Miss Honeywell (Kim Cattrall) gets amorous with a co-worker in the boy's locker room of all places, then as the boys spy on a gaggle of nude ladies, not all of whom are appalled when they realize that they're being watched by a group of randy teens. If you're looking for a deeper meaning, it marked the increase in raunchiness in teen comedies. So, if you love Shannon Elizabeth's "foreign exchange" in American Pie, you have Porky's to thank.

17. Blue Velvet (1986)

 

Actor who stripped down: Isabella Rossellini
Why they're fully nude: Because Dennis Hopper says so.

If Salvador Dalí had directed a film noir, it would probably resemble something close to Blue Velvet, David Lynch's critically acclaimed—but ultimately weird (it is David Lynch after all)—story of an amateur sleuth (Kyle MacLachlan) on the lookout for the owner of an abandoned ear he stumbled across in a field. With Laura Dern as his trusty sidekick, the duo strip away the Mayberry-like feel of their small town to uncover its seedy underbelly, a place where psychotic criminals and sexy chanteuses play sadomasochistic games.

Up until Blue Velvet, Isabella Rossellini was mostly known as a model and the progeny of famed director Roberto Rossellini and legendary actress Ingrid Bergman. But she challenged that perception in the role of Dorothy Vallens, a mysterious singer and sexual slave to drug-huffing psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), who has kidnapped her husband and child. Perhaps sensing that things won't end well in this bizarre scenario, Vallens accepts her fate as a woman with nothing left to give—and so submits herself to Booth's pain and torture. And even begs for more of it from MacLachlan. Let the nudity unfold!

16. Bad Lieutenant (1992)

 

Actor who stripped down: Harvey Keitel
Why they're fully nude: You've got to hit rock bottom before you can save yourself.

Just because he's tasked with investigating the brutal rape of a local nun doesn't mean that Harvey Keitel's beyond-corrupt cop in Bad Lieutenant doesn't have time to smoke crack, snort coke, gamble, get busy with a hooker or two, and masturbate in front of a couple of teenagers. Some of which requires him to flaunt his member for all the world to see. (Harvey must've liked the way it looked in the spotlight, too, because he whipped it out again a year later for Jane Campion in The Piano.)

Is it all a bit over the top? Absolutely. Revolting at times, too. But scratch below the surface of all the shock value that has defined director Abel Ferrara's career and the message here is clear: Religion is the only thing that can kill one's personal demons.

Of course the road to redemption is not always clearly marked. In the case of Bad Lieutenant, it's the battered nun's lack of desire for vengeance that ultimately nudges The Lieutenant toward the side of the righteous. But he's got a long climb out of the hole he's already dug for himself. (It's also fun to point out the irony of another of Keitel's starring roles in the same year: mobster Vince LaRocca in the similarly divine Sister Act. Praise thy Keitel!)

15. Basic Instinct (1992)

 

Actor who stripped down: Sharon Stone
Why they're fully nude: Sex = power.

The female form is at its most powerful in the hands (and legs) of Sharon Stone, who ruled the 1990s with an icy sexuality and carefree attitude about showing off what her mama gave her. Even with two full frontal sex scenes, it was Basic Instinct's half frontal scene—where a commando Stone strategically uncrosses and crosses her legs to the nervous delight of Wayne "Newman!" Knight—that became the film's most iconic moment.

The film, directed by Paul Verhoeven from a script by Joe Eszterhas, became one of the year's biggest hits. And shot Stone to the top of Hollywood's A-list. (Though by the time she reprised her role as full frontal goddess Catherine Tramell in the 2006 sequel, both the actress and her nether regions had fallen a bit off the radar.)

14. Schindler's List (1993)

 

Actors who stripped down: Hundreds of extras playing concentration camp prisoners
Why they're fully nude: Authenticity.

Steven Spielberg won his first Oscar (we're not counting that Thalberg Award) for what is inarguably much, much more than a mere "movie." Already meticulous, the filmmaker scrutinized every last production decision to create maximum impact in telling the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), the German businessman who became a Holocaust hero when he put more than 1,000 Jewish refugees to work in his factories, saving their lives in the process.

Of all the instances of full frontal nudity on this list, its inclusion in Schindler's List is one of the most hotly debated. But it exists—authentically so—for the sole purpose of depicting the absolute powerlessness of the more than six million European Jews who were brutally executed during World War II. Still, Spielberg's decision created a bit of unnecessary controversy when the film aired—uncensored, at the director's insistence—on television for the first time in 1997.

Senator Tom Coburn claimed that NBC's airing of the film had brought television "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence, and profanity." The hullabaloo didn't end there either; Coburn then had to defend his own comments when politicians on both sides of the aisle attacked him. He backtracked a bit to say that he simply felt the movie should have been aired later at night, when fewer children would be able to watch it unsupervised. All subsequent television broadcasts have played unedited.

13. Short Cuts (1993)

 

Actor who stripped down: Julianne Moore
Why they're fully nude: Blame it on the artistic process.

If the Academy handed out little Golden Guys for crotch shots, Julianne Moore would be Meryl Streep. This is a woman who isn't afraid to disrobe, whether she's simply showing some T&A in the ultra-naked Madonna vehicle Body of Evidence or perfecting her vaginal art in The Big Lebowski.

She takes it all off in the name of art in Robert Altman's Short Cuts, in which she plays a painter who spends a whopping 202 seconds of screen time arguing with her husband (Matthew Modine) while her pants have taken up residence elsewhere. Talk about baring it all for your craft!

12. Showgirls (1995)

 

Actor who stripped down: Elizabeth Berkley
Why they're fully nude: Vegas, baby!

What would a Paul Verhoeven/Joe Eszterhas collaboration be without a little bit of female genitalia? Saved by the Bell alum Elizabeth Berkley scores a full-frontal hat trick as she climbs the corporate ladder from stripper to showgirl in this ultimate guilty pleasure movie.

Boasting nudity for the sake of nudity, the film—about the trials, tribulations and water-based sexcapades of a down-and-out Vegas dancer—was the first NC-17-rated film to receive a major theatrical release. While the movie failed to impress in cinemas, it gained a cult following on home video, where it earned an additional $100 million in rentals, ultimately making it one of the studio's most profitable films.

But what would Kelly Kapowski say?

11. Boogie Nights (1997)

 

Actor who stripped down: Heather Graham
Why they're fully nude: When you're a porn star, it's part of the job description.

It only makes sense that a film about the porn industry would feature full-body flashes. It just seems odd that Amber Waves (played by regularly nude Julianne Moore) would be the one to keep (most of) her clothes on.

Such modesty does not apply to Rollergirl (Heather Graham), who happily sheds what appears to be a onesie in order to confirm that Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) has got what it takes to make it in the movies. He certainly does. Though it doesn't make an appearance until the final scene, Diggler's "giant cock" (Amber's words, not ours) is the real star of Paul Thomas Anderson's epic ode to smut.

10. Velvet Goldmine (1998)

 

Actor who stripped down: Ewan McGregor
Why they're fully nude: Why not?

Some actors have it in their contracts that they'll never appear nude on screen. Ewan McGregor is not one of those actors.

From Trainspotting to The Pillow Book to Young Adam, McGregor's phallus is almost as recognizable as his mug. And he puts it to good use in this Todd Haynes-directed film about the not-so-glorious glam rock days of the 1970s, where McGregor channels his inner Ziggy Stardust and lets it all hang out (yet again).

"I remember getting a kind of rush out of [going full frontal] that first time," McGregor told OUT of his penchant for exhibitionism. "A slight feeling of power about it, you know?" For McGregor, nudity is just another tool in his actor's arsenal; in the same way that another actor might cock his head (no pun intended) or arch an eyebrow, McGregor makes himself relatable by stripping away any trappings of his celebrity status.

9. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

 

Actor who stripped down: Pretty much everyone who isn't an A-List actor
Why they're fully nude: Women are but mere objects in Stanley Kubrick's final film.

Like Salò before it, the bulk of the female characters in Stanley Kubrick's final film exist for the single purpose of pleasuring the deep-pocketed and powerful men who surround them. They are bodies, there for the taking—ready or not.

Based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story, it takes but just one minute for a bare ass (Nicole Kidman's at that) to make an appearance in Eyes Wide Shut, and less than 15 minutes for the first instance of full-on nakedness (this one following a drug overdose) to happen.

Overdose would be an appropriate word. From there on out, the female form is on full display—standing, sitting, walking, kneeling, and definitely in flagrante—throughout much of the remaining 144 minutes. So much so that you almost forget it's there after a while. Kind of like wallpaper.

8. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

 

Actor Who Stripped Down: Jennifer Connelly
Why they're fully nude: Desperate times call for desperate measures.

This is Jennifer Connelly. This is Jennifer Connelly on drugs. Any questions?

While Calvin Klein and his fashionista friends were busy making "heroin chic" an actual phrase and look that some women may have aspired to, Darren Aronofsky was depicting the true devastation that addiction—be it to diet pills or heroin—leaves in its path.

Based on the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., who also wrote the screenplay, Requiem for a Dream is a disturbingly honest portrait of four drug addicts with different dreams that end in similar states of despair. In Connelly's case, that means selling herself for drugs, even if that means performing ass-to-ass at sex shows.... That scene definitely contributed to the film's NC-17 rating, and Aronofsky refused to cut it, leading to its unrated release. This nudity is not for the squeamish.

7. Monster's Ball (2001)

 

Actor who stripped down: Halle Berry
Why they're fully nude: You can't create one of cinema's most memorable sex scenes with your clothes on.

Angela Bassett was originally set to play the lead in Marc Forster's bleak indie, but turned the picture down when the script proved too sexual for her liking.

The content in question included one of cinema's most memorable sex scenes, in which the two main characters—Leticia (gorgeous Halle Berry, who swooped in, took the role, and won an Oscar) and Hank (Billy Bob Thornton, at his hangdog finest)—drown their sorrows in each other. It's a scene where the physical act of sex stands in for intimacy. And it's a relationship based on a shared sense of loneliness and loss. It's intense, a little bit dirty, and kind of depressing, but ultimately unforgettable in its grittiness.

6. The Dreamers (2004)

 

Actors who stripped down: Eva Green, Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel
Why they're fully nude: It's one way to escape reality. Just like going to the movies.

Before she was romancing James Bond as Vesper Lynd, Eva Green was carousing in the buff with her brother (Louis Garrel) and an American (Michael Pitt) in Paris—both of them in the buff, too—in The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's erotically-charged cinematic love letter that attempted to rekindle the carefree sexuality of Last Tango in Paris for a new generation.

While the film did manage to stir up a little bit of controversy for its frank attitude toward sex and nudity (in the film, the three main characters have a shared love of movies, so sex acts more like a byproduct of the fantasy world they inhabit), audiences proved much more difficult to shock this time around. The film earned a respectable $15 million at the box office—not bad for an NC-17 film—but not nearly as much of the outrage as its 1970s predecessor.

5. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

 

Actor who stripped down: Stonie, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian
Why they're fully nude: Family photos in Kazakhstan have their own dress code.

Believe it or not, there's only one instance of full frontal nudity in Sacha Baron Cohen's brilliantly offensive Borat. And that's when the Kazakhstani reporter shares some family photos with the etiquette coach he has hired... then breaches the very art of politeness by sharing some fully nude photos of his supposedly teenage son. (The actor in the photo, Stonie, is actually a professional porn star who is definitely of legal age.)

Though the scene in which Borat and his producer (Ken Davitian) have a fight in the nude is the more infamous of the two (the fight begins in their hotel room, continues into the hallway and elevator, and concludes in a busy banquet hall), in it Cohen's genitals are obscured by a black bar and Davitian's by his fat rolls. Be thankful for the magic of moviemaking.

4. Eastern Promises (2007)

 

Actor who stripped down: Viggo Mortensen
Why they're fully nude: Who wears clothes in a bathhouse?

Viggo Mortensen is the definition of a "swinging dick" in Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg's gritty Russian mob movie, when he's mistaken for the mob boss' son (Vincent Cassel) at a bath house and forced to take out a room full of blade-wielding bad guys—in the buff.

As the ultimate symbol of strength and virility, Roger Ebert declared that the scene "sets the same kind of standard that The French Connection set for chases. Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark." It also made Viggo a major badass!

3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

 

Actor who stripped down: Jason Segel
Why they're fully nude: The mistaken belief that his girlfriend is in the mood for love.

Men have been dumped plenty of times on screen. But never in as pathetic a way as Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), boyfriend to the eponymous starlet (Kristen Bell) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Which is to say, while he's stark raving naked. And is completely blindsided.

Segel, who also scripted the film, says the scene was inspired by a real-life experience. Talk about writing what you know. Ouch!

2. Antichrist (2009)

 

Actors who stripped down: Willem Dafoe's nude double, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Why they're fully nude: Random acts of sex and violence.

One almost doesn't know where to begin when it comes to dissecting the parade of nudity that is Antichrist. It starts from the get-go, with a close-up sex scene, as the couple known as He (Willem Dafoe, who used a penis double for the sex scenes) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) make love while their young son climbs out the window and falls to his death. From there, it just gets darker...and stranger.

Sex becomes a weapon of destruction in the hands of director Lars von Trier, who was very open about the severe bouts of depression he was suffering from during the scripting and production of this film. Which might help explain its utterly anarchic tone and truly horrific imagery, including a self-administered female circumcision. Just when you think you understand where it's headed, it veers onto another rocky—and painful—path. A date movie this ain't.

1. Shame (2011)

 

Actor who stripped down: Michael Fassbender
Why they're fully nude: Boy can't help it—sex is an addiction.

Michael Fassbender earned a Golden Globe nomination—and the respect of fellow actors, who saw what he had to offer below the waist—for his portrayal of Brandon, a 30-something sex addict fornicating his way through New York City. That is until his sister (Carey Mulligan, who also strips down to nothing) arrives and challenges his intentionally noncommittal lifestyle.

Second only to Showgirls in terms of earning an NC-17 rating for sexual content, Steve McQueen's Shame is no kind of guilty pleasure. It's a carefully constructed drama in which sex is the opposite of intimacy—it's an escape from personal trauma. Something that can happen only when there is absolutely no personal connection. Men, women; one person, multiple partners; sex is Brandon's drug of choice. And a habit that will ultimately unravel him.

[Note: For another, even less titillating, example of Fassbender's bodily commitment to his characters and craft, watch him display a skeletal frame as hunger-striking IRA prisoner Bobby Sands in McQueen's equally powerful Hunger.]