26) Lovelace (2013) If you've never seen the 1972 smut film Deep Throat, well save you some time. Nobody in the 70s shaved their body hair. Like, at all. This docudrama is a far better way to learn anything about historys most infamous adult film. Amanda Seyfried plays the reluctant star with the legendary gag-reflex, in a sort of Rashomon she said/she said telling of the Deep Throat story. The first version is fun and sexy, with Hank Azaria and Bobby Canavale playing weirdly lovable mob-connected porn producers who say things like, Ohh, now that is art! But when the tale is told a second time, Lovelace becomes Linda Boreman, the victim-turned-feminist anti-porn crusader whos finally able to tell the grisly truth. Lovelace tries (and sometimes succeeds) in showing how porn can be two things at onceridiculous and harmless, and also very, very dark. WATCH IT HERE RADiUS-TWC/courtesy Everett Collection
25) Star 80 (1983) A Bob Fosse-directed movie about porn that includes zero jazz hands almost seems like a huge missed opportunity. But the Broadway musical legends last film is still a cinematic triumph, one of the first to make the startling observation that young people getting paid to have sex on camera might not be the happiest individuals. In fact, they might be pretty miserable, consumed with so much self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy that getting naked for the entertainment of strangers, even if that nudity is with a classy rag like Playboy, wont magically erase years of self-loathing. If life is miserable before you go into porn, it's going to be just as miserable (if not more so) when it spits you out the other side, assuming you even get there before your sociopathic boyfriend who can't believe youre still doing the thing he helped you start doing murders you in a jealous rage. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Archive Photos - Everett
24) Sex Tape (2014) Five or six years ago, there was widespread panic about leaked sex videos. It wasnt just Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton having their home-made sex tapes shared with the whole world. Suddenly normal-seeming celebs like Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, and Olivia Munn watched in horror as their private porn screeners spread far and wide online. So obviously, if it could happen to Jennifer Lawrence, it could happen to us. Never mind that the vast majority of the world absolutely doesnt want to see what goes on in your bedroomsorry, but its trueand hackers are way more interested in your credit card information than your dick pics. The fear was real, and it resulted in a movie like Sex Tape, where Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel play a couple whose amateur porn is accidentally shared with their friends and family, and this news completely freaks them out. I know, adorable, right? Maybe we live in a more jaded age, or were just bored with seeing stranger's genitals, but we no longer live in a world where, to paraphrase Andy Warhol, everybody will be porn famous for 15 minutes. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Everett
23) The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) While not a movie about porn, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is undoubtedly a movie about sex. Still, we decided to include the Judd Apatow cult classic starring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, and Romany Malco for the big ol box on porn scene. When David (Rudd) learns that Andy (Carell) doesnt watch porn, he coaxes Andy into taking a huge box of porn videos home with him by loudly claiming that the pornos were Andys to begin with. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Moviestore/Shutterstock
22) Don Jon (2013) When you think of guys with a crippling porn addiction, you probably imagine some heavy-breathing, trench-coat-wearing perv slinking into the back room of a video store. Or maybe a greasy Paul Reubens exposing his Pee Wee in a Florida porn theater. But Don Jon takes a different view of the porn addict. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a porn-obsessed Jersey douche who dates a woman who looks like Scarlett Johansson (because she's played by Scarlett Johansson) that he mostly ignores because he loves Internet porn. You know real person problems. It's a rom-com in disguise, but it speaks to some hard truths about how porn can mess with your head. Nothing does it for me the same way, Gordon-Levitts character explains about his favorite pastime (i.e. masturbating to online smut). I cant lose myself in (flesh-and-blood women) like I do in porn. Actual women apparently expect things, like eye contact and orgasms. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Relativity Media/Courtesy Everett Collection
21) Finding Bliss (2009) Jody Balaban (played by Leelee Sobieski) is an NYU film school graduate who cant catch a break in Hollywood, so she takes an editing job at a porn company called Grind Productions, which is run by a director with dreams of creating art-house smut that audiences watch till the end to see how the plot unfolds. Jody isnt all that interested in the porn, but she does utilize the studio to make her own movies at nightthe kind where scenes dont end with ejaculationsand because she cant get legitimate actors to go anywhere near her workplace, she employs porn actors. Jody discovers her kinky side and the actors, finally getting a chance to do some real emoting, discover how much fun it can be saying lines with your clothes on. WATCH IT HERE Phase 4 Films/Courtesy Everett Collection - Everett
20) The Pornographers (1966) A fascinating portrait of a Japanese pornographer that contains not a single shot of exposed flesh. Ogata, a very serious craftsman of fetish filmshe's far from the lecherous, mustache-twisting porn merchants of American filmscreates made-to-order smut for his corporate clients while staying one step ahead of the law. (Even today, most porn is considered indecent in Japan and can land you in jail.) His earnings goes to the widowed landlady he lives with, and whose underage daughter he lusts after. He doesnt try anything with the girl, not because hes a good person but because the widows dead husband has been reincarnated as a carp (or so everyone in the house believes) and is always watching from a nearby tank. Yes, it gets weird. But its a masterpiece of dark comedy and sexual reckoning, and quite likely the only time you'll see a porn producer on screen say a line like, Into each hair I've poured all my pain. Everett Collection
19) Rated X (2000) They may not be the most famous names in porn, but the Mitchell Brothers were among the most influential. They gave the world Behind the Green Door, which turned Ivory soap model Marilyn Chambers into a porn superstar, and ran the O'Farrell Theater strip club in San Francisco, which Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson (who briefly lived upstairs) called The Carnegie Hall of public sex in America. Who better to play the sleaziest drug-addled brothers in porn than real-life brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez (who also directs)? They both shaved their heads for the movie, and say things like, Let's make a flick about a jail. It's just for girls. Now the lady that runs the joint is nasty, a real maniac. She doesn't let the girls wear any clothes. Youve got to hand it to the Sheen brothers, when it comes to playing believable junkie sex fiends who eventually lose their minds, nobody is more convincing. Getty Images
18) Humpday (2009) Two best friends in their 30s, Ben and Andrew, decide to take their bromance to the next level by co-starring in a gay porn film together. As one does. It might sound like a setup to a groan-inducing teen comedy about homosexual panic, but Humpdaywhich, not coincidentally, was written and directed by a womanis about more than just its funny when straight guys pretend to be gay. It's about friendships that drift apart, and just how far were willing to go to keep those intimate connections alive. We wont spoil the ending for you, but its a doozy. And for a movie about two dudes making amateur gay porn, surprisingly clean. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Magnolia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
17) The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) Porn is ubiquitous, but it hasn't always been this way. The freedom to look at pictures or videos of whatever sick and twisted fantasies get your motor running wasnt always a basic human right. It took a guy like Larry Flynt to champion a lot of those freedoms. Woody Harrelson plays the Hustler magazine founder with sleazy, self-righteous charm, who manages to be both a underdog fighting for freedom of expression in all its forms, and genuine human garbage who you kinda want to see lose. During his 1987 Supreme Court battle with Rev. Jerry Falwell, over a parody liquor ad in Hustler where the religious figure purports to have drunken sex with his mom, Flynt manages to be just gross enough to make us feel bad for Falwell. And thats no small feat. But were also happy that Flynt wins, because as he reminds us, If they'll protect a scumbag like me, then they'll protect all of you. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Columbia Pictures - Getty Images
16) Women in Trouble (2009) This film follows ten different women, but the storyline that makes the biggest impact involves Elektra Luxxa porn pseudonym so spectacular, its a crime against humanity that it hasnt been adopted by a real porn actress yet. As played by Carla Gugino, shes funny and vulnerable and full of complexities. Oh, and she just learned that shes pregnantafter a girl-on-girl scene with her friend Holly Rocket, who advises audiences to always get tested for STDs, because anyone can get a PhD. Is it any surprise that this movie came from the same creative mind that wrote the script for Snakes on a Plane? Of course its not. Luxx was such a stand-out in the cast of oddball characters that she got her own eponymous sequel, called (you guessed it) Elektra Luxx. WATCH IT HERE Screen Media Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
15) Orgazmo (1997) Theres a part of me that hopes there are people who watch Orgazmo and go, This is true! This is what actually happens on porn sets! They kidnap innocent Mormons and force them to perform as sexy superheroes! That probably doesn't happen, but I so desperately want this movie to be the Reefer Madness of porn cautionary tales. I want concerned parents to think their kids are being brainwashed into thinking post-marriage missionary sex could never compare to the Orgazmorator, a weapon capable of giving its victims multiple orgasms. Okay fine, a movie this campy is never going to be taken seriously, even by people who've never heard of South Park or The Book of Mormon (the more well-known creations of Trey Parker and Matt Stone). But any movie featuring characters with names like Maxxx Orbison and Jizzmaster Zero, and a cast of actual porn starsJeanna Fine! Jill Kelly! Chasey Lain!as Where's Waldo-esque extras deserves some kind of infamy. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Hulton Archive - Getty Images
14) Wonderland (2003) Does anyone remember John Holmes anymore? During the 70s and 80s, he was the adult Industrys Brad Pitt, if Pitt had no acting ability, did every role with a mustache, and had an enormous pecker. Homes had a pretty good run for a while, but too much blood must have stayed in his elephant dong, because he also had a history of really, really bad life decisions. That's the story of Wonderland, the rise and fall of an idiot with a big dick, played convincingly by Val Kilmer. RENT OR BUY IT HERE USA Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
13) Hardcore (1979) Writer/director Paul Schrader, the same guy who wrote the script for Taxi Driver, presents a part of the porn equation that rarely gets much attention: The parents. Every actress in every porn film ever made has a father somewhere who either has no idea what his baby is doing or is very, very upset about it. Theyre not all as devoted as the midwestern father played by George C. Scott in Hardcore. But theyre out there, and watching this movie is an uncomfortable reminder of their existence. Scott's character, Jake, is determined to find his teenage daughter after she disappears during a church trip to California. He hires a private detective (played by Everyone Loves Raymond dad Peter Boyle) who finds a porno film starring his daughter, which leads to Scott going undercover as a porn producer, where he befriends a prostitute with a heart of gold. You know, as angry fathers alarmed by their daughters rebellious sexuality are want to do. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
12) Meet Monica Velour (2010) It's the flip side to The Girl Next Door's teen-geek-meets-porn-star fantasy, where the ending isn't quite as happy (i.e. the teen geek isnt rewarded with a clandestine prom orgy.) 17-year-old Tobe (played by Dustin Ingram) learns that his porn obsession, Monica Velour (Sex & The City's Kim Cattrall), is dancing at an Indiana strip club. So he drives out to meet her, assuming what all porn fans think about the people they see in videosthey never age, and if I just get to meet them, theyll want to have sex with me. Spoiler alert: Neither are true! Its been decades since Monica Velour last made a porno, and now shes in her 50s, living in a trailer, and making money with humiliating strip shows where sneering crowds make Depends jokes about her. Shes also embroiled in a custody battle with her violent ex-husband, which just makes her life extra-sexy. Long story short, the Monica Velour that Tobe meets is not exactly the masturbatory fodder of her 80s VHS canon. WATCH IT HERE Courtesy
11) Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) Of all the films made about the porno industry (at least the good ones), this always seemed the least believable. Its funny, but the premise is about as far from reality as you can get. A dude and his best female friend (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) cant pay their bills, so they make a porno in the coffee shop where they work. And then they have sex and realize, Wow, were in love now! Yes, thats exactly how porn worksits where best friends go to pay their electric bills and express their unresolved feelings for each other. But then we asked Whitney Wright, an adult actress who's starred in films like Assablanca and Sneaky Sex, and well be honest, we were expecting some snark. But she genuinely likes the movie, and not just because its funny and has at least one reference to Dutch Ruddering. She likes Zack and Miri because its so relatable. Its closer in accuracy in terms of how chill a porn set is, she told us. Okay, so apparently we need to watch it again, but this time with less cynical eyes. BUY IT HERE Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection
10) Inserts (1975) The only movie on this list that actually got an X rating, at least until the director cut 17 minutes of bush and balls and it finally got a hard R. It stars Richard Dreyfussin the same year that Jaws was releasedas a silent film director who refuses to join the revolution of talkies and so turns his Hollywood mansion into a porn studio, churning out soundless 16mm stag loops with all the passion of a frat house janitor. This is about as miserable as sex gets, and some of the scenes get downright brutal, so far past #MeToo territory that theyre difficult to watch. Veronica Cartwright co-stars as a washed-up silent era star whos now hooked on heroin and screwing strangers. And the male lead, played by Stephen Davies, is nicknamed Tex the Wonder Dog, who may or may not be gay. Perhaps you've noticed, as we did, that this isn't the first movie on this list with a porn actor with an animal nickname and suppressed homosexuality. We told you that was a thing! United Artists - Getty Images
9) Boogie Nights (1997) If you only see one movie about a nice kid with a disproportionately large ying-yang who gets lured into porn, lets the stardom go to his head, does a lot of drugs, and eventually has a fall from grace that mirrors the adult industry's decline from shot-on-film features to disposable wank vids, let it be this one. How can a film this funny also be this heart-wrenching? Mark Wahlberg delivers the performance of a lifetime as the baby-faced Dirk Diggler, who just wants to be a star, a star, a big, bright shining star. He never quite figured out that it was never him that was special, just that monstrous organ between his legs. Even Wahlberg knew the real star of Boogie Nights. As he once told us in an interview back in 2013 , he still keeps that famous prostheticno, it wasn't his natural giftsunder lock and key in his home. I'd take it out now and again to play pranks on my boys, he told us. You know, slap em in the face, stuff like that. But I dont do that anymore. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Michael Ochs Archives - Getty Images
8) 8mm (1999) 8mm has a star-studded cast including Nicolas Cage as a private investigator who delves into the world of snuff films. Joaquin Phoenix and James Gandolfini appear in supporting roles. The film follows Tom Welles (Cage) after he discovers a snuff film, which appears to depict the real murder of a young girl. Cage heads to Los Angeles to see if this film is real or doctored, and finds himself in the middle of a very illegal, dangerous pornographic ring. While not an authentic depiction of the porn world, 8mm does provide a fictional account into parts of its underbelly. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Getty Images
7) After Porn Ends (2012) This 2012 documentary provides a glimpse into the life of porn stars after their career is over. A sequel to the film After Porn Ends 2, was released in 2017 and in 2018, they concluded the After Porn Ends franchise with a third film. While the films offer a unique life after perspective, the first film was critiqued for painting the porn industry as being utterly depressing for actors, when of course, this isnt always the case. WATCH IT HERE Hearst Owned
6) The Fluffer (2001) The Fluffer follows Sean McGinnis, a gay man who grows to be obsessed with a gay for pay actor, Johnny Rebel, after accidentally watching a porno with him in it. Sean then purposefully works on set to meet in the actor, falling in love with Johnny. Sean ends up becoming Rebels fluffer (meaning he would blow Johnny offset to keep him hard), and drama ensues as his infatuation for Rebel intensifies. Archive Photos - Getty Images
5) Hot Girls Wanted (2015) Produced by Rashida Jones in 2015, Hot Girls Wanted is a documentary about young women in the porn industry. Initially, the film was going to be about male porn consumption, but the direction pivoted when the directors discovered a number of young women seeking employment in the porn industry. WATCH IT HERE Netflix
4) Inside Deep Throat (2005) Deep Throat is probably the most famous pornographic film of all time. It truly was the zenith of all pornos during The Golden Age of Porn (1969-1985), and was one of the first films to feature a coherent plot, character development, and a relatively high production value. Inside Deep Throat is a documentary exploring the creation and distribution of the iconic film. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Hearst Owned
3) King Cobra (2016) Produced by and starring James Franco, King Cobra centers around a veteran gay pornography director, Stephen (played by Christian Slater), who turns an underage adult performer, Brent, into a huge porn star. When Brent finds out hes getting drastically underpaid, he tries to quit working for Stephen, but isnt able to do so because of his contract. Rival producers attempt to steal Brent away from Stephen, and the results are deadly. BUY IT HERE IFC Films
2) The Nice Guys (2016) Set in late 1970s Los Angeles, a private eye (Ryan Gosling) and a tough enforcer (Russell Crowe) investigate the disappearance of a missing teenage girl after she starred in an "experimental film"combining pornography and investigative journalismcalled How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy?. The Nice Guys received largely positive reviews after being screened at 2016 Cannes Film Festival. RENT OR BUY IT HERE Warner Bros.
1) Rocco (2016) Rocco offers a deep dive into the porn industry through the lens of Italian porn star, producer, and director Rocco Siffredi. The film got rave reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it "a fascinating and beautifully crafted work that tries to paint a nuanced picture of the man himself and, to an extent, the industry in which he worked. EMMANUEL GUIONET
