Horny Movies Are Back, Just in Time for Summer
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EVEN BEFORE LUCA Guadganino’s Challengers was released at the end of April, the tennis drama seemingly hit a raw nerve on the internet. The movie tells the story of a decades-long love triangle between three tennis players: Tashi (Zendaya) and the two men who are obsessed with her, Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist). Social media feeds were filled with fancams and horny musings before the movie even came out, so by the time it did, people went completely feral, creating horny memes and developing an unquenching thirst for the stars of the film. A movie that doesn’t fuck, per se, but that fucks, is something the culture was apparently in desperate need of.
For the terminally online, sex scene discourse pops up often—lamenting about the lack of sex in films today has become a key cog in diagnosing what’s plaguing Hollywood. This discourse cycle, well-timed to Challengers, actually came with data from a study in The Economist; data researcher Stephen Follows found, after looking at the 250 top grossing films of each year since 2000, that sexual content in films has dropped 40% in the last two decades. And nearly 50% of films released between 2019 and 2023 had no sexual content at all. So, it’s no wonder the release of Challengers stirred something in people’s loins. And as the year goes on and the weather is getting warmer, so too is the climate on screen—with steamy movies like The Idea of You and Hit Man owning screens and the discourse surrounding them, it’s looking like a pretty steamy summer is on the horizon.
While Challengers would seem to be the opening to the year’s scorching festivities, it was actually Love Lies Bleeding, the Kristen Stewart lesbian thriller that opened in March, that first harnessed the erotic sensibilities floating around. Stewart plays Lou, an aimless gym manager, who falls hard for new-in-town bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian). Before the two get wrapped up in Lou’s criminal family’s nonsense—the movie is a fairly straightforward neo-noir in structure—their chemistry is palpable, giving off intense romantic energy from the characters’s very first meeting at the gym, as Lou ogles Jackie’s glistening, pulsing muscles. When they finally have sex, it comes as no surprise that sapphics everywhere had a complete meltdown. Lou and Jackie writhe around in varying states of undress, sweat pooling. The eroticism peaks later in the film, during a scene when Lou, with Jackie in the bathroom, asks her to share how she masturbates. Lou, kneeling down, whispers into Jackie’s abdomen about wanting to see how far she can stretch. It’s a moment that aside from being incredibly hot, is also incredibly intimate, illustrating the ways in which sex can allow for character growth without saying much at all. After Love Lies Bleeding’s release, publications knew what they were working with. Them released a photoshoot of Stewart and O’Brian in a cuddle puddle pile of other queers, sticking their fingers in each other's mouths. Rolling Stone put Stewart in a jock strap.
Perhaps this is why the tide seems a bit different this time around. It’s not just meme-makers on the internet—everyone is leaning into this horny feeling, and the ways these films are being marketed and packaged in the media reflects that. Before even seeing Challengers, it was clear from the movie’s marketing and promotion that there was a triple makeout session coming between Tashi, Art, and Patrick. Guadagnino is a director of desire—his filmography, from I Am Love to Call Me By Your Name, explores it in its many forms—which is what makes him such a perfect fit for Challengers. You’d think from the film’s surrounding buzz that there’s some sort of intense sex scene, but what Guadagnino created with Challengers is more about the aura of sex than sex itself. What we don’t see in the bedroom (despite some excellent kissing), is played out on the tennis court, through the tension shared by Art, Patrick, and their years-long adoration of Tashi—along with their own sweltering sexual tension. This is played up through the sweat and grunts of the game, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s pulsating techno soundtrack, and Guadagnino’s inability to shy away from the spectacular attractiveness of his cast, who he lovingly frames in various states of undress. And that’s not even to mention the churro shared by Art and Patrick in a cafeteria. It’s no wonder that Challengers hit a horny nerve, because it’s created a throbbing baseline for the summer (and not just the banger-filled soundtrack that you’ll surely hear everywhere) that’s all about anticipation, expectation and let’s face it—edging. It’s what’s created memes, fan fic, and even a throuple ticket discount upon its release.
That energy has continued in a place that may have been unlikely for some audiences—Amazon Prime Video’s romantic comedy The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, both actors with experience translating their on-screen charm into a bit of major steaminess. Hathaway has been doing what she does for a long time, even making a convincing love interest for Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, while Galitzine has been making horny waves of his own early in his young career, playing a pair of ‘Prince Who Fucks’ roles in last year’s Red, White & Royal Blue and this year’s Mary & George.
In The Idea of You, both put their skills on display. Hathaway plays the smokin’ hot Solene, a 40-year-old divorced mother of a teenage daughter who ends up falling for the 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Galitzine). Campbell is the lead singer of August Moon, a boy band that used to be a favorite of her daughter. Based on the very horny book by Robinne Lee, who used Harry Styles as light inspiration, The Idea of You, at least on paper, isn’t what one would typically consider as horny cinema. Yet, at the same time, the whole premise of the film panders to exactly the kind of fantasy—what if some super hot celebrity met you and fell in love?—that has helped romance become the fastest-growing category in the U.S. book market in recent years. Similarly to Challengers,The Idea of You brings a sexual energy right off the bat from Solene and Hayes’s first encounter at Coachella, where they lock eyes and simply say “Hi.” While we get more sex in The Idea of You than we do in Challengers, aside from more excellent kissing, the sexiest stuff happens after the act itself. Solene and Hayes dance around his hotel room in their underwear, share clandestine kisses in the rain in Paris, and have ice cream in bed. Hayes looks at Solene like he wants to devour her (in a good way). And when they kiss for the first time after she makes him a sandwich at her house, you can feel through the screen just how badly they want one another.
This wouldn’t work without the amazing chemistry between Hathaway and Galitzine, legitimately selling a relationship that has no business working as well as it does. Perhaps more movies should operate under the philosophy of “just let Anne Hathaway be hot.” Selling August Moon as a legitimate band, complete with an undeniably hot music video, adds to that feeling; positioning Galitzine as the new internet boyfriend of the moment in various hot photo shoots doesn’t hurt either.
Another internet boyfriend for the last few years is Hangman himself, Glen Powell. Powell being a complete charisma bomb of a human being isn’t anything particularly new—and Anyone But You grossing $219 million dollars worldwide put a definitive value on that charm. But he’s only continuing building that star profile this summer, leaning into his own hot movie star persona with Twisters and Hit Man. Out in limited theaters on May 24th and hitting Netflix on June 7th, Hit Man promises to package Powell as both a legitimate multi-hyphenate threat (he co-wrote the film alongside director Richard Linklater) and cement him as Hollywood’s new heartthrob.
Based on a Texas Monthly article, Powell plays Gary Johnson, a regular schmuck who ends up playing a hit man for the New Orleans Police helping to arrest those trying to hire him. Powell’s Gary feels very ‘90s-take-off-the-glasses-and-he’s-hot, but the 35-year-old gets to harness all his charm into the film’s various disguises for Gary, tailored to each of the people trying to hire him. When Maddy (Adria Arjona) wants to hire him to kill her husband—there’s an instant connection between Gary, who is in disguise as Ron, a suede clad, slutty necklace-wearing hit man hunk, and this woman who seemingly needs saving.
At first, it’s hard to imagine someone who could outcharm Powell, but he’s met his match with Arjona’s Maddy. She’s luminescent and vulnerable, but also a woman who more than knows what she’s truly capable of. Their scenes together, with Gary in his Ron persona, crackle with chemistry. Their sex is hot and steamy, but what makes it stand out is one simple, undeniable fact: it’s fun.
The two constantly tease one another, bantering about whatever. Their sex isn’t just because of their developing feelings—it’s also about exploration. We know Maddy has been in a loveless and abusive marriage, so we get to see her use her time with Gary/Ron as a way to rediscover herself. She feels comfortable exploring that sexually with him. Perhaps one of the hottest scenes in the film is when Gary/Ron comes to Maddy’s house, and she’s decked out in a full “Madison Airways” costume, complete with stockings and hat, as she takes him to the upper deck (the bedroom) making sure his seatbelt (belt) is unbuckled. Sex in Hit Man is where these two learn about one another before they’ve even begun to figure out what shape something more serious might look like. Another tagline for the film could easily be: Sex is good and fun!
Sprinkle in two parts of a third season of Bridgerton, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness, both of which take what Challengers started with throuples to very different, and potentially deranged ends, and there’s simply no denying it: sex is everywhere this summer. It’s a time when everyone seems to be starving for something—desire, sex, flirtation, fun, human contact. These are films that show the myriad of ways that sex can be used to create compelling narratives, from setting the seeds of something more serious to just having plain fun. That 50% from The Economist’s study be damned: sex might not sell how it used to, but that just means audiences are wanting something more from the sex on their screens.
What they want, it seems, is to bask in the afterglow.
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