The Sex: Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek) pops some hallucinogenic mushrooms and has sex with Lara (Jessica Biel), the roommate of the girl he’s in love with. He regrets his actions immediately and responds by covering Lara’s face with his hand so he doesn’t have to look at her.

The Unsexiness: The cruelty of the scene renders it not sexy. You feel bad for poor Lara. Added to that, though, is the goofy, Jerry Lewis-style face Van Der Beek makes for most of it. He overplays the character’s stoned quality, making this act of intimacy feel like a parody of sex scenes.

The Sex: Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) makes love to his girlfriend Lisa (Juliette Danielle), not realizing she’s been unfaithful to him. Their bed is surrounded by lit candles and there are plenty of roses, too.

The Unsexiness: So many things are wrong with this scene, starting with the fact that it goes on and on, almost as if Wiseau (who also wrote and directed) gets off on portraying himself as a master lover. The cheesy music playing over the scene doesn’t help matters any, nor does the cinematography that tries to be artsy but actually just looks like something out of a soft-core adult film. The faux grunting noises that have been added as Johnny and Lisa writhe around naked are borderline hilarious. It should also be noted that Wiseau and Danielle have zero chemistry together, with the actress in particular looking deeply uncomfortable during the sequence.

The Sex: Mossad agent Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) has been tasked with getting revenge on the people who planned the massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics. Once his mission is completed, he returns to his wife and they decide to celebrate in the sack.

The Unsexiness: Kaufman is deeply traumatized by everything that has taken place. While making love, his mind envisions the athletes being brutally murdered at the airport. Shots of the sex are intercut with shots of people getting shot and blown up. The contrast alone is un-sexy, but even more so is the completely unintended implication that Avner is somehow turned on by the thought of violence.

The Sex: Sultry mob enforcer Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) tries to seduce Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck), the screw-up Mafia lackey she’s been hired to keep tabs on. She makes her play while they’re sitting on a bed together.

The Unsexiness: Jennifer Lopez is of course known for making just about everything she does sexy, so it takes something special to rob her of that power. The dialogue in this scene is what kills it. Ricki lays back and begins shaking her leg while telling Larry that it’s “turkey time.” When he responds incredulously, she glances at the area between her legs and adds, “Gobble gobble.” This would-be erotic scene is the very definition of cringe.

The Sex: Drug dealer Reiner (Javier Bardem) regales “the Counselor” (Michael Fassbender) with an anecdote about the time his girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz) surprised him by having sex with his Ferrari. The act is shown in flashback, wherein Malkina takes off her pants, spreads her legs into a split across the car’s windshield, and begins gyrating.

The Unsexiness: The very sight of the character in this position is enough to elicit chuckles. That comedic angle is exacerbated by the look on Reiner’s face as he watches, which resembles a teenage boy looking at a Playboy magazine for the first time more than a grown man being aroused. His description of the moment, meanwhile, is kind of gross. He calls it akin to “one of those bottom feeders in an aquarium sucking its way up the glass.”

The Sex: Recently released convict Louis (Robert DeNiro) is hanging out at the apartment of his friend/colleague, gun runner Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson). While making small talk with Ordell’s girlfriend Melanie (Bridget Fonda), she spontaneously asks him if he wants to have sex.

The Unsexiness: Any potential sultriness of the scene is dashed when the words “3 minutes later…” pop up on screen and we cut to Louis finishing up as he takes Melanie from behind. He’s out of breath. She walks away saying, “Now we can catch up.” The point is that what they’ve done is emotionless. It’s not sex out of desire, it’s sex out of boredom (on her part) and out of desperation (on his part).

The Sex: Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) has a conversation with his operating system Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), for whom he’s developed unexpected fondness. Their chat ends up becoming sexual in nature.

The Unsexiness: Not much is inherently sexy about a guy talking dirty to his OS. Listening to the two describe what they would do to each other if she were real is disconcerting. Halfway through the scene, the screen fades to black and we hear both parties making noises of pleasure as they verbalize their desired actions. When one person in a couple isn’t even an actual person, generating heat becomes significantly more difficult.

The Sex: Erotic dancer Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) seduces her rival’s boyfriend, Zack (Kyle MacLachlan). They strip naked and hop in a swimming pool, where kissing gives way to lovemaking so passionate that Nomi ends up flopping around the pool like a fish out of water.

The Unsexiness: This scene from Showgirls must have sounded really hot on paper. On-screen, however, the sight of Nomi wildly flailing and splashing around as she and Zack have intercourse looks ridiculous. What they’re doing seems physically impossible, as well. Because of its preposterousness, the actors look unsure how to play the moment, so their attempts to make faces of ecstasy are awkward.

The Sex: During the opening credits of Basic Instinct 2, seductress and ice-pick murderer Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) speeds through a city in a sports car. She manually pleasures herself while steering, as the male passenger accompanying her excitedly looks on.

The Unsexiness: The scene starts off okay, with its implication that speed is sexy and Tramell is getting turned on by driving recklessly. It ends in an unexpectedly absurd manner, though, as her moans of pleasure cause her to lose control of the car. She drives it off a bridge and sends it flying into a river. It’s such a kooky conclusion to the sexual activity that taking the sequence seriously is impossible. The ice-pick murder at the beginning of the first Basic Instinct is, oddly, a million times sexier.

The Sex: Limo driver Jerome (Robert Pattinson) is transporting aging actress Havana (Julianne Moore). She peppers him with personal questions, then asks if he’ll have sex with her as “research.”

The Unsexiness: The action between Jerome and Havana takes place in the back seat of the car, meaning they’re both wedged in – not a great position for getting it on. When it’s over, Havana abruptly pulls up her pants and says, “I gotta go.” Adding to the scene’s lack of sexiness is an undeniable creep factor as Havana’s personal assistant Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) jealously watches this driveway tryst from inside the house.

The Sex: Murder suspect Rebecca Carlson (Madonna) consummates a romance with her defense attorney, Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe). Her method of seduction is to bind his arms with a belt, then drip hot candle wax on his chest.

The Unsexiness: Body of Evidence was released in 1993 when Hollywood was repeatedly trying to emulate the sultry/trashy success of Basic Instinct. It was also a time when Madonna was seemingly obsessed with being sexually provocative in everything she did. Therein lies the problem. The lengthy candle wax scene is clearly trying really, really hard to be edgy, and in the process, it loses any sense of genuine eroticism it’s trying to generate.

The Sex: Vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and girlfriend Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) finally get it on “vampire style” after several years of holding in their desire.

The Unsexiness: Because of the teen fanbase, The Twilight Saga couldn’t go above a PG-13 rating. Therefore, viewers are treated to a weirdly edited montage of close-ups. There are close-ups of lips kissing, legs entangling, and hands holding each other. The composition of the scene is so odd that it captures none of the characters’ passion, and arguably plays as if the majority of it was carried out by body doubles rather than the stars.

The Sex: Christian Gray (Jamie Dornan) wakes up in the middle of the night and heads to the kitchen for a snack. He finds girlfriend Ana (Dakota Johnson) sitting in the dark, eating ice cream. She then makes an effort to seduce him.

The Unsexiness: Ana’s means of foreplay is to act like she’s going to feed Gray a spoonful of ice cream, then “drop” it and smear it down his chest. Once that’s done, she begins licking it off. The scene would be too cutesy in a standard rom-com. In a movie series known for boundary-pushing sex scenes, it’s comically out of place. We never believe that these two BDSM fans would ever behave like teenagers.

The Sex: Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) share a quiet moment underneath the Hometree. The longing these Na’vi have felt for one another is finally released.

The Unsexiness: Seeing two lanky blue creatures getting it on is the wrong kind of freaky. We see that the Na’vi way of making love involves the characters fusing their respective tails together. This, in turn, brings a million questions to the viewer’s mind, when we’re supposed to be paying attention to the emotions onscreen. It’s also kind of strange how Sully picks Neytiri up in the middle of their lovemaking.

The Sex: Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) make love in a bed. Their passion is intercut with scenes of a Zion rave party, where hundreds of naked or half-naked people writhe to electronic dance music inside a muddy cave.

The Unsexiness: Aside from the fact that the sequence goes on for nearly five minutes, the whole thing tries a little too hard to be edgy. Constantly cutting to the revelers grinding in slow motion takes viewers away from what’s happening between Neo and Trinity. EDM isn’t necessarily the right choice to score a scene where two of the three main characters are having a moment of intimate connection, either.

The Sex: After a previously unsuccessful attempt at making love, Night Owl (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman) give it a second try inside their spaceship. Both have become aroused by putting on their costumes and fighting crime again.

The Unsexiness: For some unknown reason, director Zack Snyder chose to score this sex scene with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The tonal inconsistency between that borderline funereal song and the heated sexcapades of the characters is jarring. Capping it off, at the moment of climax, Silk Spectre slams her hand down on a button that sends a blast of fire from the ship’s rear. The symbolism is so on-the-nose that it comes off way more silly than sexy.

The Sex: The powerful Artemisia (Eva Green) literally attempts to seduce warrior Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) into fighting on the Persian side of a war, rather than the Greek side.

The Unsexiness: Artemisia and Themistocles are both visibly turned on. Instead of simply making love, they choke, punch, and shove each other in between kisses and caresses. The violence is unsettling, especially when it involves a man slapping around a woman. It’s hard to tell if this sequence from 300: Rise of an Empire is a sex scene or a fight sequence.