Best Sexually Explicit & Erotic movies of 1980s that are award winners or nominees

Blue Velvet(1986)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 69

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.



Sex, Lies, and Videotape(1989)

Combined Rating:
74
Combined Critics Rating: 68

A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.



Fatal Attraction(1987)

Combined Rating:
69
Combined Critics Rating: 59

A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.



Dressed to Kill(1980)

Combined Rating:
69
Combined Critics Rating: 63

A mysterious blonde woman kills one of a psychiatrist's patients, and then goes after the high-class call girl who witnessed the murder.



Dangerous Liaisons(1988)

Combined Rating:
66
Combined Critics Rating: 55

A scheming widow and her manipulative ex-lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman.



Sea of Love(1989)

Combined Rating:
62
Combined Critics Rating: 51

A detective investigating a series of murders becomes involved with a woman who may be the culprit.



Body Double(1984)

Combined Rating:
62
Combined Critics Rating: 55

A young actor's obsession with spying on a beautiful woman who lives nearby leads to a baffling series of events with drastic consequences.



Cat People(1982)

Golden Globe 1
Combined Rating:
60
Combined Critics Rating: 55

A young woman's sexual awakening brings horror when she discovers her urges transform her into a monstrous black leopard.



Maurice(1987)

Combined Rating:
58
Combined Critics Rating: 56

After his lover rejects him, a young man trapped by the oppressiveness of Edwardian society tries to come to terms with and accept his sexuality.



American Gigolo(1980)

Golden Globe 1
Combined Rating:
54
Combined Critics Rating: 45

A Los Angeles male escort, who mostly caters to an older female clientèle, is accused of a murder which he did not commit.



Valmont(1989)

Combined Rating:
52
Combined Critics Rating: 47

Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an...



Urban Cowboy(1980)

Combined Rating:
51
Combined Critics Rating: 45

Bud is a young man from the country who learns about life and love in a Houston bar.



The Blue Lagoon(1980)

Combined Rating:
51
Combined Critics Rating: 32

In the Victorian period, two children are shipwrecked on a tropical island in the South Pacific. With no adults to guide them, the two make a simple life together, unaware that sexual maturity will eventually intervene.



Casualties of War(1989)

Golden Globe 1
Combined Rating:
44
Combined Critics Rating: 24

During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.



Against All Odds(1984)

Combined Rating:
39
Combined Critics Rating: 31

A gangster hires an ex-football player to find his girlfriend. When he finds her, they fall in love, and the twists start to appear.



The Unbearable Lightness of Being(1988)

Combined Rating:
38
Combined Critics Rating: 17

In 1968, a Czech doctor with an active sex life meets a woman who wants monogamy, and then the Soviet invasion further disrupts their lives.



The French Lieutenant's Woman(1981)

Combined Rating:
31
Combined Critics Rating: 17

A film is being made of a story, set in 19th century England, about Charles, a biologist who's engaged to be married, but who falls in love with outcast Sarah, whose melancholy makes her ...



Henry & June(1990)

Combined Rating:
30
Combined Critics Rating: 14

In 1931 Paris, Anais Nin meets Henry Miller and his wife June. Intrigued by them both, she begins expanding her sexual horizons with her husband Hugo as well as with Henry and others. June ...



Ju Dou(1990)

Combined Rating:
24
Combined Critics Rating: 12

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without ...