As humans living on planet earth, sex is never too far from our minds. Yes, I know it's not exactly a groundbreaking revelation. But it does touch on the simple fact that sometimes our film choices, just like our literature picks, are guided by neither head nor heart but the call of the horn.
And if you measure a film or television series by the sexual chemistry between it's leading characters, then what can I say? We're all made of the same stuff. So for no particular reason whatsoever, except a desire to track the best carnal pairings in film history, we've rounded up 11 of our favourite on screen couples who are dripping with sexual chemistry.
1. Marianne and Connell (Normal People)
Literary smut adapted for the small screen. Normal People caught us in a moment of weakness. It was a time of crazed horniness, where the sight of a silver chain was enough ammunition to have us howling like some rabid dogs. And while Sally Rooney's play on power dynamics were definitely a drawcard, most of us were tuning in for the promise of white hot (and sometimes awkward) teen bonking.
2. Ephraim and Thomas (The Lighthouse)
A bit of a rogue one. We knew our beloved RPatz had to make this list, but we weren't convinced by his love affair with Selina Kyle in The Batman and personally I'm more of a Team Jacob kind of gal. Then we realised we were sleeping on The Lighthouse. You can't stick a silver fox like Willem Dafoe in a New England lighthouse with the hunky Robert Pattinson without a few sparks flying around. And while the two bickered like an old married couple, there are undeniable erotic undertones to all that tension.
3. Queen and Slim (Queen & Slim)
Queen and Slim makes the list thanks to its memorable car sex scene with Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith clawing at each other, as if it were a matter of life and death (in which case it inevitably turns out to be). They become each other's legacy, which you wouldn't expect as the film opens on what is just another ordinary Tinder date. But as the stakes are raised, thanks to an inverted Bonnie and Clyde narrative and a dash of police brutality, their passion and yearning for one another intensifies. The chemistry alone should entice you to the film, but it's the poignant social commentary that will linger with you. Plus Chloe Sevigny and Indya Moore also star.
4. Ennis and Jack (Brokeback Mountain)
A cowboy love story. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger moved us all to tears in this bittersweet romance about two shepherds falling hopelessly in love with each other despite the warnings of their hypermasculine world. As a result, their desire can only be realised in the idyllic landscape of middle-of-nowhere Wyoming, until it can't. We've yet to lay eyes on a more perfectly casted couple in the years since.
5. Silvia and Raul (Jamón Jamón)
Put two of the sexiest people in the world into the same film, and it's The Batman all over again. Bisexuals beware. Silvia and Raul's sexual chemistry is so intense and lusty that it's managed to grip us in a headlock even thirty years after Jamón Jamón's release. It also helps that Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are married in real life, giving us completely unrealistic expectations for our own love lives.
6. Eve and Villanelle (Killing Eve)
As someone who feeds on episodes of Killing Eve intermittently, even I've clocked the raging sexual chemistry between trigger happy assassin Villanelle and MI6 agent Eve. It's pull is so intense that the show writers have RUSSH fashion and brand features editor Ella Jane, yelling "Do something gay!" throughout every episode of season four.
7. Malcolm and Marie (Malcolm & Marie)
Sure, we cannot overlook the twelve-year age gap between Zendaya and John David Washington in this film Sam Levinson directed for Netflix. But two things can hold true at the same time, and here it's the fact that the sexual chemistry between Malcolm and Marie is palpable. As tensions erupt and the couple hurl one dramatic monologue after another at each other, we see them remove all their layers (literally) until they emerge from this romantic reckoning at a new understanding. It's tender, it's aggressive too, and most of all we want to see them win.
8. Daphne Bridgerton and the Duke of Hastings (Bridgerton)
What can I tell you? We're a horny bunch and nothing activated our goblin mode quite like the scenes between Daphne Bridgerton and the Duke of Hastings. All the breathy touching and dramatic sex scenes in the rain, paired with the miscommunication — we gobbled it right up. Cue John Farnham's Burn For You and bring on Bridgerton season two.
9. Fleabag and The Priest (Fleabag)
It's not often we find ourselves fawning over a man of the cloth, but if anyone could have us committing this sacrilegious act it would be the irreverent Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Fleabag and The Priest are hot. Their frenetic back-and-forth, his arms (and arm touching), the way he catches her break the fourth wall, and most importantly the fact that their love and lust is strictly verboten in the eyes of the lord, are all reasons why the couple captured our fantasies.
10. Luke and Romina (The Place Beyond the Pines)
To the untrained eye this is just another unsolicited pic of Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. But to the eye on an eternal pursuit of sxc on screen couples, this is the main event. While the story of A Place Beyond the Pines, one of generational trauma, fathers and sons, deserves a write up of its own, we cannot deny that the relationship between Luke and Romina had us feeling a certain type of way.
11. Maria Elena, Juan and Cristina (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
In case we weren't clear earlier, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are the lord's gift to planet earth. And in the rare event that the duos films together weren't enough to get your heart racing, the director (whose name we won't speak because we hate him) decided to throw certified dreamboat Scarlett Johansson into the mix to raise the heat of this ménage à trois.
