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10 Best Woody Allen Sex Scenes

Courtesy of MGM


Much has been made (lots of it by us) over the love scenes in Woody Allen’s new Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Problem is, the film’s non-threesomes aren’t just dull by our standards — they’re even kinda boring by Woody Allen’s typical ones. After all, this is the director who gave us the Orgasmatron and the sex orb! And went down on Bette Midler in a theater! Plus, he once made Gene Wilder bone a sheep. After the jump, video of Ten Woody Allen Sex Scenes Better Than the Ones in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

10. Bananas (1971)
For fourteen years, Howard Cosell’s abrasive, tell-it-like-it-is narration style made ABC’s Monday Night Football compelling viewing, much like it does this scene in which Woody’s Fielding Melish and wife Nancy make love for the first time. Afterwards, Nancy tells Cosell, “It was the worst that I’ve had.”

9. Deconstructing Harry (1997)
In his bleakest-ever movie, Woody stars as Harry Block, an author whose thinly disguised, possibly exaggerated best sellers leave him divorced and friendless. Here, Richard Benjamin and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star as fictionalized versions of Block and his sister-in-law Lucy (played in the movie by Judy Davis), with whom he’s engaged in an extramarital quickie. Later, the real Lucy disputes the accuracy of his recollection (in particular, she takes issue with the part about the blind, elderly relative).

8. Hollywood Ending (2002)
Watching the Woodman being seduced by poor Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is a reminder of how much Allen benefits from the fact that none of his actors ever see scripts before they sign on.

7. Love and Death (1975)
It’s true that some of Woody’s later sex scenes have been so cringe-inducing that they’re mini-masterpieces in their own right — but we’ll forgive almost anything from the guy who was once inspired to slip on some oven mitts before bedding Diane Keaton.

6. Match Point (2005)
They’re not all funny, though. Allen’s lone hot sex scene, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson, is surprisingly sexy, despite being staged in an obviously uncomfortable rainstorm-hayfield combination.

5. Sleeper (1973)
In a dystopian future of Orgasmatrons and sex orbs, Allen poses as a robotic servant powerless to control his own libido.

4. Scenes From a Mall (1991)
Woody plays the Alanis Morissette to Bette Midler’s Dave Coulier in this movie-theater sex scene. Midler makes the kinds of noises you were probably hoping you’d never hear Bette Midler make, and gets shushed by nearby religious fundamentalists.

3. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)
Gene Wilder risks his marriage and career in medicine to pursue his passionate love for a sheep. His wife becomes suspicious when she discovers him fondling a lamb’s wool sweater.

2. Annie Hall (1977)
Diane Keaton literally leaves her body to smoke a doob as she and Woody discuss her emotional absence. (It was surely Annie Hall’s subtle symbolism that helped it defeat Star Wars for the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar in 1977.)

1. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)
Performance anxiety is translated into a vision of sex as an act performed not just by you but by an entire hardworking crew of pump-house guys, control-room technicians, and, of course, white-suited, neurotic sperm.

10 Best Woody Allen Sex Scenes