28 erotic thrillers to get your heart(?) racing

Sexy cinema, the silent subgenre of every existing movie genre. We're familiar with the intersection of sex and media. Here at Cosmo, we live there. We've sifted through the pantheon of sex movies—past the sex drama, the sex comedy, the sex horror—to land at the subject of the day, the erotic thriller.

These works pull a dual trigger for desire and adrenaline, but what makes an erotic thriller? In most cases—like 99 percent of cases —it comes down to sex and money. Are they f*cking, and are they f*cking rich? For almost all of the movies on this list, the answer to both is an emphatic yes.

Here are 28 of the best erotic thrillers to grace screens big and small. Thank us later.

Passages

A messy bisexual love triangle set in Paris. Don’t say we never gave you anything. Franz Rogowski plays a deeply chaotic filmmaker who breaks hearts, burns bridges, and somehow still has you rooting for him. This one’s all about selfish sex, spiraling emotion, and the emotional whiplash of trying to keep up with an artist who thrives on manipulation. Intimacy has never felt so volatile—or so French.

Palm Trees and Power Lines

This one’s not sexy, but it is haunting. A teenage girl starts “dating” a much older man, and things get disturbing fast. The slow-burn dread and subtle grooming dynamics make this one of the most emotionally complex and quietly devastating erotic thrillers out there. You’ll watch half in horror, half in heartbreak.

Saint Maud

Religious obsession, bodily discipline, and just a hint of lesbian repression. This A24 horror-thriller follows a lonely hospice nurse who may or may not be possessed by God. Think of it as Fleabag meets The Exorcist. The final scene will leave you gasping, and not in an erotic way.

Poor Things

Emma Stone in Victorian fetishwear, experiencing sex for the first time, over and over. Poor Things is like Frankenstein by way of a horny Wes Anderson fever dream. It’s playful, unhinged, and deeply feminist in a way that makes men twitch. Don’t be surprised if you come out feeling like you just had your first orgasm and revolution.

Titane

A woman has sex with a car. Need we say more? Titane is a body horror erotic thriller that defies gender, logic, and biology. It’s freaky, funny, and strangely tender in the way only French cinema dares to be. You will cringe, you will clutch your pearls, and you may cry. Art!

Basic Instinct

The canonical erotic thriller. Sharon Stone owns the screen as Catherine Tramell, a bisexual novelist with a serious murder kink and a terrifyingly chic wardrobe. The ice pick scene? Iconic. The leg-crossing scene? Life-changing. This movie invented the hot psycho genre, and we’re still thankful for it.

Crash

No, not that Crash. This one’s the David Cronenberg one about people who get turned on by car crashes. It’s disturbing, pervy, weirdly poetic, and totally fascinating. If your toxic trait is thinking you could fix a man who gets aroused by windshield injuries, you’ll love this.

Dead Ringers (2023)

More Cronenberg for you freaks! Rachel Weisz plays twin gynecologists in this Prime Video limited series remake of Cronenberg’s original film, and she is giving red latex, sisterly tension, and medical kink. The line between love and control blurs fast, and so does your sense of who’s who. Think Orphan Black, but sexier and with more surgical instruments.

Infinity Pool

Come for the sexy beach resort, stay for the blood orgies, murder clones, and existential dread. Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth get weird—and then weirder. It's luxury meets depravity, and you won't want to look away.

Swallow

Swallow is a body horror wrapped in domesticity. A housewife with a perfect life (and a very rich husband) starts swallowing marbles, tacks, and other household objects. It’s a gorgeously shot metaphor for control, femininity, and craving something more than what you’re allowed to want.

Chloe

When Julianne Moore suspects her husband is cheating, she hires an escort (played by Amanda Seyfried in peak femme fatale mode) to test his fidelity. Let’s just say it doesn’t go as planned. Seduction, deception, and sapphic undertones swirl in this glossy thriller that feels like a soap opera in the best way.

Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson cruises the Scottish countryside as an alien who lures men to their doom. It's sexy in a clinical, otherworldly way, like a Calvin Klein ad directed by Stanley Kubrick. You’re never sure if you’re turned on or terrified—which is exactly the point.

Eileen

An adaptation of the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh—certified Literary It Girl, and author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Lapvona—Eileen stars Anne Hathaway in another psychosexual relationship with a young adult (à la, The Idea of You). Far darker than the fan-fic rom-com, Eileen also stars Thomasin McKenzie as the titular Eileen, a young woman working at a correctional facility for teen boys in 1960s Massachusetts. When Hathaway’s Rebecca joins the facility as a new psychologist, Eileen becomes entirely obsessed and finds herself entangled in her dangerous schemes. All of this, plus Anne Hathaway in an absolutely sinister blonde wig.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Before Barry Keoghan was fellating a bathtub drain in Saltburn, he was wreaking absolute havoc in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. From Yorgos Lanthimos, of recent Poor Things fame, the film stars Colin Farrell as a cardiac surgeon who crosses paths with a strange teenager—Keoghan, of course. The kid is a real creep, and suddenly, everyone in the surgeon’s family becomes ill—including his wife, played by Nicole Kidman. This film has it all—money, weird sex, revenge, and moral ambiguity.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary is an erotic thriller, but more than that, it’s a vehicle for two of our most talented working actors of the moment, Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott. Abbott plays a young man who has just inherited his father’s successful hotel chain, and in the name of professionalism, is breaking up with his long-time dominatrix, played by Qualley. The film reads like a play or a tennis match, the two volleying back and forth in a game of power that spans 96 minutes.

Love Lies Bleeding

A buzzy new thriller from A24, Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart as a gym manager and Katy O’Brian as a competitive bodybuilder who meet in Las Vegas and fall in love. Sounds nice right? You thought so! Their love quickly turns violent as they become entangled in organized crime and serial murder.

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky was once the king of the erotic thriller, and then he made The Whale. Ten years after Requiem for a Dream, and 7 years before Mother!, Aronofsky came out swinging with Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Portman stars as a fragile dancer in a highly competitive ballet company, vying for the top role in a new production of “Swan Lake.” Her obsession with perfection and fear of failure lead her to a dark and hallucinatory descent into madness, blurring the boundaries between reality and delusion.

The Handmaiden

This South Korean psychological thriller is a tale of deception and desire set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, following a young pickpocket hired to serve a Japanese heiress, only to find herself drawn into a complex scheme orchestrated by both women.

Fair Play

Money and sex, once again fused for our pleasure. Fair Play follows two young people working at a New York City hedge fund, keeping their relationship (read: engagement) a secret in the name of office politics. Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich lead this Netflix flick, which goes from sexy to scary quickly as the unthinkable happens—she is promoted over him. The horror!

Cruel Intentions

A pop culture pillar both on and off screen, Cruel Intentions stars Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar as wealthy Manhattan teenagers spinning scheming machinations as they manipulate and seduce each other in a game of sexual conquest and revenge. Like any certified cult classic, it’s on its way back. As of April 2023, Amazon Freevee is moving forward with a Cruel Intentions reboot series, for which we will be sat. For research.

Nymphomaniac

Your search history just got interesting. Nymphomaniac is an erotic arthouse film from legacy filmmaker Lars von Trier. It stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, and more, and is split across two films—parts one and two. The story follows a young, self-diagnosed nymphomaniac through a lifetime of sexual experiences, and the aftermath that followed.

Single White Female

Is this movie a beacon of artistry? No. Is it a pop culture landmark you should be aware of? Absolutely. Single White Female stars Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh as two strangers shacking up in the same apartment after Fonda’s Allie Jones breaks up with her live-in fiancé. The relationship goes from cordial to obsessive, leading to a deadly confrontation. Single White Female heavily inspired the 2011 Leighton Meester/Minka Kelly thriller, The Roommate.

In The Cut

This erotic thriller comes from Jane Campion, one of the best names in the game. In The Cut stars Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kevin Bacon, following an English teacher who finds herself in the middle of a Manhattan murder investigation after beginning a relationship with a detective. In recent years, the film has reemerged in importance, celebrated for its “subversion of the male gaze,” unheard of in 2003.

Don’t Worry Darling

One of the most buzzed about movies of 2022 that didn't quite convert on that buzz, Don’t Worry Darling stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as a seemingly-perfect couple living in a company town called Victory circa 1950s. Each day, the husbands go to work on a top-secret government project, and the wives do housewife things. Quickly, cracks begin to form in the veneer as Pugh’s Alice explores what is really happening around her—in between hookups with her hot husband.

Eyes Wide Shut

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star in this Stanley Kubrick classic, which explores a surreal, sexually-charged secret society through the lens of a physician and his wife, who embark on a nightmarish exploration of desire and insecurity.

Gone Girl

The erotic thriller to end the genre, David Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is one of the best movies ever made—period. Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck star as a twisted, wealthy, gorgeous couple whose love story sours when she disappears under suspicious circumstances, leading to a media frenzy and a chilling exploration of betrayal and revenge. Major flowers go to the ensemble cast which supports our leads, including Carrie Coon, Neil Patrick Harris, Kim Dickens, and Emily Ratajkowski.

Nocturnal Animals

A twisting, haunting tale of revenge, Nocturnal Animals was written and directed by Tom Ford—yes, that Tom Ford. The film stars Amy Adams as a gallery owner who, upon reading her ex-husband's new novel, learns her deepest secrets have been revealed on the page. Lines are blurred, past traumas are resurfaced, and Jake Gyllenhaal looks damn good.

Wild Things

This 1998 steamy thriller, which stars Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell, and Denise Richards, has become a bonafide cult classic in the decades that followed its release. Wild Things follows a high school guidance counselor who finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and manipulation as he becomes involved in a scandalous love triangle with two troubled students. Take a wild guess which state this film takes place in. We’ll give you a hint, it starts with an F.