Are you looking for films that portray BDSM practices and explore kink?
Here are seventeen BDSM movies you can watch to inspire and entertain. I’ve also included their trailers or an excerpt, when available, so you can get a taste.
Is your favorite BDSM movie mentioned? If not, tell us in the comments and we’ll add it to the list!
And if you’re looking for someone new to to curl up with on BDSM movie night, be sure to take a look at our favorite BDSM Dating Sites.
17 BDSM Movies Worth Exploring
1. Quills (2000)
The production and acting caliber of this fictional work inspired by the Marquis de Sade sets it apart. Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet smolder, and Michael Caine gives gravitas.
Quills is not meant to be a biopic of sadomasochism’s namesake, but an imaginative romp through issues of desire, censorship, violence, fetishism, and art.
2. Crash (1996)
Leave it to David Cronenberg to ferret out the somewhat obscure fetish of symphorophilia—arousal at accidents or explosions—and turn it into a cult classic.
Crash is based on the 1973 book of the same name by J.G. Ballard. It examines a range of sexuality issues from polyamory to technology to the thrill of violence.
3. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
This epic, disturbing film is not really for titillation but more of a horror film.
Salo, based on Sade’s novel, and endeavors to penetrate as deeply into the reaches of human darkness as possible, touching on snuff, pedophilia, scat, castration, depersonalization, and religious sadism.
4. Belle de Jour (1967)
Luis Buñuel’s BDSM film is a stunning work of cinematic art. Way before Pretty Woman, Catherine Deneuve played an unsatisfied wife who becomes a high-class escort with a rich, sadomasochistic fantasy life.
5. Blue Velvet (1986)
Another cult classic, the BDSM film Blue Velvet is a strange and surreal slice of cinema that tells the story of a lounge singer whose family is the victim of bizarre sex crimes.
Dorothy’s erotic pleasure in violence and sadism adds a complex psychological layer to Isabella Rossellini’s character.
6. The Image (1975)
This BDSM movie is a steamy and poetic journey into bondage and submission, with a mistress and her female slave playing out their BDSM fetishes for an audience that includes you.
The movie is artistic, cerebral, and very erotic, and has been called art porn.
7. Kinky (2018)
This film about a brilliant and repressed surgeon who explores BDSM with a billionaire was a flop, panned as tepid porn with pretty people. It was hoping to be the Black Fifty Shades of Grey, and maybe it should have aimed higher.
8. Bound (1996)
This award-winning lesbian gangster flick is a little bit noir, a little quirky, and sizzling with kinky chemistry.
No one in their right mind would want to miss Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in their mafia escapades, one in a tighty whitey “wife beater” and cropped hair and the other in stockings, curls, and a little black dress.
9. The Story of O (1975)
The film version of the novel of the same name, by Pauline Reage, didn’t come off with the same power as the book did. But the story was the same—a woman finding bliss and fulfillment in total submission as a BDSM sex slave.
Read: Why BDSM Submission is So Satisfying
10. 9 1/2 Weeks (1986)
Adrian Lyne’s cult classic, 9 1/2 Weeks, is a curious contrast to Fifty Shades of Grey. The film was a huge flop, with nearly a thousand people walking out of the first screening. It was a box-office bomb and was nominated for Worst Screenplay. But it was a fantastic film.
Arty, steamy, sensual, and sensitive, without losing any edge, this kinky film addressed power exchange dynamics and the fulfillment of hidden fantasies, skillfully weaving erotic bondage and creative sex through a relationship.
Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger’s chemistry was so profound that it became a classic BDSM movie. It garnered a following over time through video release and played in Paris for five years in a row, eventually earning over $100 million.
11. Tokyo Decadence (1992)
A heartbroken young woman ends up in prostitution for clients with extreme, varied fetishes and sadistic kinks. An at-times visually arresting movie with some interesting approaches, but the edginess can feel forced.
Read: BDSM Ideas: The BIG List of BDSM Play
12. The Piano Teacher (2001)
This award-winning French BDSM film about a brilliant musician and her sexual repression and obsessions is both compelling and over the top. It is intense and beautiful, but also disturbing.
The drama of trauma and sexuality makes for great cinema, yes, but over time becomes a disappointing cliché.
13. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (1989)
Pedro Almodóvar’s films are always interesting, edgy, and riveting—frequently featuring psychopaths, sadists, masochists, mental patients. Every film of his ruffles a few feathers for being too kinky.
This BDSM movie was accused of glorifying misogyny and making light of stalking and abduction. The director does have a very twisted sense of humor, but his films are quirky and addictive.
14. Secretary (2002)
This BDSM movie is a very different kind of rom com. With the brilliant work of lead actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, and based on a novel by Mary Gaitskill, the film is smart, funny, sexy, playful, and touching.
Gyllenhaal plays a secretary who is turned on by the role’s service of her attractive, dominant boss.
This BDSM film also manages to pull off what the more serious and sordid BDSM movies don’t—addressing kink as an affirmative, positive possibility. It avoids the stereotype that BDSM is a nasty secret and portrays the characters as finding fulfillment in their true selves. The Secretary is witty and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s refreshing to enjoy a lighter touch on the subject.
15. The Night Porter (1974)
Lilliana Cavani’s 1974 classic is a complex, artful masterpiece, hot as hell, and grossly disturbing. The Night Porter examines power dynamics between a literal servant and master, when a concentration camp survivor runs into and falls for her Nazi torturer a decade after the war.
This BDSM film is cerebral, aesthetically stunning, and plunges deeper into the psyche than any on this list.
16. Bitter Moon (1992)
Bitter Moon is a Roman Polanski film, starring Hugh Grant in something other than a ho-hum rom-com.
British couple Nigel and Fiona, sailing to Istanbul, encounter Mimi, a beautiful French woman. Nigel becomes enchanted and then meets Mimi’s crippled American husband Oscar, who tells of his body and soul enslavement to Mimi over a number of visits to Nigel’s cabin. Polanski’s wife played the object of Oscar’s obsession.
17. Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy (2015-18)
The infamous Fifty Shades of Grey BDSM film series and the original books by E.L. James were a global phenomenon. Although the books were panned as wooden and trite, they were outrageously successful. And so it went with the film trilogy.
These popular BDSM movies center around the sexual awakening of Anastasia, who finds perfect fulfillment in total BDSM submission. Folks in the fetish communities didn’t like the unrealistic and corny depictions of BDSM, and the whole dealio was too fantastical—of course, the dominant master Christian Grey is filthy rich and white.
Despite all the problematic aspects of the stories, the outrageous success of the franchise told another story—kink and BDSM sexuality is a theme that resonates with millions in a big way, something mainstream audiences are hungry for.
Watching films about BDSM is a great way to expand our perspectives about sexuality. While most cinema is fiction and carries the biases of the writers and directors, it’s still a window into another world that we can explore further afterwards.
Sometimes a movie will be sympathetic and other times it will be judgmental. Some are neutral and try to bring the experience of the characters to life. All of these possibilities make movie watching one of the best ways to bring kink into the conversation with a partner or somebody new.
For more BDSM from the world of entertainment and pop culture, see 10 BDSM Songs and Kinky Music Videos.
What are your favourite BDSM movies?
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