Go ahead and be honest: You landed here for a reason. Pornography is a universal interest and a booming business, something that pretty much everyone on the planet has some sort of experience with. It's no shock, then, that the subject of porn has seen itself on the big (and small) screen over and over again. Sometimes movies about porn can be as sensuous and titillating as the real thing—especially since a handful of them have featured A-list actors who have bravely bared all in front of the camera.
Movies about porn run the gamut from dark and gritty dramas, hijinks-heavy comedies, and documentaries about the entertainers themselves. Whatever your desire, here are a bunch of porn movies you won't be embarrassed to talk about with your friends after the credits roll.
After Porn Ends
It should comes as no surprise that a career in porn comes to an end eventually. But this documentary, featuring former porn performers who are now out of the game, offers a compelling look at what life after porn is really like.
After Porn Ends 2
This sequel follows even more porn stars, who reveal where their post-porn lives have taken them.
After Porn Ends 3
And here’s another entry into the After Porn Ends trilogy in which former performers give an inside look at their lives once the cameras stop rolling.
The Amateurs
Nothing brings a small town together quite like a challenge. Jeff Bridges stars as a lovable loser who enlists his neighbors to make a porno.
Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough film is this ensemble-driven epic, starring Mark Wahlberg as a well-endowed young man who is seduced by the glamour and rush of the porn industry that peaked in late '70s California.
Don Jon
Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed, and starred in this film about a good-hearted New Jersey meathead who struggles with intimacy issues thanks to an overpowering porn addiction.
Elektra Luxx
Carla Gugino stars in this comedy about a retired porn star whose straight life is in chaos—so she takes a job as a sex-ed teacher at a local high school.
The Fluffer
Here’s an unconventional romance, in which a gay porn “fluffer”—who gets the stars ready before their scenes—falls for a gay-for-pay actor.
The Girl Next Door
What happens when a former porn star moves in next door? You definitely try to get her to go to prom with you.
Hardcore
Paul Schrader directs this dark and bleak crime thriller about a man (George C. Scott) whose all-American and conservative world is shattered when he discovers that his missing daughter has turned up in a dirty movie.
Hot Girls Wanted
Rashida Jones produced this Netflix original documentary that explores young women who work in the porn industry and the working conditions that make their jobs so unique.
Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On
Following the success of Hot Girls Wanted, Netflix launched this six-part docu-series that gives a more expansive view of how technology has changed the contemporary porn industry.
Humpday
Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard star as two straight buds who accept the ultimate dare: to film—and star in—an amateur porn film together.
Inside Deep Throat
This documentary looks at the most famous pornographic film in film history and its effect on both the porn industry and popular culture.
King Cobra
This dark drama, based on a true story, follows two porn producers who try to steal the up-and-coming gay entertainer Brent Corrigan from his contract—a devious plot that leads to murder.
Lovelace
Deep Throat is perhaps the most iconic dirty movie ever made—and achieved iconic pop-culture status thanks to its adjacency to the Watergate scandal. Amanda Seyfried plays the film’s infamous star, Linda Lovelace, whose on-camera skills turned her into an unlikely star.
The Nice Guys
Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling play bumbling L.A. detectives searching for a woman who has gone missing after starring in an amateur porn in Shane Black’s comedic crime thriller.
The Notorious Bettie Page
Bettie Page (played by Gretchen Mol) wa one of the most infamous sex icons in American history, a woman whose steamy bondage pin-up photos caught the attention of the United States senate.
Orgazmo
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone star in this screwball comedy, written a directed by Parker, about a nice young Mormon boy who embarks on a missionary trip to Los Angeles—where he gets caught up in the sleazy world of pornography.
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt is perhaps one of history’s most notorious pornographers. Woody Harrelson earned an Oscar nomination for this biopic that depicts Flynt’s efforts to shake society’s puritanical status quo.
Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy is probably the unlikeliest porn star to achieve such international fame, and this documentary gives an inside look into his unexpected—yet extremely prolific—film career.
The Pornographers
A classic Japanese satire from 1966 depicts an ordinary everyman in Mr. Ogata who leads a fairly ordinary life despite his extraordinary job as a dirty film director.
Rocco
Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi offers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at his life and career on the eve of his retirement from the porn business.
Sex Tape
A married couple (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) accidentally upload a particularly steamy home movie onto the cloud—and hilarity ensues when they go to extreme lengths to prevent their friends from watching it.
Star 80
Bob Fosse directs this mockumentary-style biopic of Dorothy Stratten, telling the tragic story of the Playboy playmate’s rise to fame—a career cut brutally short thanks to her violent boyfriend and manager.
Starlet
In Sean Baker’s unassuming indie dramedy, an unlikely friendship forms between an 85-year-old woman named Sadie and a 21-year-old woman named Jane, the latter of whom is an up-and-coming porn actress.
Wonderland
Val Kilmer stars as the well-endowed John Holmes, an actor whose post-porn life spins out of control—and into the dark, criminal underbelly of Los Angeles.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star in this Kevin Smith-directed comedy as a pair of roommates and best friends who come up with an enterprising way to pay their rent—although they didn’t expect starring a porno would complicate their friendship.
From: Esquire US
