Why Film Is Becoming Sexy Again

The fetishization of cinema

Somewhere between Saltburn’s unhinged hedonism and the feverish longing of Babygirl, something happened. Cinema, once cool and cerebral, has become undeniably hot again.

Not just aesthetically pleasing or tastefully seductive, but brazenly and shamelessly sexy. And people—particularly young people—are absolutely eating it up.

There was a time, not too long ago, when movies felt chaste. The post-#MeToo landscape had directors treading carefully, intimacy coordinators were introduced, and desire was relegated to the fringes of storytelling—there, but never quite taking up space.

Sex became something to be implied, its presence smothered by metaphor and fade-to-black discretion. But things are shifting.

Now, sex isn’t just back—it’s being fetishized. The act of watching is part of the thrill, a kind of exhibitionism in reverse.

The rise of films that make you feel like a voyeur (Saltburn, with its unrelenting gaze; Poor Things, with Emma Stone’s liberated grotesquerie; Challengers, with its humid and competitive longing) is not a coincidence. Nor is the fact that some of the buzziest releases (Babygirl and Queer) play with power, secrecy, and taboo.

Screen desire

Gen Z is looking for more than just representation on screen; we want sensation. We want something that makes us grip the armrest in the dark of the theater and whisper, holy shit.

Queer cinema, in particular, is reveling in the return of the erotic. Films like Call Me by Your Name and All of Us Strangers refuse to shy away from bodies, pleasure, and the messy, sometimes violent intensity of desire.

This isn’t the self-serious queer storytelling of the early 2010s, nor is it the tragic and understated longing of the 2000s. It’s bolder, weirder, and unafraid to be funny, camp, or outright chaotic.

And crucially, it’s not just about sex—it’s about the charge between characters, the unspoken tension, the thrill of not knowing who will move first.

Sex is back—and it’s made to be seen

The resurgence of sex in cinema isn’t just about what’s happening on-screen. It’s about how we, as audiences, engage with it.

Letterboxd reviews read like confessions. TikTok edits transform actors into objects of worship.

Even film discourse is charged with a kind of horniness—people want to talk about Saltburn’s bathtub scene or Call Me by Your Name’s peach disaster not just critically, but viscerally.

To see something sexy in 2025 is to experience it, to let it sit in your chest for days, to send an all-caps text to your friend at 2 a.m. saying, have you watched this yet?

Cinema has become erotic again, not just in content but in form. It lingers. It teases. It invites you to watch, to want.

The darkness of the theater, the flicker of the screen—it’s all part of the seduction. And really, who doesn’t love a little tension?

Photos courtesy IMDB