Secretary (2002) James Spader stars as a businessman named Mr. Grey (hmm …) who hires a troubled woman played by Maggie Gyllenhaal to be his secretary. Their relationship becomes equal parts loving and sadistic in a surprisingly sophisticated, compassionate look at BDSM and romance.

The Dreamers (2003) Filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci’s best-known contribution to onscreen sex is 1972’s Last Tango in Paris, but this tribute to the French New Wave is just as arousing and seductive, with Eva Green and Louis Garrel as a pair of quasi-incestuous French siblings who seduce a naïve American student (Michael Pitt).

Crash (1996) David Cronenberg’s film version of J.G. Ballard’s novel is a creepy but sensual story about car-crash fetishists, who get off on both the rush of collisions and the bodily changes from injuries. Certainly the only movie ever released by a major studio to feature a man having sex with a woman’s leg wound.