22 Best Erotic Thrillers | IndieWire

The erotic thriller – the cheesiest and once most enduring genre of the 1980s and ’90s – was on the verge of a comeback last year with the return of director Adrian Lyne. The master of films like “Fatal Attraction” and “9 ½ Weeks” (albeit small ones), returned to the big screen with “Deep Water”. It’s the first film in two decades since “Faithful” earned Diane Lane an Oscar nomination, and one that definitely. returns it to its heyday on erotic terrain.

Alas, Patricia Highsmith’s steamy boilerplate drama starring a listless Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as open lovers who hate each other is a turkey, straight-to-stream dud that conjures up better ideas from better movies and falls flat. to be neither erotic nor exciting.

Still, “Deep Water” can serve as a two-fold guide: for Hollywood to dig deeper to hopefully come up with better erotic thrillers, and for viewers to rediscover, or for the first time, the films that propelled “Deep Water” into existence. the first place.

Last year, Karina Longworth took moviegoers back to the Erotic ’80s with the latest season of her You Must Remember This podcast, which looks back at Hollywood’s quintessential erotic thrillers, body horrors, neo-noirs and sex comedies. The first part of the season debuted last spring, and the subsequent “Erotic ’90s” will debut next.

And this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Chloe Domont’s Fair Play brought defibrillators to the genre with a shocking workplace psycho-sexual thriller starring Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor. Netflix scooped up the festival for a cool $20 million — expected to be a big hit on the streaming platform.

Meanwhile, IndieWire picks the 22 best films from Hollywood’s golden age of erotic thrillers, starting with 1980’s “Cruising” and ending with a few more recent titles that fit the bill.

Jude Dry and Samantha Bergeson contribute to this story.

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