Women’s desire on screen has, for the most part, been shaped by people who don’t experience it.
The film industry has a long history of using female characters as a projection of male fantasy, which has often reduced female desire to something narrow and simplified, leaving little room for more nuanced portrayals that many women actually recognise.
Here are some erotic films where women directors portray desire on their own terms, bringing forward the blurrier, less defined and far more interesting elements of eroticism.
Bound (Lana and Lilly Wachowski)
Confident, charged, playful
An ex-con and her neighbour, who is involved with the mob, begin an affair and quickly decide to steal a large sum of money together.
Their relationship starts quickly, with a clear physical pull between them, and moves into a series of intimate scenes that feel direct and unselfconscious. The attraction is mutual from the start, and the film doesn’t hold back in showing it.
Female Perversions (Susan Streitfeld)
Intellectual, internal, subversive
A lawyer on the verge of professional success begins to unravel as memories, fantasies and pressure around control and femininity start to surface.
She moves through a series of encounters and fantasies, while trying to maintain control over her image and life. The tension comes from how her internal desires don’t always match how she presents herself.
Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi)
Raw, defiant, uncompromising
After experiencing sexual violence, two women meet and form an intense, unstable bond, setting off on a road trip filled with sex, crime and confrontation.
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There are explicit sex scenes throughout, some of them casual, some transactional, but none of them are softened or romanticised. What makes it feel charged is how direct it is. The women take what they want, when they want it, without explanation or apology.
Je Tu Il Elle (Chantal Akerman)
Minimal, direct, uninterrupted
A young woman isolates herself, drifts through a series of encounters, and eventually reconnects with a former lover.
The final section is a long, uninterrupted sex scene between the two women, shown without cuts or distraction. It’s explicit, slow, and completely focused on the physical experience, letting the moment play out in real time. What makes it feel intense is that nothing is rushed or edited for effect. You’re made to sit with it, which makes it feel more real and more direct than most films.
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)
Restrained, passionate, observational
A painter is commissioned to secretly paint a woman’s portrait before she is married off, and the two develop a relationship while living in isolation.
The film builds through sustained eye contact, quiet observation and proximity, with both women becoming acutely aware of each other before anything physical happens. There’s an underlying sense of repression, shaped by the time and the fact that their relationship has no real place to exist. When intimacy does arrive, it feels deliberate and fully charged, a release of everything that’s been held back.
Romance (Catherine Breillat)
Explicit, controlled, disconnected
A woman in a relationship where her partner has lost interest in sex begins to seek out other encounters, moving through a series of experiences that separate physical desire from emotional connection.
The film shows her having explicit sex with different men, including a single-take scene with a stranger and a more structured, BDSM-leaning dynamic with her boss. None of these encounters are framed as romantic. Instead, they feel deliberate and almost clinical, as she tries to understand what sex means to her when love and desire no longer align.
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Iso
Iso is a writer and creative based in Paris. She is passionate about all things erotic and leads a sexy, shame-free life in hope that she can inspire others to do the same. Originally from a Northern UK seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.
