Sexiest Bathtub Scenes
PROVOKR’s dozen hottest rub-a-dub picks
The Cincinnati Kid (1965): Steve McQueen and Tuesday Weld
As the Kid, an up-and-coming poker player, the King of Cool manages to heat things up in the bath alongside a scantily clad Weld. While their characters discuss whether life or honor is more important, Weld scrubs McQueen’s bare and sudsy back. At the end of the conversation, they decide that life is more important. Or was it honor? We don’t remember; we were lost in Steve’s eyes.
Red Dust (1932): Jean Harlow and Clark Gable
In this pre-Code gem set on an Indochinese rubber plantation, Harlow, the fun and flirtatious platinum-pated beauty of the ’30s, frolics in a big wooden tub to the chagrin of Gable. Although his sole Oscar came three years later (for It Happened One Night), knowing what we know now about a lothario like Gable, he probably deserved one here for pretending to be perturbed by a naked woman.
Last Tango in Paris (1972): Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando
As the widower Paul (Brando) sponges down the delightful Jeanne (19-year-old Schneider), he playfully hits and dunks her as she discusses her love for an unnamed man. Paul’s rough sparring, when coupled with his tender washing, perfectly exemplifies the twisted mixture of love and abuse in their anonymous hookups in this Bertolucci classic. Then, when Jeanne suddenly reveals that Paul is the man she loves, he has her clip her fingernails and, well, it’s better if you just watch it. Love hurts.
Pleasantville (1988): Joan Allen
Flesh-and-blood David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are magically transported into the make-believe black-and-white realm of the ’50s sitcom playing on their TV, where they awaken sexual passions among the TV denizens. Even their innocent TV mom (Allen), after learning about the birds and the bees from Jennifer, joins in on the fun. Her sexual awakening in the bathtub is so literally explosive that objects start to appear in color.
Secretary (2002): Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader
Fresh off a stint at a mental hospital for masochistic abuse, Lee (Gyllenhaal) takes a job as a secretary for Edward (Spader) and soon enters into a BDSM relationship with him. While most of the film focuses on her submission, this scene, where he lovingly washes her as she bathes in a tub, is a tender respite. Which is more empowering?
Unfaithful (2002): Diane Lane and Richard Gere
While in the bath, Connie (Lane) washes away evidence of her passionate, adulterous romance. Her husband (Gere), unaware of his wife’s new liaison, decides to join her, but his sexy advances only exacerbate Connie’s sense of guilt. The whole thing is just so deliciously shameful.
Witness (1985): Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford
Hiding out in an Amish community after being shot, a Philadelphia cop (Ford) falls for a young widow (McGillis) in the village. Their repressed love—and lust—reaches a solar level of heat when he walks in on her taking a sponge bath. Shockingly, instead of leaving, he stares at her, and, instead of covering herself, she stares right back.
Pillow Talk (1959): Doris Day and Rock Hudson
Although this split-screen, dual-baths setup is the closest a ’50s leading man ever came to being naked with a woman, it is so masterfully shot that they may as well be in the same tub. In the movie, Hudson is a playboy pretending to be gay as a way of melting Day’s defenses; virtually no one in the audience in ’59 had any inkling that a tall, dark hunk like Hudson was gay in real life, so the irony of the scene is meta-multiplied today.
Savages (2012): Blake Lively and Aaron Taylor-Johnson
In this Oliver Stone movie’s ménage à trois, Lively is certainly the lucky one. While she enjoys the jackhammer lovemaking of Taylor Kitsch, she also goes for a contrasting bathtub tête-à-tête with the more sensitive Taylor-Johnson, who has the rare quality of being both incredibly tender and titillating at the same time.
Flesh + Blood (1985): Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh
Kidnapped by a vengeful medieval mercenary (Hauer), the once virginal Agnes (Leigh) dutifully disrobes and joins her captor in a huge candlelit bath. After some bumbling foreplay, director Paul Verhoeven, who is never one for subtlety, quickly moves toward aggressive aquatic sex.
Performance (1970): Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and
Michèle Breton
In a tub scene so casual it might be mistaken for documentary footage—despite the groovy jump cuts—Jagger smokes and soaks with two beautiful young European women (one of whom, Pallenberg, was Keith Richards’s then-wife). Playing a cross-dressing bisexual, the androgynous Jagger easily blurs the lines between gay and straight, male and female.
Head in the Clouds (2004): Charlize Theron and
Stuart Townsend
PROVOKR icon Theron strikes again in this period war drama. While the movie might be somewhat forgettable, Charlize bathing in the buff—with the exception of a hat and tie—never is. And Townsend, then Theron’s partner offscreen, ain’t no slouch either.
