Studios obsessively focused on PG-13 franchises and animation in recent years, but movies like “Challengers” and “Saltburn” show eroticism has returned.

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Josh O’Connor leaning toward Zendaya in a scene from “Challengers.”
“Challengers,” starring Josh O’Connor and Zendaya, includes a number of sultry moments.Credit...Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Brooks Barnes
By Brooks Barnes
Reporting from Los Angeles

April 28, 2024, 5:02 a.m. ET
Zendaya, clad in a skintight dress, gyrates on a dance floor in “Challengers,” a $56 million sports drama that arrived in multiplexes on Friday. “It’s getting hot in here,” the hip-hop soundtrack intones, as she closes her eyes and runs her hands through her hair, lost in fantasy. “So take off all your clothes.”

The story continues at a motel, where Zendaya, playing a tennis prodigy, begins a ménage à trois with two guys; it fizzles after they become more interested in each other. The plot moves on — to sultry interplay on the hood of a car, in a dorm room, in the back seat of a car, on the wooden slats of a sauna. There is erotic churro eating.

“Sex is back!” shouted an apparently elated man at the conclusion of a prerelease “Challengers” screening in West Hollywood, Calif., this month.

Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Think about how many times the rom-com has been declared dead — and alive — and dead. (No, wait, alive.) But this much can be said with surety: Hollywood is hornier than it has been in years.

“It absolutely feels like the pendulum has swung back toward filmmakers exploring adult relationships and sexuality in their projects,” said Amy Pascal, the former chairwoman of Sony Pictures and producing force behind “Challengers.”

“I welcome that,” she added.

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Sharon Stone sitting cross-legged in a white sleeveless dress in a scene from “Basic Instinct.”
Eroticism was common in studio hits like “Basic Instinct,” starring Sharon Stone, in the 1980s and ’90s.Credit...Rialto Pictures
Eroticism used to be common in studio movies like “Challengers,” which was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. “Body Heat,” “Basic Instinct,” “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “Fatal Attraction,” “Disclosure,” “Cruel Intentions” and “Eyes Wide Shut” are among the many examples from the 1980s and ’90s.

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In the 2000s, however, film companies started to obsessively focus on PG-13 franchises and animation — genres that could play to a global audience and sell merchandise. Studios also wanted to expand into China, where censors do not allow sex scenes. As a result, steamy storytelling began to dwindle on the big screen (except at art house theaters). Premium television picked up the slack.

Sex in mainstream movies was “pretty much gone” by 2019, as Ann Hornaday, chief film critic for The Washington Post, wrote in a column that year. A few months later, Kate Hagen, writing in Playboy magazine, found that only about 1.2 percent of films released between 2010 and 2020 contained an overt sex scene, the lowest decade total since the 1960s. (It peaked in the 1990s. Coincidentally or not, that was the decade when pornography started to become available online.)

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Now, some filmmakers are pushing back.

Awards season brought “Saltburn,” with its arousing-disturbing bathtub scene and Barry Keoghan’s twirling, full-frontal finale. “Poor Things” found an insatiable Emma Stone romping through a Paris brothel. Christopher Nolan filmed the first sex scenes of his 35-year career for “Oppenheimer.” (“More interested in the joys of sex than any recent season I can remember,” as Kyle Buchanan, awards columnist for The New York Times, described the crop of contenders in February.)

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Over the past year, the trickle of R-rated sex comedies in theaters turned into a relative torrent. “Anyone but You” found Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell going at it. “No Hard Feelings” starred Jennifer Lawrence as a kinda-sorta prostitute on a mission to deflower an awkward student. The libidinous “Bottoms,” “Back on the Strip” and “Joy Ride” also tried mixing sex with laughs.

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Barry Keoghan in a bathtub in a scene from “Saltburn.”
“Saltburn,” starring Barry Keoghan, is one of several recent films that have been more open about sex onscreen.Credit...Amazon Studios
In late May, Mr. Powell will return to theaters in the comedic “Hit Man,” about an undercover agent who begins a smoking-hot affair with a suspect, played by Adria Arjona. In addition to acting in the R-rated film, he co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Linklater and served as a producer. (It will arrive on Netflix in June.)

“‘Body Heat’ was one of the inspirations,” Mr. Powell said in January, when “Hit Man” debuted to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. “There aren’t many sex scenes in movies anymore, and certainly not many that are done well.”