10 Best Erotic Thrillers Ever

This weekend sees the release of Fifty Shades Freed, the third and final instalment in the big screen adaptation of best-selling erotic novel trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey.

Doubtless we all know where we stand on Fifty Shades by now. Some love it wholeheartedly; some despise it with an equal fervour. Others, such as this writer, have neither seen nor read it and have no plans to do so, but at the same time don't wish to be a killjoy toward fans of the series.

Wherever you stand, Fifty Shades is a fascinating phenomenon in that it's the only major multi-platform franchise of recent times to be driven primarily by sex; and, if certain predictions prove correct, it may prove the last of its kind for quite a while, in the wake of Me Too/Time's Up.

Yet while Fifty Shades may be a rare breed of blockbuster today, not so long ago sex was big business at the box office. In the wake of the more permissive 1970s, sexual themes began to pop up in mainstream thrillers, along with more explicit representations of the act itself.

Henceforth, the erotic thriller was born, arguably coming into its own as a genre in the 1980s, reaching its peak by the early 1990s - yet falling out of favour not long thereafter.

There's no real mystery why the erotic thriller died; after all, a lot of the films were pretty terrible (Showgirls and Striptease, anyone?) Even so, there are some gems to be found in the genre...

It's nigh-on impossible to hear the words 'erotic thriller' without immediately thinking of this movie. It wasn't the first film of its kind, but it perfected the formula, and everything that came in its wake set out to ape its success.

Released in 1992, director Paul Verhoeven struck gold with the combination of megastar leading man Michael Douglas, a then-comparatively unknown Sharon Stone, and a script from Hollywood enfant terrible Joe Eszterhas.

No one could stop talking about it at the time, and 26 years on Basic Instinct remains quite an eye-opener, given its unflinchingly over-the-top displays of sex and violence. It's a little hard to believe a major studio would be willing to put a big budget behind something so outrageous.

Still, the investment paid off. Basic Instinct took almost $353 million worldwide, making it the fourth biggest hit of 1992 (studios weren't so nervous about R-rated movies back then).

It reaffirmed the star status of Douglas, who already had some history in the genre; but above all else, the role of sexually liberated author and possible homicidal maniac Catherine Tramell established Sharon Stone as arguably the biggest female sex symbol of the 1990s.

Stone became unanimous with the erotic thriller, taking on further raunchy roles in Sliver, The Specialist, and ultimately 2006's Basic Instinct 2; Douglas returned to similar territory with Disclosure; but Verhoeven, having brought the genre to its pinnacle, would more or less kill it off with 1995's Showgirls.