10 Best Erotic Thrillers Ever

The late British director Ken Russell was one of the premier provocateurs of 20th century cinema, and his second (and last) Hollywood production is as fine an example of that as any.

The 1984 film sees Body Heat's Kathleen Turner overplay her blonde bombshell persona to dizzying effect. By day she is Joanna Crane, a reserved fashion designer; but by night she's China Blue, a prostitute with a great passion and dedication to her work.

She becomes the fixation of two key men: John Laughlin's Bobby, a security specialist hired to follow her, whose observations of her activities underline the dissatisfaction of his married life; and Peter, a deranged street preacher played by legendary Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, whose obsession with China Blue soon turns homicidal.

Crimes of Passion is a film for which, in some respects, the label 'erotic' doesn't seem entirely appropriate: it's so confrontational, so self-consciously excessive in its portrayal of sex, that it seems intended first and foremost to shock and appal, to push boundaries, rather than turn the audience on.

Even so, while it may be a film you're likely to either love or hate without much middle ground, it's certainly not a film you can placidly sit through with no reaction whatsoever. It's sleazy as hell, and unsurprisingly has fallen afoul of the censors over the years, but it's also cut with a jet-black sense of humour.