20 Most Perfect Scenes In Cinema History

The infamous sex scene at the heart of this eerie, captivating ghost story has long been touted as unsimulated - and for obvious reasons, is impossible to find in clip form online.

Legend has it that Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie were encouraged to genuinely do the deed by director Nic Roeg, to the concern of Christie’s partner Warren Beatty, who flew to London to demand that it be cut from the film. Such controversy appears to have been manufactured: Sutherland and Christie have both gone on record assuring everyone that the scenes were simulated.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it’s the brave blocking of the scene and the masterful intercutting between the lovemaking and the couple getting dressed to go out to dinner that makes it so memorable. It becomes clear that this is the first time the two have been intimate since the death of their daughter, the tragedy that overshadows the entire narrative.

For a moment that shadow is lifted, and the result - romantic yet unpretentious - is extraordinarily moving, one of the few explicit sex scenes that’s utterly essential to the finished movie.