30 Greatest Movie Boob Shots Of All Time

In the immortal words of Seth MacFarlane: "We saw your boobs."

by Harry Thomas
Art is really about one thing and one thing alone. Naked women. It is the one theme that transcends all time and technique. Being an artist has always been a good way for geeks to get chicks naked. €“ Dennis Miller, Ranting Again
And when you put those naked chicks up on the big screen and call it art, then you€™ve hit the big time; as the saying goes, €œthat€™s entertainment.€ You can make jokes about €œthe casting couch€ and €œthe glass ceiling€ all you want, but there€™s no denying that sex sells movie tickets. There are plenty of screwball comedies and slasher flicks where the female stars wind up naked at some point. It€™s that infantile bias that appeals to men; breasts are a fascination. And if we get to see more female body parts, so much the better. Sometimes even just the hint of something better, like a deep cleavage shot, or a soaking wet dress, is enough to entice the men into checking out the film. And directors of €œchick flicks€ know that they can sell tickets to the boyfriends/husbands if their lead female actress drops her top somewhere along the line, or at least offers up some enticing cleavage. Seth MacFarlane€™s stint as Oscar host in 2013 may have earned him some derision from the politically correct crowd, but he was pretty much spot on with his opening number, €œWe Saw Your Boobs.€ The prevalence of female flesh as opposed to male is tilted way in favour of the so-called fairer sex as Hollywood continues to show its obsession with the most famous glands in human anatomy. Whether that€™s a good thing or not depends on your point of view, but we assume that you don€™t mind it or you probably wouldn€™t be reading this article. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTKEDXNQAcc We€™re obviously going to miss some of your favourites, but list them below and we€™ll save them for the sequel...

30. Love And Other Drugs - Anne Hathaway

A pharmaceutical salesman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who specializes in male enhancement drugs falls for a free-spirited woman (Hathaway) who attempts to seduce him by walking into his apartment and stripping off her coat. But if Love And Other Drugs teaches us anything, it's that it pays to look in the corners, and do a little more research on your would-be boyfriend - oh, and also that young people are perpetually aching to have sex with each other as often and for as long as possible, regardless of the emotional context, and that people are just generally horrible to each other. Ms. Hathaway - who spends a lot of the film in various states of undress - would go on to redeem the role of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises (anything's better than Halle Berry's interpretation) and score a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Les Misérables.

29. 300: Rise Of An Empire - Eva Green

Looking at the rest of her catalog, it would appear that Green is definitely not camera shy when it comes to being naked, and this seduction scene between her Artemesia character and Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) appeared to ride a very fine line between an R and an NC-17 rating in the States. It's also one of the only redeeming points about this mostly messy prequel.

28. Angel Heart - Lisa Bonet

This notorious sex scene between Mickey Rourke and Bonet was so graphic that it had to be toned down for the film to avoid an X rating in the US, though unrated video releases show the unedited scene. But that's not what's shocking about this film: it's that Bonet got her start playing Denise Huxtable on the family-friendly The Cosby Show, and seeing her in such a raunchy film subsequently would have been somewhat jarring to say the least. Reports differ on whether Mr. Cosby approved or disapproved of the role, but she was fired from The Cosby Show in 1991 due to "creative differences."

27. Basic Instinct - Sharon Stone

She'd been appearing nude in many more films before (and indeed has since), but it was her quick leg uncrossing in Basic Instinct that put the lovely Ms. Stone on the list of Hollywood actresses that were very comfortable with nudity, and propelled that film onto a special list of iconic film moments that completely transcend their context. But with the prevalence of that particular scene, those who haven't seen it might not know that she does a lot more than just flash Michael Douglas and his cohorts under interrogation.

26. Witness €“ Kelly McGillis

In Witness, Harrison Ford is a cop hiding out in Amish country after he is wounded trying to protect Rachel (McGillis) and her son from rogue cops that want to kill all of them. We spend a good portion of the film learning how the Amish culture and the rest of the world don't mix, with inevitably sexy results. And that makes the scene where Ford finds her taking a sponge bath that much more exciting.

25. Heavy Metal

If you like your breasts animated, you should check out this 1981 R-rated cartoon anthology, which took its stories from the pages of the (then) monthly adult art magazine, as - somewhat typically - there is plenty of animated flesh in the Harry Canyon, Den, So Beautiful and So Dangerous and Taarna sequences.

24. S.O.B. €“ Julie Andrews

Successful Hollywood producer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) has just turned in his first major flop, and after failing to commit suicide four times, he has a revelation that the film failed due to a lack of sex. Newly inspired by the thing that most producers learn in Hollywood on day one, he convinces the studio and his clean reputation wife and lead actress Sally Miles (Andrews) that what will save the film is an edit job to turn it into a soft-core pornographic musical, in which she will appear topless. Wait... What? Julie Andrews? Mary Poppins topless? Now that€™s shock value!

23. Teachers €“ JoBeth Williams

Earlier in the film, teacher Alex Jurel (Nick Nolte) accuses lawyer Lisa Hammond (Williams) of being unable to walk down the halls of the high school that he teaches at €˜naked€™ in order to see the true issues affecting the school. At the climax, she literally takes him up on the offer, stripping down and streaking down the hall, and presumably being added to a special register she has to regularly sign for the rest of her life, while maintaining a certain distance from any location where children congregate.

22. The Heart Of Me €“ Helena Bonham Carter

In The Heart Of Me Dinah (Carter) engages in an affair with her more straight-laced sister Madeline€™s (Olivia Williams) husband, Rickie (Paul Bettany). The affair ends tragically (as most film affairs seem to do), but who ever expected to see the lovely Carter in flagrante delecto? Well, it should have been a lot of people, considering the fact that Mrs Tim Burton has actually taken her clothes off in a considerable number of her films.

21. The Piano €“ Holly Hunter

Hunter received the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as a mute Scottish woman engaging in an affair with a man who has adopted the Maori customs (Harvey Keitel), which could perhaps be construed as suffering for your art.

20. Calendar Girls €“ Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren has displayed her assets in plenty of films, which makes it seem somewhat odd that she nearly turned down the role of village socialite Chris Harper in Calendar Girls, before signing on when Julie Walters and others did so. She€™s not the only one we see exposed in the film, but at age 57 (at the time), she still showed the most.

19. Dangerous Liaisons €“ Uma Thurman

The Kill Bill star would later get more traction in her liaison with director Quentin Tarantino, but long before that Uma Thurman showed off her assets in the Oscar-heavy Dangerous Liaisons as Cécile de Volanges, daughter of Madame de Volanges, secret lover of Valmont and Danceny, and fiancee to Merteuil's former lover, Monsieur de Bastide.

18. The Sessions €“ Helen Hunt

Hunt was nominated for Best Actress for her role as a sex surrogate for a man (John Hawkes) who has spent most of his life in an iron lung in The Sessions and rightly so. You could do worse than to lose your virginity to Hunt, even if she is in her 50s.

17. Swordfish €“ Halle Berry

Berry was notoriously paid an extra half-million to take off her top for the first time on screen in this lacklustre film, but it seems that it was a worthwhile expense, as the film pulled in nearly $150 million at the box office - probably mostly based on that scene alone. And then she would go on to do much more than drop her top in her Best Actress-winning role in Monster's Ball.

16. Melancholia €” Kirsten Dunst

Justine (Dunst) is about to be married to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) in an extravagant wedding paid for by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsboug) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland), but she suffers from extreme depression that seems to be in parallel to the state of the Earth. To make her mood worse, the world is about to meet its doom as another planet is set to collide into it and wipe out life as we know it. If that sounds like a bummer of a wedding day, that's exactly what was intended in Lars Von Trier's misery epic, but when Spider-Man's girlfriend rolls around naked on the grass in the moonlight, we'll still pay attention.

15. No Way Out €“ Sean Young

After meeting at a ball, Navy commander Tom Ferrell (Kevin Costner) goes home with Susan Atwell (Young), who doesn€™t want to wait to get in the apartment, so she starts seducing him in the limo, then stripping in the hallway to her apartment as her roommate walks out, to Ferrell€™s embarrassment and our eternal delight.

14. Halloween €“ P.J. Soles

After just polishing off her boyfriend, Michael Meyers moves into the bedroom wearing a sheet and glasses. Linda (Soles) confuses the "ghost" for her man and pulls back the covers and invites him to return to bed, asking if he sees anything that he likes. When Meyers doesn€™t respond, she gets mad and goes to call Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), but Meyers chokes her with the phone cord, resoundly proving once more that the slasher genre rarely knows how to appreciate a good woman.

13. Trading Places €“ Jamie Lee Curtis

Speaking of Ms. Curtis, her turn as the prostitute Ophelia who takes pity on deliberately disgraced Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) was pretty spectacular and one of the most memorable moments from her post-Halloween career. And if this wasn't the perfect answer to those bafflingly enduring rumours about gender reassignment (or gender confusion), then it's hard to imagine what would be.

12. Prozac Nation €“ Christina Ricci

As the solemn Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family flicks, the 11-year-old Ricci was the sharp-witted, deadpan serious type, but then ten years later, she took on the leading role in the biopic Prozac Nation, where she loses her virginity, throws a party for it, and gets treated for substance abuse.And she crowns the debauchery by going topless.

11. Animal House - Mary Louise Weller

Animal House is one of those movies famous for its quotability, its off-the-wall college humor, and the first major film role for Saturday Night Live original Not Ready For Prime-Time Player John Belushi. His role as the perpetual frat boy John Blutarsky, or Brother Bluto, ranks among his very best, and is arguably his most memorable of all. And breast lovers will remember one of his best scenes; climbing a two-story ladder to peek in the windows of the sorority house. He (and we) are enjoying the pillow fight among the sisters, but when Mandy Pepperidge (Weller) returns from her date and retires to her room, Bluto follows. He is so enraptured by the sight of the sensuous Mandy that he and the ladder topple backwards, with Bluto landing painfully on his back. We feel his pain, but the conquest was probably completely worth it.

10. Swamp Thing €“ Adrienne Barbeau

Audiences first noticed the lovely Ms. Barbeau in her role as Maude€™s (Bea Arthur€™s) adult daughter on TV in the 1970s. But it wasn€™t until 1982 when we finally got to see what we€™d been wanting to see for over a decade: Barbeau rising out of the swamp in unfettered glory in Wes Craven's adaptation of the Swamp Thing comic.

9. Amadeus €“ Elizabeth Berridge

In the original release, we had to be content with some very enticing cleavage for Berridge, who played Mozart€™s (Tom Hulce) wife, Constanze, but in the director€™s cut, an added scene shows the jilted Constanze seeking to get a little payback on her philandering husband by attempting to seduce his greatest rival, Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). And the idiot turns her down.

8. Not of This Earth €“ Traci Lords

This campy remake of a campy film by Roger Corman was notable for two things: director Jim Wynorski€™s bet that he could remake it for the same amount that Corman had in 1957 (adjusted for inflation), and one of two times that former pornographic actress Lords appeared nude in a film, this time as the nurse Nadine Story. It's perhaps with a loaded warning that anyone would recommend that you look up any of her earlier naked roles - with the exception of her last pornographic film Traci, I Love You - since all of her X-rated content was shot while she was still underage.

7. Fast Times At Ridgemont High €“ Phoebe Cates/Jennifer Jason Leigh

Brad (Judge Reinhold) is imagining what he might do with his sister€™s best friend Linda (Cates), and in the dream sequence, Linda rises out of the pool and walks toward him, unfastening her top as she does so. Thus was born one of the most iconic shots of the 1980s. And of course, there was also Leigh€™s loss of her virginity in the pool changing room, performed to "Somebody's Baby" by Jackson Browne, while in the movie theatre, young teenagers became of age by the film's end.

6. Under the Skin €“ Scarlett Johansson

As Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in the MCU, Johansson has an interesting scene in Iron Man 2 where she admonishes Happy Hogan to keep his eyes on the road as she changes in the backseat of the limo. It's all about smoke and mirrors and the comedy of the moment works because of Hogan's obvious frustrated temptation. But if had Happy wanted to see more - as the audience inevitably did - he could have checked out her role as the alien disguised as a human woman out to harvest the flesh of unsuspecting men in the much-hyped Under The Skin.

5. Titanic €“ Kate Winslet

There was some compensation for the guys who were dragged to see Titanic by their girlfriends, and we don€™t just mean the second half when it turned into a disaster flick, as Kate Winslet - who has famously denounced her involvement in the film as terrible - stripped off for one of the single most erotic moments in modern cinema history that initially doesn't even involve sex. Winslet of course played Rose, who dismissed her arranged marriage to a bad wig wearing Billy Zane for the poor young artist/scallywag played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and indulged in a spot of blasphemous nude drawing wearing only a fabulously valuable necklace. As her older self (Gloria Stuart) said when she looked at the drawing, €œWasn€™t I a dish?"

4. Original Sin €“ Angelina Jolie

With the exception of Gia, Wanted and Changling, most of the films where Jolie appears naked or even just scantily dressed seem to be exercises in the viewer's patience. In fact, some of them rank pretty low on the Rotten Tomatometer, such as Original Sin, which was pretty much only redeemed by the fact that she spent the best bits with nothing on opposite Antonio Banderas. The quality of the scripts may be lacking, but her curves certainly weren't.

3. The Whole Nine Yards €“ Amanda Peet

Jill (Peet) wants to become an assassin, but makes the mistake of getting too close to her first target, Nicholas €œOz€ Oseransky (Matthew Perry) and then when she gets introduced to Oz€™s new neighbor, recently paroled mob contract killer Jimmy €œThe Tulip€ Tudeski (Bruce Willis), she strips down in order to help him take out his old boss (Kevin Pollak), cheerfully distracting him so Jimmy can take him out. Her infectious charm, plus a noticeable jiggle, aren't the worst things you could see just before dying.

2. Sin City €“ Carla Gugino

As Marv€™s (Mickey Rourke) parole officer and one of the few people he trusts, Lucille (Gugino) supplies him with medication for his €œcondition.€ To the audience's benefit, for some reason she does so while wearing only a G-string.

1. Lifeforce €“ Mathilda May

Since she spends 90 percent (according to an interview on the recent Blu-ray re-issue) of the film naked, there€™s really no reason to point out any scenes in particular in Lifeforce. Let€™s just say that the gorgeous space vampire May defies gravity and leave it at that. Which seminal topless scenes do you think belong on this list? Share your own picks below in the comments thread.
Contributor
Contributor

Mr. Thomas is primarily a graphic artist for the San Antonio Express-News, but also finds time to write the DVD Extra blog for the paper’s website.