Porn has changed the world in more ways than one. You don’t have to be an adult industry expert to know that. Just look at the Watergate scandal’s key informant, Deep Throat, named after the 1972 film largely credited with introducing the Golden Age of Porn.
Porn, like any other art form, runs parallel to the culture we live in. It cannot be separated from its times. If you’re interested in seeing some of the most important porn works and adult films in existence, these are not just the most famous, but clear signs that porn influences culture just as much as culture influences porn.
Where to find famous porn and other popular adult videos online
The following films are provided for purely educational and historical value. Some may be difficult to track down or impossible to find in their original form; in these cases, we’ve provided alternate ways to see these classic porn videos.
An iconic adult film ahead of its time: Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie
Before Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones, and other mainstream ’70s porn flicks, there was Andy Warhol’s arthouse production Blue Movie. The title references both the popular slang term for a pornographic film, and the fact that the film is literally blue due to the way it was filmed.
Also known as the aptly-titled Fuck, Blue Movie is a realistic portrait of eroticism and romantic desire as shared between a straight couple during sex. While technically a famous porn film, Blue Movie isn’t traditional pornography, nor is it intended to be: it depicts sex as it happens, including how it starts, stops, and starts again. Nonetheless, its influence on adult film can be felt decades later thanks to its artistic approach.
Blue Movie was equally controversial for its time; Warholstars notes the NYPD seized Blue Movie on obscenity grounds shortly after its release. In response, Warhol released a Blue Movie book featuring stills from the film and a transcript of the movie’s dialogue.
“I don’t think that Blue Movie will have an adverse effect on any normal, coping, neurotic adult,” the New York Times wrote of the film in 1969, “but then I don’t think it will enrich one’s consciousness, except at the chaotic speed with which our public morality is changing, and of the Warhol continuum, a life style and a body of work that are as indigenously American as commercial television.”
Unfortunately, Blue Movie is difficult to track down online, although the film is occasionally screened offline; the Whitney, for example, showed Blue Movie in 2015. The only widespread release available is a German dub, which has occasionally made its way on to tube sites.
Famous gay porn: Boys in the Sand
Before Deep Throat, and right after Blue Movie, there was another popular adult film that resonated with widespread audiences: gay flick Boys in the Sand. Released in 1971, Boys in the Sand was designed as a porn film that gay men could view and proudly say “it’s beautiful to see those people do what they’re doing” on-screen, as director Wakefield Poole told The Advocate in 1972.
The film, which revolves around the New York gay hotspot Fire Island, features three different queer encounters, from beach head to poolside hookups. Nearly 50 years later, the early ’70s classic holds up well thanks to its gorgeously realistic performances and beautiful shots of men with the men they love, desire, and yearn to pleasure.
Unlike Blue Movie, Boys in the Sand is readily available for streaming via PinkLabel. Purchase the film, rent it, or watch it for free as part of a PinkLabel Plus subscription.
Famous queer porn: The Crash Pad
Before there was the Crash Pad Series, there was the classic queer porn film: The Crash Pad. Originally released in 2005, The Crash Pad set the stage for the ongoing series’ basic premise: In a secret San Francisco apartment, queers receive a key to hook up and fuck, complete with “real sex, real orgasms, real sweat, real bodily fluids,” and “real laughter.”
“These aren’t your standard porn star types, but a hip Bay Area cross-section: the sultry femme, the cute boi, the tattooed, and the pierced are all represented,” PinkLabel teases for The Crash Pad’s director’s cut. “How hot is this movie? Within the first seven minutes, you’re treated to double penetration with strap-ons, and it only ups the ante from there.”
The best way to watch The Crash Pad by far is on PinkLabel, which is owned by the film’s creator, Pink and White Productions. Purchase the film or subscribe to PinkLabel Plus to catch the full 56-minute director’s cut.
Famous straight porn: Debbie Does Dallas
Debbie Does Dallas is one of those iconic adult films that just seems to linger in the popular lexicon. Whether it’s a stray reference on Jackbox Games’ Quiplash or a catch-all term for famous porn, the title alone just captures the perfect image of what you expect a pornographic movie to entail.
In Debbie Does Dallas, Golden Age star Bambi Woods features as a high school cheerleader eager to make the trip to Dallas to try out for the Texas Cowgirls. Her and her fellow cheerleaders proceed to run around town earning money for the trip, hooking up with their bosses and friends in the process. The film itself was at the center of censorship and obscenity scandals; famously, several scenes were shot at Brooklyn College and the Pratt Institute without administrators’ knowledge.
Given its age, Debbie Does Dallas is a little harder to track down, but it’s not lost. The Internet Adult Film Database offers numerous sites where users can rent or purchase the full film, including digitally remastered rereleases.
Most important queer adult film: BloodSisters
What’s it like being a leatherdyke? Sadly, lesbian leather history remains muted in most mainstream queer discussions. Luckily, BloodSisters isn’t afraid to celebrate the leatherdyke commuinty in all its sadomasochistic glory, making it one of the most important adult documentaries in queer history.
Published in 1995, Michelle Handelman’s BloodSisters looks at the leatherdyke world of the 1990s through interviews with eight San Fransisco BDSM practitioners and how they “collapse the cheap stereotypes used to demonize them,” as PinkLabel describes the film. It’s also pertinent to today’s sexual anxieties, as DaemonumX so precisely lays out for Autostraddle.
“My absolute favorite part in the film gives me chills—the San Francisco leatherdykes rolled into Washington D.C. clad in leather and joined the march surrounded by the contingent from the National Organization for Women. They created a large enough gap in the march so that Tala Brandeis could wield her bullwhip that appears to be no shorter than twenty feet long (drools) on the back of a very willing bottom,” she writes. “This was public sex. This was sadomasochism. This was a political act of protest from a trans woman, leatherdyke sadist amongst a marching sea of feminists who had already decided that they weren’t fighting for her rights because she didn’t deserve rights.”
Part adult film, and part oral history, BloodSisters is a necessary look at one of the most important (and disdained) subcultures within the lesbian community. Watch it on PinkLabel. Interested viewers can purchase the film, rent it for 48 hours, or watch it for free by subscribing to PinkLabel Plus.
Most famous hentai anime: Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend
Yes, “famous porn” doesn’t just mean porn with live performers. And before there was tentacle porn, there was Urotsukidōji. The three-part Urotsukidōji original video animation series, later reedited as Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend in the West, remains one of the most influential hentai anime movies in both Western history and Japan.
Japanese manga artist Toshio Maeda originally introduced tentacles into Urotsukidōji as a stand-in for phalluses due to Japanese censorship laws, as the Daily Dot reported in 2019. The series’ plot, which is admittedly more of an excuse for its graphic sex scenes than anything else, follows a demonic invasion onto Earth amid a search for the Chosen One that can unite man, demons, and man-beasts. More famously, Urotsukidōji combined fantastical horror with tentacle sex for both titilating stimulation and aggressive, bondage-esque penetrative sex for the women who found themselves preyed upon by the story’s otherworldly demons. The anime series itself features far more sadism than the original manga, earning its infamy among both anime fans and non-anime fans alike.
A famous hentai’s infamous censorship
Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend made its debut in the West in 1993, but not without sizable edits, shock, and criticism. “The feature cut may have a reputation for extreme content, but it actually removed about 30 minutes of scenes deemed too extreme for stateside audiences,” Jon Hogan writes for Hyperallergic. “A scene I encountered in my research, where a monster explodes his metal phallus into cheek-piercing spikes inside of a woman’s mouth, assured me that the feature film could indeed have been even more disturbing.”
Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend isn’t readily available on streaming sites. Many American distributions featured the edited cut. For anime fans who want to experience Urotsukidōji as it was seen by one-too-many American teens years ago, grab the edited version on Blu-Ray or DVD. Listings for the DVD version occasionally appear on Amazon as do the combined version at Walmart. Visit Blu-Ray.com for more information.
Urotsukidōji and its subsequent films are also available for purchase with edited material restored through the Urotsukidōji Perfect Collection; censorship is still somewhat present, granted, but for purists, this is the best way to watch the series. There’s one caveat though: this version remains rare, and thus very expensive. Purchasing the Perfect Collection off Amazon, for example, ranges from $298.99 to $569.99 as of February 2021. So while possible, expect to pay a pretty penny just to enjoy the series as intended.
Additionally, Fakku offers the original Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend manga in digital or physical editions.
Most famous porn parody: Pirates
Back when Pirates of the Caribbean was all the rage, a porn parody came out and outclassed it: Pirates. Released by Digital Playground in 2005, Pirates cost approximately $1 million to make. Its sequel, Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, even upped the ante to $8 million. Granted, the original remains the more famous of the two.
Pirates follows Captain Edward Reynolds as he searches for the ferocious pirate captain Victor Stagnetti. Along the way, plenty of kinky pirate sex ensues between boy/girl and girl/girl scenes. Pirates went on to win 13 AVN Awards from 2006 to 2008, along with 10 other AVN nominations. Notoriously, Pirates confused customers at rental stores for years. In some cases, staff had to warn shoppers that they were picking up a porn parody.
Pirates is available to stream as a PPV flick on Hot Movies. The movie runs at a little over 2 hours.
