You don't need to have an encyclope-dick knowledge of male nudity in order to consider yourself an enthusiast! After all, not everyone dedicates their lives to naked celebs as we do. All you need to know are the greatest hits, and a great place to start is this list of the ten most famous male nude scenes in history! Every once in a while an actor strips down for a scene so memorable, shocking, sexy, or WTF-inducing that it captures the attention of the mainstream media to become a boner fide cultural phenomenon.
Keep scrolling to get the deets on the ten scenes that made headlines for all the right reasons! Once you familiarize yourself with these ten most important male nude scenes ever filmed, you can consider yourself a true connoisseur. A dong-oisseur if you will.
Ten Most Important Male Nude Scenes In History
10) Richard Gere in American Gigolo (1980)
In 1980 - a full decade before Pretty Woman - a thirty-one year Richard Gere opened audiences' eyes to the life of a male escort. Female nudity in mainstream movies was widespread at the time but Gere opened the door for male heartthrob frontal nudity.
9) Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Audiences weren't expecting this romantic comedy to bring the frontal, but Segel took one for the team, delivering the movie's buzziest scene by brazenly baring his penis in front of Kristen Bell. Segel revealed that the scene imitated reality - he was actually broken up with IRL while in the nude.
8) Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny (2003)
Reluctant A-lister Chloë Sevigny rebelled against her stardom by actually giving director and actor Vincent Gallo a blowjob in this notorious film. The two had recently ended their relationship and rumor has it that Vincent specifically wrote Chloë's part to get back at her new beau, director Harmony Korine. Whatever the case, Vincent has an awesome piece and certainly created a media firestorm with this scene.
7) Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Women In Love (1969)
The Hollywood Renaissance of the 60s brought fresh directors and actors to the forefront of Hollywood. Director Ken Russell embraced the era's laissez-faire attitude by having two fully naked men wrestle by a fire. The scene was so shocking that it was able to stand out at a time abundant with experimental nudity.
6) Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game (1992)
Benefiting from pre-Internet days, Jaye Davidson's iconic penis reveal as a trans woman in The Crying Game was kept a secret from audiences. They did not know that Jaye's character had male parts until his shocking reveal over an hour into the movie. The scene went viral before viral existed.
5) Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, and Jay Brannan in Shortbus (2006)
John Cameron Mitchell followed up his hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch with possibly the most infamous gay indie ever made. While it may not be a mainstream hit, Shortbus is gay cannon, with most every gay man remembering where he was when he first saw this threeway complete with a rendition of the National Anthem belted out in a man's hole.
4) Karl Glusman in Love 3D (2015)
Film provocateur Gaspar Noé got extreme, even for him, with his pornographic movie Love 3D. Yes, we said 3D. People lucky enough to catch this one in theaters actually wore 3D goggles, and in the film's climactic scene, they witnessed Karl Glusman ( Zoë Kravitz's boyfriend at the time - the two have since married and divorced) actually cumming in 3D. Talk about being in the splash zone.
3) Tom Hardy in Bronson (2008)
British babe Tom Hardy had already been nude a handful of times on screen by the time he made his way to the set of Bronson. Still, his dedication to this lengthy and bizarre frontal scene - Tom's character Bronson slathers himself with butter in an attempt to evade prison guards - cemented him as one of the UK's boldest, and nudest, actors.
2) Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal in Y tu mamá también (2001)
Future A-listers (and real-life besties) Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal were barely legal when they got naked and gay in Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón's Y tu mamá también. This erotic indie staple features plenty of looks at Diego and Gael's actual penises leading up to their gay hookup in one of the film's final scenes. This is an iconic movie that any nudity enthusiast should be very familiar with!
1) Michael Fassbender in Shame (2011)
No nude role has created the media firestorm that Michael Fassbender did in Shame, and quite possibly no nude role will again. It's hard to compete with what was coined at the time as the biggest penis in Hollywood, especially when it swings side to side as Michael saunters towards the camera fully naked. If you're going to familiarize yourself with one male celeb nude scene, this is it!
