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The Third Annual Hooksexup Awards for Love & Sex on Film

A look back at 2011's most — and least — impassioned moments in cinema.

by Hooksexup

Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives out a bunch of awards. Here at Hooksexup, we also have an annual award show, more modestly confined to matters of the heart/loins. Welcome to the third annual Hooksexup Awards for Love & Sex on Film. 

SEXIEST SEX SCENE OF THE YEAR

Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method 

Psychoanalysis was once considered scandalous, subversive, and, as the title here says, "dangerous," but more than 150 years after the birth of Sigmund Freud, it's now widely seen as musty, cranky, and even outdated. Praises be to David Cronenberg for making it feel gloriously filthy again. The casting helps: if Carl Jung and his patient/protegee/lover Sabina Spielrein had really looked like Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley, they should have dropped what they were doing and devoted their scientific curiosity to inventing the homemade sex tape. And when he ties her up and spanks her, the guilt and passion and frustration and release are so hot that you appreciate how exciting it must have been to go into forbidden territory back when the disapproval of polite society actually counted for something. — Phil Nugent

Runners-up: Aaron Eckhart and Amber Heard in The Rum Diary, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Tom Hardy in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Michael Fassbender, DeeDee Luxe, and Calamity Chang in Shame, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love

UNSEXIEST SEX SCENE OF THE YEAR

Ryan Gosling and Evan Rachel Wood in The Ides of March 

George Clooney directed this slick, superficial political drama, in which he plays a candidate running for the Democratic nomination for president. Ryan Gosling stars as the young campaign manager who's devoted to him. How devoted? When Gosling is making love with Evan Rachel Wood and looks up to see Clooney's face on the TV screen at the foot of the bed, he's so transfixed that he forgets what he's doing and stops in mid-thrust. Apparently nobody suggested to Clooney that this might lend an unintended J. Edgar-and-Clyde tint to Gosling's devotion. (Or that it might seem unchivalrous for him to suggest that having a naked Evan Rachel Wood in your arms is no competition for the sight of his own handsome mug on a TV screen.) Maybe we should be grateful that he didn't have both of them stare at the TV and start banging even harder. — P.N.

Runners-up: Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt in Young Adult, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes in Martha Marcy May Marlene, Steve Carell and Marisa Tomei in Crazy, Stupid, Love

SEXIEST NEWCOMER, FEMALE

Jessie Wiseman in Bellflower

There's a certain type of Venus flytrap most straight guys encounter at some point in their lives — the kind of sexy, super-cool alterna-chick who beats you in a cricket-eating contest, then drinks you under the table at your favorite scary dive bar. She's the kind of girl you want desperately, because having her would surely mean you must be super-cool, too. The only trouble is, for all the hot sex and swoony romance, you'll never really have her. When she says, "I'll hurt you," she means it. And this year, that girl was Bellflower's Jessie Wiseman. — Andrew Osborne

Runners-up: Amber Heard in The Rum Diary, Elena Anaya in The Skin I Live In, Paula Patton in Misson Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Bérénice Bejo in The Artist

SEXIEST NEWCOMER, MALE

Jean Dujardin in The Artist

Jean Dujardin is thirty-nine, and he didn't exactly come out of nowhere, but even the few films of his that have made it to America before now (such as the spy spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies) didn't suggest the depths of romantic charm he summoned up to play the silent movie star of The Artist. His performance may actually gain something for his not having been a familiar face before; he seems not just authentic to the period of the movie but like a lost artifact from the 1920s, and the ease with which he conveys that unearthly quality of someone from a different time makes him more magical. Whether his character is performing for the camera, hamming it up on stage, or sitting at home despairing over his lost career, he's all movie star. And seriously, how can you not love a guy who can bring off that mustache? — P.N.

Runners-up: Anton Yelchin in Like Crazy, Guillaume Canet in Last Night, Rupert Grint in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

SEXIEST NON-SEX SCENE

Kirsten Dunst strips down in Melancholia

Lars von Trier's end-of-the-world party opens with a series of rapturously beautiful yet apocalyptic images, before veering into an extended nightmare of a wedding bash. The wedding ends when the bride (Dunst) blows off the groom (Alexander Skarsgard) and cuckolds him with a man she barely knows. Right away, you know that this isn't going to be a warm movie. But the iciness is both unsettling and tantalizing, and it brings out something new in Dunst. Eventually, sensing that the end is coming, her character strips down and stretches out under a moonlit sky to commune with the natural world that won't be there much longer. (She certainly communed with the internet, where stills of her nude scene went viral long before the movie hit theaters.) If the world has to end for Kirsten Dunst to be this exciting, it ought to happen more often. — P.N.

Commentarium (28 Comments)

Feb 01 12 - 2:36am
nope

Alright, I'll give you Emma Stone for "Sexiest Performance: Female", but for "Sexiest Performance: ???", Elena Anaya wins hands-down.

Feb 01 12 - 3:34am
Pish!

No Elizabeth Olsen? Take one away from Emma Stone at least.

Feb 01 12 - 7:45am
Roxy

Fassbender FTW

Feb 01 12 - 12:35pm
teen beat

Michael Fassbender makes everything better.

Feb 01 12 - 10:37am
Helen fan

Right on, Helen Mirren!

Feb 01 12 - 11:47am
Rutherford B. Hayes

I thought Friends with Benefits WAS kind of romantic. I liked it. Great list, though; I look forward to this one.

Feb 01 12 - 1:37pm
mmm

When Magneto goes to that bar in South America, and he's wearing that sexy tight shirt I was swooning. And yes, I'm a straight male.

fassbender FTW

Feb 01 12 - 1:49pm
Litsa

I didn't have time last year to catch each film on the list, but I wholeheartedly agree w/ everything you cite about "Crazy Stupid Love" (one of the few wonderful romantic comedies of the past five years and not just b/c most of the others have choked) and about "Young Adult". If you haven't seen the latter, watch it at your soonest opportunity: brilliant, rattling, darkly hilarious. Can't stop thinking about it.

Feb 01 12 - 2:40pm
Globus

@ mmm - Yeah, not only did he look super smooth but you just knew he was also going to kill those scumbag Nazi motherfuckers dead.

Feb 01 12 - 2:57pm
X

The fact that the threesome scene was considered for Sexiest Sex Scene of the Year is kind of surprising. That scene was about humiliation, disgust, and, no pun intended, shame. The least sexy threesome ever that pretty much turned me off from threesomes.

Feb 01 12 - 4:08pm
Wrong

I hope by "Rupert Grint" you actually meant "Matthew Lewis." Damn, Neville turned out fine!

Feb 01 12 - 5:43pm
ColetteMcIntyre

+1

DO YOU SEE THIS, Hooksexup EDITORS? DO YOU SEE THIS?!

Feb 09 12 - 12:36am
KH

hee hee! +2

Feb 01 12 - 6:47pm
reece

Basically, 2011 was the year we all had crazy sex with Michael Fassbender in our collective head.

Feb 01 12 - 10:45pm
Anya

Ya hit the nail on the head, reece.

I'm glad to see Jane Eyre getting recognition, since Fassbender was utterly swoon-worthy and smoldering as Rochester.

Feb 02 12 - 12:02pm
reece

he was excellent, no doubt.

Feb 01 12 - 8:46pm
Finn

"Somewhere" is a 2010 film.

Feb 02 12 - 12:46am
7

Where the fuck is the interracial sex? Oh forget, its Hooksexup!!!

Feb 02 12 - 12:54am
LB

+1
Say it again my friend!

Feb 02 12 - 1:29am
mark n.

Wherever it is, it's not in Hollywood.

Feb 02 12 - 1:16am
snarf

God, I hate Emma Stone.

Feb 02 12 - 12:19pm
farah

IMAGINARY BOYFRIEND OF THE YEAR = Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) : good choise !!

Feb 02 12 - 6:50pm
mk

I can't take anything about Crazy Stupid Love seriously, even the wonderful Emma Stone.

Feb 02 12 - 9:59pm
dm

You left out Daniel Craig in "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo..." As a gay man, I would've fucked him in a New York second!

Feb 02 12 - 11:57pm
An

Was waiting for Weekend to make its appearance--Good job, Hooksexup!

Feb 03 12 - 12:53pm
20hours

Crazy, Stupid, Love was a good movie until the utterly saccharin ending absolutely ruined it. Michael Fassbender is fantastic, either as a 'sexy guy' or as the really amazing newcomer talent that he is. Ryan Gosling... well, he's done some really good things ('Lars and the Real Doll' being my favorite) but I'm finding him much more hit or miss these days. And finally, Owen Wilson doesn't have good chemistry with anyone. How does he even get work?!? He's absolutely terrible and is the exact same character no matter what movie he's cast in.

Feb 05 12 - 6:18pm
Spencer

SOO happy you included weekend
that movie is NOT getting the recognition it deserves this year

Apr 29 12 - 1:53pm
anonymous

The speech at the end of Crazy Stupid Love was too cheesy but it was the best mainstream American romantic comedy I've seen in a while.

Fassbender was insanely sexy in X-Men First Class and Jane Eyre. I don't know why he didn't break out earlier.