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Top 5 movies about porn

How do you make a film about porn and avoid the X rating and the charge that it’s nothing but an exercise in titillation. These movies didn’t just meet the challenge they actually shed light on the culture of skin flicks.

1. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

Anderson’s breakout does for the California porn industry what Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas did for the New York Mafia: it takes a standard rise-and-fall narrative about morally dodgy anti-heroes and turns it into the stuff of great drama. But its most powerful accomplishment is showing us the living, feeling human beings behind the dead-eyed performers in Jack Horner’s porn reels. NW


2. Not A Love Story (Bonnie Sherr Klein, 1981)

Loathed by anti-censorship activists and lauded by anti-porn commentators, this eye-opening NFB documentary examining the players and values of the porn industry had a huge impact on public perception. Nothing like hearing the gasp in the audience when the cover of Hustler featuring a woman going through a meat grinder appears onscreen. SGC


3. Auto Focus (Paul Schrader, 2002)

Pornography is an essential component in the life of barely functional sex addict Bob Crane in Paul Schrader’s grim biopic, which casts Greg Kinnear as the hollowed-out star of Hogan’s Heroes and Willem Dafoe as his most prominent enabler. It’s a full-on tragedy of a man undone by his own enthusiasms – and, ultimately, by his insistence that only he knows how to get himself off properly. NW


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4. Inside Lara Roxx (Mia Donovan, 2011)

This doc about the first female porn star to contract HIV follows Roxx from naive skin flick performer trying to make a living to full-on activist raising awareness at major porn conventions across America. Never judgmental – of her or the industry. SGC


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5. Orgazmo (Trey Parker, 1997)

Just before South Park became a cable phenomenon, Parker and his pal Matt Stone made a silly movie about a bright-eyed Mormon missionary (Parker) who knocks on the wrong door and winds up a porn star – and then, somehow, a porn-themed superhero. Sixteen years after its TIFF premiere, Orgazmo feels almost as nostalgic as Boogie Nights in its affection for a bygone era of filmmaking. But only Orgazmo has Choda Dog. NW

movies@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision | @susangcole

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