Best and Most Memorable
Film Kisses of All Time
in Cinematic History
Part 12
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Best and Most Memorable Part 12 |
Most of these scenes come from vintage, classic Hollywood films, rather than more recent films, and even stretch back to the scandalous The Kiss (1896)! Other discussions of notable romantic or sexual scenes (with more examples of great kissing scenes) may be found elsewhere in this site: Romance Films Genre, or Erotic/Sexual Films Genre, or the History of Sex in Cinema. Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star |
| (in chronological order by film title) Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 |
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After circling around the perimeter of an assembled crowd during a song, Romeo (Leonard Whiting) took Juliet (Olivia Hussey) by the hand from the opposite side of a pillar, and spoke his first words to her alone - to tell her of his passion. She responded in equal measure as they sensually pressed their hands together in this famous scene. Romeo: "Oh...O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." (They interlocked their hands) Juliet: "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." Romeo: "Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips by thine, my sin is purged." (They kissed) Juliet: "Then have my lips the sin that they have took?" Romeo: "Sin from my lips! O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." (They kissed again and Juliet sighed) |  
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The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
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This film featured a dizzy 360 degree view of a 70-second kiss (mostly uninterrupted) while the camera moved around the osculating couple to the tune of "The Windmills Of Your Mind" - the kiss finally dissolved into a blur of color - it occurred between Faye Dunaway (as insurance investigator Vicky Anderson) and Steve McQueen (as millionaire Bostonian criminal Thomas Crown), after a challenging, 6 1/2 minute mostly non-verbal chess game with palpable sexual tension and imagery | 
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Cactus Flower (1969)
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During one scene in this late 60s romantic comedy, Walter Matthau (as middle-aged, single, Fifth Avenue dentist Dr. Julian Winston) told Ingrid Bergman (posing as his super-competent, dignified and gracious "office wife" - his long-time nurse-receptionist Miss Stephanie Dickenson): "I think I'm going to kiss you" - she replied encouragingly: "When will you know for sure?" | 
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The film's two most touching and remembered scenes were a prolonged kissing scene and the montage of the star-crossed couple, Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal) and Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw), tossing snowballs at each other and ending up kissing each other with flecks of snow on their faces; also the scene of them kissing each other when they were married; after meeting many obstacles and making sacrifices, she was diagnosed as terminally ill when she was tested for pregnancy, and died in his arms at the hospital in a tear-inducing closing; she made a last request of him: "You, after all - you're going to be a merry widower." "I won't be merry," he responded. She replied: "Yes, you will be. I want you to be merry. You'll be merry, okay?" |      
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THX 1138 (1971)
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In a post-apocalyptic, oppressive futuristic, underground world of the 25th century set up as a police state where people were required to wear white gowns and shave their heads, robot-building production line worker THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) and his female roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) - after not taking their state-required and prescribed, anti-emotion drug doses - began to experience illegal sexual feelings for each other, including passionate kissing, but then were caught and arrested by the black-garbed android enforcement police. | 
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Summer of '42 (1971)
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Young teenager Hermie (Gary Grimes) experienced sexual awakening and coming-of-age with lonely, 22 year-old neighboring war bride Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill) after she learned by telegram that her husband had been killed in action; with tears in her eyes and slightly drunk, she put her head on Hermie's shoulder, slowly danced (barefooted) with him to the tune (the film's theme song) playing on a phonograph record, and tenderly kissed him a few times before beckoning him to her bedroom for comfort; after he left her that evening, that was the last time he saw her, as the film remembered their short summer romance on 1940s Nantucket Island in flashback |
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Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971, UK)
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This groundbreaking, acclaimed film by director John Schlesinger was notable for its tale of a romantic triangle; straight businesswoman Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson) and fiftyish gay Dr. Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch) both loved the same young man - bisexual artist/sculptor Bob Elkin (Murray Head); it was the first major motion picture to feature two gay characters kissing on the lips | 
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Don't Look Now (1973)
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As a prelude to a notorious love scene, a married and grieving couple visiting in Vienna, Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) and John (Donald Sutherland), were preparing for dinner by showering-bathing and relaxing languorously together; she stated: "You've got toothpaste all over your mouth" to which he replied: "Eat if off" - she responded with a kiss, and a playful stroking of his naked backside as they both stretched out on a bed; the explicit scene of their kissing and love-making was intercut with scenes of them dressing for a night out | 
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After futuristic rebels Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) and Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) successfully kidnapped and killed The Leader's nose (by throwing it under a steamroller), Luna guessed correctly that Miles' jealous rant about rebel leader Erno (John Beck) was because he loved her: ("Of course I love you! What, this, this is what this is all about...") -- after Luna had unsuccessfully tried to convince Miles that science had proven long-lasting relationships were impossible, she amusedly asked: "Oh, I see. So, you don't believe in science, and, and you also don't believe that political systems work, and you don't believe in God....so then, What DO you believe in?" -- Miles in a deadpan tone quickly replied: "Sex and death. Two things that come once in a lifetime -- but at least after death you're not nauseous" - they kissed passionately as the film ended |  
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Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) removed detective Jake Gittes' (Jack Nicholson) nose bandage, commenting: "God, it's a nasty cut", and then dabbed peroxide on the naked wound, while he noticed her eye coloring and she admitted: "It's a, it's a fl-flaw in the iris...it's a sort of birthmark"; after visually exposing their flaws or deficiencies, their faces were so intimately close to each other that they kissed; a post-coital scene showed them naked in bed and leisurely smoking cigarettes | 
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Introduction: What makes
a memorable screen kiss? Is it the passion, the circumstances, the buildup,
the dialogue, the unpredictability, the awkwardness, the sexiness or
eroticism, the cinematography, the unique quality...? Although any list
of the best, most romantic, and most indelible kisses through film history
is difficult to create, there are a number of kissing scenes in movies
that are unforgettable and deserve special mention. 
are the films that