The Best and Worst Onscreen Kisses of 2014 ~ Punch Drunk Critics

There are a few weeks left in the year, but I think we can safely say that the movies with the best kisses have already graced our movie theaters. And this is really important stuff, OK? Generations of teenage girls are being influenced by these kisses every time another shoddy (probably supernatural or dystopian) teenybopper romance comes out. Middle-aged women (your moms, people!) are still helping Nicholas Sparks pay his bills. And although there were a fair share of terrible action movies this year (ahem, 300: Rise of the Spartans or Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For), it was the women in those films that often elevated the material (looking at you, Eva Green). So sexy stuff – it sells, etc.

Along that vein, then, what were the five sexiest moments onscreen this year? The majority of these are kisses, but I’m also going to consider “smoldering looks” and “vigorous lovemaking” among the data. It’s very scientific. Let’s jump into it!

+ Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls, from Veronica Mars. You want smoldering looks? Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring will give you smoldering looks, from his and hers perspectives, no less:

Guh. For all the marshmallow ‘shippers of this relationship out there – and I am among your ranks, so much – this was the ultimate.

Oh, and here, have this:

That was the ultimate, too.

+ Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. OK, so The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn’t that great. There were too many villains and Jamie Foxx was kind of wasted and Dane DeHaan was definitely wasted, but it’s upsetting that this series might actually be over and Andrew Garfield will be out of a job, because he is exactly my cup of tea in this role. And of course, he’s Emma Stone’s cup of tea, too, given that they’ve been dating for a few years and their natural, off-camera chemistry thankfully graces every moment they have on-screen together, too.

These are real smiles, people! Look at all those teeth!

Oh, and here, have this. Sinewy muscles for everyone!

+ Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, from The Fault In Our Stars. Oh, what else is there to say about this movie? It dominated the pop-music realm during the summer, made a solid amount of money, and kept the Shailene Woodley train moving forward. But what worked so beautifully and realistically and believably, I think, out of anything else, was that sex scene and how delicately but honestly it was handled.

All you needed to see was the couple of inches of skin from Woodley’s back to know where this was going, and to get swept up in the emotion of it all … and by that I mean, weeping profusely. Like I did, especially at this.

Sorry, not sorry.

+ Noni and Kaz, from Beyond the Lights. Gugu Mbatha-Raw gave two of the year’s most captivating performances in the films Belle and Beyond the Lights, and if you haven’t seen either of them, fix your life. Especially because Beyond the Lights has both some of the year’s most off-putting and touching sex scenes, and it’s still in theaters, and go right now.

There is a lot of gross sex stuff in this movie (it is, after all, an examination of how the music industry commodifies both women’s bodies and their emotions), but there are two scenes in which Mbatha-Raw and her costar Nate Parker really shine: some up-in-the-air sexiness set to Beyonce’s “Drunk in Love” (used far better in this film than in the terrible Fifty Shades of Grey trailers) and a practically silent sex scene later in the film, when they’ve grown more comfortable with each other, more willing to let walls drop, more open to seeing who they really are. Just writing about it is giving me chills.

+ Gamora and Peter Quill, from Guardians of the Galaxy. OK, this is kind of a cheat, because Zoe Saldana and Chris Pratt’s characters don’t actually kiss. But it was a great moment when they didn’t, since it continued Guardians of the Galaxy’s “subvert the superhero genre” agenda. Also interesting that the film’s trailers contained brief glimpses of Gamora and Quill shirtless, but those scenes were both deleted from the final cut. A subversion, sure, but still sexy.

And, a few of the worst of the year:

+ Labor Day: Just because a convict can bake a pie does not mean you should have sex with him.

+ Winter’s Tale: Just because that mysterious time-traveler with the awful haircut looks like Colin Farrell does not mean you should have sex with him.

+ Million Dollar Arm: Just because your terrible landlord looks like Don Draper but with more Orientalist tendencies does not mean you should have sex with him.

+ The Hundred-Foot Journey: Just because you’re two chefs who realize that you’re in love with each other does not mean you should have sex in your restaurant while serving your parents and mentors.