20 Sexiest TV Shows, Ranked

Maybe this classic sitcom doesn’t spring to mind when you think “sexiest shows,” but Blanche Devereaux would like a word. One of the most deliriously libidinous characters in small-screen history, Blanche (Rue McClanahan, genius) didn’t just embody the fact that female desire, and desirability, doesn’t fade at 40 (or 50); she was also one of the great erotic fabulists, her reminiscences of past exploits and present yearnings vivid enough to get anyone hot and bothered (though mostly the latter in the case of Bea Arthur’s fabulous grump, Dorothy). Blanche’s lustful monologues — delivered in a Southern drawl and peppered with phrases like “perky bosoms,” “unbridled passion,” “uncontrollable ecstasy” and, um, “sweating and screaming and clawing like a trapped panther” — mirrored the rhythms of sex itself, ebbing, flowing and racing toward a breathless climax. Long before Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones normalized a woman’s right to get her freak on however, and however often, she pleased at any age, Blanche was tossing off such indelible lines as, “Like I’m the only person who ever mixed a margarita in a sailor’s mouth!”

Jane Austen’s novel is an opposites-attract rom-com, a Regency comedy of manners, a treatise on class. The 1995 miniseries, however, morphs it into something else entirely: pornography for nerdy chicks. A superlative adaptation unto itself, this Pride and Prejudice is almost reductively known for one scene only. The problem? It doesn’t exist. On a hot summer’s day, irascible landowner Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) comes upon a pond, and dives in still wearing his white shirt and trousers. Later, he walks back to his estate without his typical fineries, along the way encountering Lizzy Bennet (Jennifer Ehle), a comely neighbor with whom he’s had tense interactions. Caught in a vulnerable state and wet from the swim, he’s uncomfortably aware that Ms. Bennet is feasting on him with her eyes as they awkwardly make small talk. But in the cultural memory, the scene is different: Darcy emerging glistening from a lake, his shirt translucent as he strides toward the camera shaking water out of his hair. Nope, that doesn’t happen. A generation of viewers were just so turned on by watching a woman claim her power over her social superior that they literalized the sensual nature of the dynamic, reimagining it with a quasi-bodice ripper ethos. That’s how sexy Firth is here: He cringes under the weight of witnessing himself be objectified.

The ’90s and early 2000s were the era of the network TV “lesbian kiss episode.” A one-time gimmick intended to boost ratings during sweeps, it often featured a rather chaste lip smooch between a straight female protagonist and a vaguely queer guest star. Only a handful of years after the heyday of this trope, Showtime debuted The L Word, TV’s first ensemble drama about lesbian and bisexual female characters. And compared to Winona Ryder awkwardly planting her face on Jennifer Aniston’s on Friends, it was practically soft-core pornography. Ilene Chaiken’s lusty, loony series was transgressive not only for showcasing the warts-and-all dynamics of queer women living in Los Angeles, but for simply centering what a lot of women wanted to see in sex scenes. Indeed, The L Word’s sex is so plentiful, notorious and downright intriguing, it has inspired exhaustive internet rankings devoted to individual scenes. For more romantically inclined viewers, the committed intimacy between longtime partners Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) will stir your passions. But for anyone with a pulse, the many, many random sexual affairs of iconically swaggering Shane (Katherine Moennig) may ignite something you didn’t know you had in you.

The acting was all over the place, the storylines hit-or-miss, and it took the Darren Star/Aaron Spelling primetime soap — an older, sleazier companion piece to Beverly Hills, 90210 — a season to find its shameless groove. But once it did, this saga about the horny, histrionic, unreasonably attractive occupants of an L.A. apartment complex made for some seriously steamy broadcast programming. Among other things, the series was blessed with not one but two unhinged redhead knockouts (Laura Leighton’s Sydney and Marcia Cross’ iconic nutjob Kimberly) competing for irresistible cad Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro); one of the most beautiful square jawlines — and male torsos — to ever grace the small screen (thank you, Grant Show/Jake); and Heather Locklear flouncing around in all her bleach-blond, miniskirt-sporting glory as resident HBIC Amanda Woodward. The hookups happened in almost every conceivable configuration and context, with highlights including Amanda and Jake making enthusiastic use of her office desk and Michael’s unorthodox tactics in securing Sydney’s signature on divorce papers. And while the formula was ironclad — hot-and-heavy kissing, occasionally with clothes-ripping, accompanied by goofily dramatic electric guitar riffs and fades to commercial or credits — each climactic embrace somehow felt naughty and new.

Yearning is at the heart of the sexiest romances, and nowhere is that truer than in Shonda Rhimes’ political soap about the torrid affair between the president of the United States and the head of his crisis management team. Long before Simon burned for Daphne (Bridgerton) or Kate became the object of all of Anthony’s desires (Bridgerton again), Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) existed for Olivia (Kerry Washington). He confessed his feelings in the White House Rose Garden in season two (“I wait for you, I watch for you” is a canonical monologue), sparking five seasons of intense, carnally charged drama. Politics is merely a backdrop for Fitz and Olivia’s crazy-making on-and-off-again relationship, which tested loyalties, crossed boundaries and incited many a lustful soliloquy. But let’s be honest: What kept audiences rooting for the toxic couple was the electric chemistry between Goldwyn and Washington. The pair’s passionate line deliveries and palpable longing — their eye contact became its own kind of language — heightened the stakes of this deliciously unchaste relationship. Rarely has forbidden love been so irresistible. 

There’s a generation of women now in their 30s and 40s who can tell you the precise moment of their sexual awakening: a telltale unzipping sound heard in Buffy the Vampire Slayer season six, episode nine (“Smashed”). Sarah Michelle Gellar’s world-saving Buffy is embroiled in a knock-down, drag-out brawl with James Marsters’ bleached vampire Spike, and as the ceilings and floors of an abandoned house collapse around them, the violence unleashes Buffy’s subversive desire for her longtime enemy. They screw passionately against a crumbling wall, as Buffy finally gets the good sex she deserves following a few failed romances, including accidentally turning her first love evil after offering her virginity to him. (There are few ways doing it for the first time can go worse than that.) Joss Whedon’s magnum opus about how high school is literally hell never shies away from drawing a line between carnage and eroticism. But Buffy highlights just as many sweet nothings as it does sour dealings, such as the groundbreaking queer love story between dorky Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and shy Tara (Amber Benson). In fact, for Buffy’s musical episode, Whedon devotes a whole song to their sapphic sensuality.

There is absolutely nothing romantic about this drama, set largely within the fluorescent-lit halls of a London investment bank. To the contrary: It’s ice-cold cynicism all the way down, populated by characters willing to stab one another in the back for one more red cent. But sexy? Oh, yes. Without much going on in their lives besides the job, these hard-charging 20-somethings aren’t above bringing their carnal impulses to work with them, like Gus (David Jonsson) offering to wear an office hookup’s spunk under his shirt and tie, or Robert (Harry Lawtey) getting a backseat hand job from a frisky client (Sarah Parish). And since their taste for thrill-seeking doesn’t stop at the desk, they’re into exploring anything and everything — Yasmin (Marisa Abela), in particular, has tapped into her inner domme with Robert and indulged in golden showers with her boyfriend/client (Kit Harington). That all this activity is taking place against a corporate culture rife with bullying and sexual harassment makes it darker, but also, ultimately, smarter and naughtier: This is a show that understands the way sex, power and money play off one another, to intoxicating effect. 

For yet another grim screen story about Sad Irish Kids ™, Normal People frankly has no business also being this skin-tinglingly erotic. Based on Sally Rooney’s 2018 novel of love and loss between two burgeoning adults, the 12-episode drama launched the careers of movie stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, and with good reason: The charge between the actors is plainly magnetic. It’s hard enough for some films to sustain a romance across two hours; Normal People does it across six, relaying the complex…