The Best Nude Scenes of the Year

Ramin Setoodeh — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:00:10 GMT

It was a year for revealing performances at the movies--perhaps because so many actors decided to bare all in their films. Actually, 2007 was a groundbreaking year for nude scenes. Now that cable is so full of scantily clad programming ("Tell Me You Love Me," "The Tudors," "Californication" and "Rome"), maybe Hollywood is trying to stay edgy. Or maybe our YouTube, paparazzi obsessed culture has made movie actors less squeamish about showing us everything for a role. Whatever the case, here's our top 10 list of the best nude scenes of the year:

1. Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises." The actor does a four-minute mobster fight scene completely naked. "In this age of screen grabs, I realize people are going to obsess about it," Mortensen told The GoldDigger last fall. "But it's not gratuitous." But wasn't he even a little nervous about exposing himself like that? "That's the advantage of working with a real actor as opposed to a star," said the director David Cronenberg, who took two days to shoot the scene. "We weren't worried about you seeing his balls."

We presented Cronenberg with the award for best nude scene of the year last week. "I think that's great, because as you know, most nude scenes involve sex," he says. "It was fantastic and it shows the depths of Viggo's commitment to the role. That was very hard to do. if you're doing an action scene in the nude, that means you can't be padded."

2. Natalie Portman, "Hotel Chevalier." Portman has been talking about not doing nude scenes for almost as long as she's been acting (she refused to take her role in "Anywhere But Here" until her character covered up). And as far as we can tell, she probably won't do another nude scene again. After the Wes Anderson short was released, she said, "The thing is--and maybe I've brought it on myself by talking about nudity so much--it's still the thing that people talk about more than the short. And that's the thing that makes me think maybe I shouldn't have done it."

3. Tony Leung and Wei Tang, "Lust, Caution." The sex scenes in Ang Lee's Chinese film are so graphic, the movie had to carry a NC-17 rating.

4. Angelina Jolie, "Beowulf." Sure, her character of Beowulf's mom is animated, but it's so lifelike that even Jolie herself felt embarrassed over her nude scene. "I was really surprised that I felt that exposed," Jolie said. "There are certain moments where I felt actually shy--and called home, just to explain that the fun movie that I had done that was digital animation was, in fact, a little different than [what] we expected."

5. Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." Did anyone in this movie keep their clothes on?

6. Bart Simpson, "The Simpsons Movie." America's most popular TV star made his big screen debut with a full-frontal nude scene.

7. Heath Ledger, "I'm Not There." Ledger also had a nude scene in the Australian film "Candy," released on DVD this year. "I'm fairly nude," he told the GoldDigger this spring about the "Candy" role. "I'm half nude. I jumped off the cliff in 'Brokeback Mountain' completely nude. That was a 45-foot drop in freezing cold glacier water."

8. Emile Hirsch, "Into the Wild." His showy performance in the Sean Penn film might even land him an Oscar nomination.

9. Christina Ricci, "Black Snake Moan." It was the most revealing scene ever for the former child star, but she says it didn't feel that way. "A lot of times, you'll do a nude scene and it's such a big deal in the movie that even you call tell that it's like 'Oh, here comes the nude scene,'" she told Newsweek. "With this character, it's more like she has no reverence for her body whatsoever, so there's no thought about her body. So it's one of those things where I really had to have no connection to it. You know what I mean? So it's not really like you're doing a nude scene."

10. Evan Rachel Wood, "Across the Universe." She showcased her talents as a singer, and more.

Honorable mention: Vanessa Hudgens from "High School Musical." She wasn't nude in the Disney Channel movie, but those leaked photos made her the most popular girl in her class.

Unhonorable mention: It's a tie between Jack Black for "Margot at the Wedding" and Tom Hanks for "Charlie Wilson's War."

Nude couple: Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo. Runner up: David and Victoria Beckham.

Most talked about nude stage scene: Daniel Radcliffe, "Equus."

The Best Movies of the Year

Ramin Setoodeh — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:40:36 GMT

Newsweek's film critic David Ansen has selected his favorite films of the year. Here they are:

1. "Syndromes and a Century"

2. "There Will Be Blood"

3. "This is England"

4. "The Lives of Others"

5. "No Country for Old Men"

6. "Knocked Up"

7. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

8. "Away From Her"

9. "The Hoax"

10. "Sweeney Todd"

Just for fun, The GoldDigger decided to put together a list of my own. I'll probably change my mind in the next 10 minutes, but here's what I loved:

1. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

2. "No Country for Old Men"

3. "2 Days in Paris"

4. "Atonement'

5. "Juno"

6. "Persepolis"

7. "La Vie En Rose"

8. "Eastern Promises" and "There Will be Blood"

9. "Lars and the Real Girl"

10. "Once"

The Gold Digger : Holiday Movie Guide

The Best Nude Scenes of the Year

The Best Movies of the Year