Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle is a 1974 film from France, directed by Just Jaeckin, running 90 minutes. reelscum files it under sexploitation.
- Year
- 1974 · 1970s films
- Country
- France
- Runtime
- 90 min
- Director
- Just Jaeckin
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (6/100)
- Also known as
- Emmanuelle
Defined in the glossary: Sexploitation
The film that made softcore respectable at the box office. Glossy, empty, and enormously profitable.
The glossy French softcore film that became a global phenomenon, following a diplomat's young wife through a series of erotic awakenings in Thailand. Shot like a perfume advertisement and scored with a famous easy-listening theme, it made sex cinema upmarket and acceptable, playing in mainstream theatres for years.
It is more tasteful and more boring than the exploitation softcore around it, which is exactly why it made a fortune and spawned an endless official and unofficial series. Sylvia Kristel became a star. Historically enormous, and the reason the whole euro-sexploitation boom took the shape it did.
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Filed alongside
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Salon Kitty
Nazisploitation with a real budget and Tinto Brass's dirty fingerprints. Ilsa was the knock-off.
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals
Black Emanuelle wanders into a cannibal picture, and D'Amato lets both halves misbehave.
Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks
Same Ilsa, new empire. The harem keeps the whip, loses the swastika.
Flower and Snake
The film that made Nikkatsu's S&M line a going concern. Rope, and lots of it.
Camille 2000
Dumas restaged in a mod furniture showroom. The best-looking softcore of its year by a mile.
Schoolgirl Report
West Germany's pseudo-documentary sex series. Thirteen entries, vast profits, zero shame.
The Lickerish Quartet
The most elegant film ever filed under sexploitation, and the reason Metzger belongs in the canon.
Violated Angels
The Richard Speck murders restaged as avant-garde pink film. Wakamatsu's coldest hour.
Ecstasy of the Angels
Wakamatsu wires the pink film to a detonator and steps back.
Assault! Jack the Ripper
A couple who find that killing is the only thing that works, followed all the way down.