Horniness is having a moment. A new romcom is seizing it. - CNN

Entertainment in 2025-2026 has taken a notably sensual turn, with sex featuring prominently in hits like "Wuthering Heights" and "Heated Rivalry," reversing a long period of restraint on mainstream screens.
The newly released romantic comedy "One Night Only" leans fully into this trend, starring Oscar-nominee Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in a world where a conservative Congress has banned sex between single people except for one permitted night each year.
The film's outlandish premise — described by romance novelist and sex columnist Sophia Benoit as "'The Purge' but for sex" — has generated numerous online jokes while promising the lustful energy audiences have been craving.
Data supports the sense of a prior drought: sexual content across the 250 highest-grossing films each year fell by nearly 40% between 2000 and 2023, according to analyst Stephen Follows, as published in the Economist.
Figures from Kids-in-Mind.com show films rating at least 8/10 on their sex and nudity scale dropped from 8% in 2016 to just 2-3% from 2019 to 2023, before edging back up to 4-6% in 2024-25.
Five years ago, culture writer RS Benedict captured the earlier chill in a viral essay for "Blood Knife" titled "Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny," arguing that modern film heroes had flawless physiques but little apparent desire.