The 4K source shows that I was wrong about this one. The nudity looks fine when the 4K caps are reduced to half-size. It could end up on the year-end top 20 list.
That first sex scene (film clip) is very spirited).
Category: Beauty
Maisie Williams topless in the premiere episode of The New Look
The setting is Paris in the 1940s and 1950s. The basic story is the fashion rivalry between Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, but it’s not just shallow fashion bullshit. There are plenty of socio-political aspects to the story, as there was a sharp contrast between the perceived patriotism of Dior and Chanel.
Dior’s sister was a prominent figure in the French resistance. Catherine Dior was eventually captured by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp, but survived. She lived until 2008 as a glorious embodiment of France’s struggle against Nazi rule.
Christian Dior himself was not quite so pure. Although he fought in the French army, he made a living during the occupation by designing elegant dresses for the wives and mistresses of Nazis. That sounds worse than it was. He was just a guy making a living in the only way he knew how, and it’s reasonable to say that designing dresses didn’t help the Nazi cause in any way. In fact, the opposite was true because he used much of the money he earned from the Nazis to shelter and finance his sister and her colleagues in the resistance.
On the other extreme, Chanel was considered to have been in league with the Nazis. Many have speculated that the only thing that prevented Chanel from being tried as a collaborator was her friendship with powerful people like Winston Churchill, who intervened on her behalf. She may have avoided the justice of the courts, but she could not evade the judgement of the people, so her unpopularity in Paris drove her to live many years as an exile in Switzerland.
Recently declassified documents revealed that Chanel had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, although the script in this series tries to take a measured view of that. It portrays her as a desperate woman with no choice but to deal with the Nazis in order to get back a company that was stolen from her by unscrupulous partners. Conveniently for her, the men who swindled her were Jewish, which meant that the Nazis were more than eager to help – in exchange for her co-operation. The moral cost of that co-operation drives much of the show’s momentum.
This is a new series from Apple+, featuring a powerhouse cast of award winners: Ben Mendelsohn (Dior), John Malkovich, Juliette Binoche (Chanel), Glenn Close and Emily Mortimer. Maisie has the plum role of the acclaimed French patriot, Catherine Dior.
Maisie is forced by the Nazis to undress in episode 3, but we only see her in her slip.
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New and noteworthy:
Yile Yara Vianello: full-frontal nudity in La bella estate (2023)
Probably the best nude performance I’ve seen so far this year. There is more as well, but I skipped all the darker scenes, which included no full-frontals or butt shots.
Monica Bellucci’s daughter, Deva Cassel, was also in the film, but offered only this minimal nip-slip:
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New and noteworthy:
Kim Higelin topless in Le Consentement (2023)
Maisie Williams topless in the premiere episode of The New Look
Virginie Efira in Rien a Perdre (2023)
The pitch: “Virginie Efira stars in Rien à perdre (All to Play For), as a courageous mother fighting against the judicial and administrative machine to recover custody of her son placed in care after he was injured by accident one night when she was at work.”
Defoe’s clip can be found here.
This is the most clothing she has worn in years! We have recently seen her naked in several films. In the past five years, she is not just one of the superstars of cinema nudity, she is THE superstar. She has done more nudity and better nudity than anyone else in that period. For a great sample, check out the three film titles below that are followed by asterisks. She also did well-lighted full-frontal nudity in Sibyl.
Un Amour Impossible (2018)
Sibyl (2019)
Lui (2021)
Benedetta (2021) *
En Attendant Bojangles (2022) *
Les Enfants Des Autres (2023) *
L’Amour et les Forets (2023)
Some of her earlier nudity can be found in Charlie’s archives
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The asterisks show that she placed in our annual poll in those years:
The Top Nude Scenes of 2021 – #12 for Benedetta
The Top Nude Scenes of 2022 – #13 for Waiting for Bojangles
The Top Nude Scenes of 2023 – #6 for Other People’s Children
Virginie Efira naked in L’Amour et les Forets (2023)
If only the DP had enough money to buy light bulbs, this coudda been a contender, Charlie, instead of a bum, which let’s face it, it is.
Virginie is a regular contender in our annual polls. In 2021, she took the #12 spot for her full-frontal nudity in Benedetta. She followed that up last year with another-full-frontal performance in En Attendant Bojangles, which earned 13th place on the annual poll. She has another full-frontal entry from earlier this year in Les Enfants Des Autres.
Voting results: The best nude scene of the year 2023
The results were determined by a three-stage process
1) We started with open nominations. Readers were free to nominate any 2023 nude scene.
2) After reviewing all the nominated scenes from the reference page, readers took part in a qualifying poll. (The results are shown here.)
3) In the final election, the voters were asked to pick one and only one scene as the one they considered the best of the year.
There was no doubt about the top three. There was a big gap between first and second, between second and third, and between third and fourth. The next group is tightly bunched, with only thirteen votes separating 4th place from 14th. If we re-did the vote on another day, any one of them could be significantly higher or lower within that group. There is a significant drop from fourteenth place to fifteenth, introducing another tight group from 15th place to 25th, with only six votes separating those places.
Best Nude Scene of 2023 – premininary voting
Here are the results of the semi-final round. Things are pretty well set at this point, so I closed off the preeliminary poll so I can get started on the final ballot.
And view the results of the semi-finals here.
Sarah Bramms topless in Riviere (2023)
Girl departs the Swiss Alps in quest of her father, who has gone missing. She is determined to pursue her goal of becoming a professional hockey player as she makes new friends and falls in love for the first time.
A sure sign I will be bored with a film: I got bored while reading the plot summary – and it’s only two sentences!
Defoe’s film clip is here
Margherita Aresti topless in episode 11 of Noi siamo leggenda
She had some OK nudity in earlier episodes, but she went for the gold with this one. She may not place high in the annual voting for the best nude scene, simply because she’s unfamiliar to us, but I have to add her to the nominees.
This was one of our top nude scenes of 2023
Her previous scenes: