by Team Experience
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... as is thirst. When we polled Team Experience for the hottest actors of 2021, the voting was all over the place and thus fairly close. So we ended up with a dozen people (after the jump) that had at least two ardent fans among our team members in the preferential ballots. Because the voting was so close they're presented in random rather than ranked order.
Other hotties that earned our lust, admiration, and aesthetic wonder included: Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers, Ruth Negga in Passing, Lady Gaga in House of Gucci, Idris Elba in Concrete Cowboy, Benedict Cumberbatch in Power of the Dog, and Rebecca Ferguson in Dune. And because thirst is not always singular, great pairings like Taylour Paige and Riley Keough (Zola), Melissa Barrera and Anthony Ramos (In the Heights), and Daniel Craig and Ana De Armas (No Time To Die) also showed up in the ballots. Speaking of the latter, why wasn't she the main Bond girl of the movie?!? WOW!
Okay, on to the gallery...
A DOZEN THIRST TRAPS TO REMEMBER 2021 BY
(in no particular order)
Virginie Efira
You have to be comfortable in your skin to face the challenge of a movie like Benedetta. The most recurrent costume worn by Virginie Efira in Verhoeven's savage historical dramedy is her own naked body, often ready to perform some sensuous acts, alone or with another lesbian nun. It might have been easier playing the double life of Madeleine Collins, a gorgeous blonde who plays the role of a caring mother and affectionate wife to two families. Efira shifts without apparent effort from sophisticated, rich lady to working-class hostess and hack again throughout. Conventionally attractive and full of charm, Efira is the contemporary synthesis of the Hitchcock Blonde and the Verhoeven Provocateur. Yet one of her most remarkable skills is the ability to infuse complex human feelings in every sensual or sexual moment. - Elisa Giudici
Philemon Chambers
Even for those Grinches (like me) who look at the harmless queer holiday fun of Netflix's Single All the Way and can't help but despair at its general mediocrity, some elements are impossible to resist. Jennifer Coolidge having fun as a self-aware gay icon is one of them. Philemon Chambers' sexiness is another. Making his feature debut, the actor is full of magnetism, raw charisma, and a killer smile. In many ways, he feels like the kind of screen presence who was made to star in silly romantic movies, for it's impossible to look at him and not fall a bit in love. No amount of narrative contrivances can stop him from winning at life and getting his man. As Chambers fills the frame, even the surliest Grinches can feel their hearts growing three sizes bigger. - Cláudio Alves
Dan Stevens
Maria Schrader's adaptation of Emma Braslavsky's I'm Your Man isn't an advertisement for futuristic sex robots. Instead, it uses the sci-fi premise of a perfect artificial partner to explore what we want and need out of romantic relationships. As a result, it's an eminently watchable twist on the rom-com, using gradations of humor and melancholy to present wise conclusions, deep questions. That being said, by casting Dan Stevens in the role of Tom, the robot, Schrader may have indeed made an ad for futuristic sex robots. You see, even as one mulls over the quandaries of looking at a lover and finding a mirror that answers all your needs, there's a stubborn thought at the back of the mind: Where can I order my own Dan Stevens? Capable of boundless emotional support and giver of mind-bending orgasms, he's an ideal for a reason. Plus, it's the performance of the actor's life, a beautiful negotiation of romance and existential dread, goofy awkwardness, and reflective vulnerability. And did I mention he's hot as the sun? - Cláudio Alves
Florence Pugh
The double ponytails. The eyeliner. The piercings. The vest. The Russian accent. The Mac and cheese with hot sauce. They're just some of the many things that make Florence Pugh a thirst trap as Yelena in Black Widow (and later Hawkeye). Her confidence mixed with fierceness with a touch of vulnerability make her character someone you don’t want to mess with but also someone whom you’d love to get to know. She’s scrappier and more aggressive than her sister Natasha but it isn’t hard to tell that she has a heart of gold to go along with her insane combat skills and childish sense of humor. Pugh does an excellent job of making this character both fearsome and insanely likable. Plus it doesn’t hurt that she’s incredibly beautiful. Pout and all. - Ginny O'Keefe
Mike Faist and David Alvarez
Both of these stage stars turned movie actors deserve plaudits for how well they wear Paul Tazewell’s handsome tailored and brightly colored costumes in West Side Story. The costumes flatter their palettes and their musculatures quite distractingly and these men move with grace and ferocity. Bernardo’s chemistry with Anita is just as sexual as the ‘61 version, but feels even more exciting in a much less sexy media landscape, while Riff’s ferrety, paint-smeared muscularity and masculine camaraderie makes one wonder just how close he and Tony were before the latter went to prison. But their scenes together are some of the most electric interactions in the film, built as much on mutual respect toward each man’s eye-popping prowess as a violent, full-bodied need for domination. The greatest tragedy of Spielberg’s revision is that Riff and Bernardo’s rumble could never go down like the climactic fuck-battle of Chi-Raq (or do they both read too much as tops for that to really work?). They wouldn’t have even needed to leave that bathroom. - Nick Taylor
Simon Rex
I know I really, REALLY shouldn’t but I absolutely still would. As Mikey Sabre in Sean Baker’s uproarious Red Rocket, Simon Rex plays 2021’s sleaziest character and yet somehow manages to make him both likeable and attractive. It’s the performance of the year but whether it will stand the test of time, like his iconic turn in Young, Hard and Solo 3, remains to be seen. - Baby Clyde
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
Eternals might have gotten all the press for having the first sex scenes in the historically chaste Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for-real old-school sexiness came to the franchise about two months earlier. That was when Shang-Chi, a riff on old Hong Kong action films, got a dose of actual Hong Kong movie stardom in the form of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, playing the much too small role of Wenwu, Shang-Chi’s erstwhile dad and mysterious crime syndicate leader. It’s not a role that’s designed to dominate the movie, but the rest of the cast didn’t have a hope of pulling focus from Leung, whose every appearance came weighted with all the accumulated charisma of one of cinema’s most soulfully sexy, broodingly romantic careers. Anybody who has seen the 2000 masterpiece In the Mood for Love knows how much erotic intensity Leung can generate when a film is practically built around giving him a chance to show it off; but for him to do the same in a film that surrounds him with armies of CGI flying things and scrubbed digital cinematography is a sign of almost miraculous innate appeal. He’s intoxicatingly melancholy and wounded even when the script just calls up on him to be generically mysterious, and when he actually gets a chance to show off his skills as a romantic leading man, as he does in the early part of the film, the soulful yearning is smoldering enough to practically burn the screen down. - Tim Brayton
Dev Patel
Was it the luscious wet curls of his hair in The Green Knight? Perhaps it was the initial medieval cockiness giving way to wounded bird aftermath, both sexy in different ways like embodiments of aggressive flirtation and postcoital vulnerability. Maybe it was the literalized sex via the dry humping, brothel visits, and finally that cum-stained magic belt? Whatever it was, Dev Patel made moviegoers quiver under their bodices this year, making (very) good on that glow-up a few years back via Lion. - Nathaniel R
Anya Taylor Joy
Though Thomasin McKenzie is the lead of Last Night in Soho, there is no denying the absolute stardom of Anya Taylor-Joy when she first appears, sharp tongued and confident. With her bright blonde hair and distinct bold eyes, she pulled all the focus as she danced with Matt Smith and then sang Petula Clark’s Downtown, making everyone swoon in the process, not that we weren’t already doing so. Her fierce energy and determined attitude was definitely a little (okay, very) attractive. - Jasmine Graham.
Jamie Dornan
Who could blame Barb & Star for finishing that giant drink when they were sitting right by thirst trap Edgar (the real treasure at the bottom, as it turns out, was Dornan)? Who could blame Star for lying to Barb when a third round with sex-on-a-stick Edgar was on the table? Who could blame "Ma" in Belfast for staying with Dornan’s "Pa" after the steamiest performance of “Everlasting Love” committed to screen? Not us when Jamie Dornan trapped us and rewarded us with all the thirst we needed to get us through 2021. -Gabriel Mayora
AND OUR COLLECTIVE #1 CHOICE FOR THIRST TRAP OF THE YEAR...
Oscar Isaac
The sand worms and the lush landscapes in Dune do not compare to the film's most stunning visual: Bearded Space Daddy Oscar Isaac. Whether he's wearing space armor or his birthday suit, Isaac certainly has us 'feeling the spice' as doomed Duke Atreides. Then again, when does the cinematic beauty god not have us feeling that way? Further proof in 2021: The Card Counter and Scenes from a Marriage - Matt St Clair