While sex work remains taboo IRL, it seems to be a persistent source of fascination to film execs. Although sex workers are consistently censored and deplatformed when they try to represent their own narratives on social media, mainstream studios are given a free pass to tell these stories with impunity. As a result, unrealistic cinematic representation abounds: from trite, sanitised depictions like Pretty Woman and Good Luck, Leo Grande, to sensationalistic tales like Hustlers. (Let’s not even get started on how Hollywood depicts sex workers on the small screen: Sam Levinson, you will pay for your crimes!)

Meanwhile, in the world of arthouse and indie cinema, the worlds of escorting, stripping, camming, and porn have been frequently exploited by filmmakers from multiple angles. Once you start taking note, it becomes impossible to ignore just how many films on the subject there are. Personally, off the top of my head, I can think of ten (!): Belle de Jour; Klute; Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Working Girls; My Own Private Idaho; Baise-Moi; Knife+Heart; PVT Chat; Zola; and Fucktoys. 

All of these titles are stylistically impressive films which can be recommended as works of art. However, they’re not exactly realistic – or helpful – when it comes to depicting the intricacies of sex work, a field which is traditionally misunderstood and stigmatised. Apart from Baise-moi, which was co-directed by former sex worker Virginie Despentes and former porn actor Coralie Trinh Thi, none of the above films are directed by individuals with lived experience of the sex industry. And it shows!

With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a list of films exploring sex work, all of which contain meaningful contributions from sex workers themselves: be it as actors, directors, or writers. The point of view of these projects varies, and they don’t provide one cohesive narrative on the industry, but sex workers aren’t a monolith, after all. 

ANORA, 2024

Let’s start with the one you know. Directed by Sean Baker, Anora is the Palme D’Or and Oscar-winning film which was basically inescapable in 2024. The movie sees Ani (Mikey Madison), a Russian-American woman who dances at an NYC strip club, embark on a whirlwind romance with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) the son of a Russian oligarch. 

While Anora received many accolades, it’s important to be upfront about the film’s flaws. It received negative feedback from the sex worker community on numerous fronts but, most notably, for the way it played off the violence they face as comedy. However, it’s worth highlighting the stellar performances from the likes of Luna Sofia Miranda and Lindsey Normington: actor-creatives with IRL experience as strippers. 

TANGERINE, 2015

OK, it’s Sean Baker, again. In 2015, the Anora director released Tangerine: a Sundance darling which was shot entirely on iPhone – a gimmick which garnered a lot of press back in the 2010s – and which follows Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), two trans sex workers, on a frenetic Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. 

At the time of release, many trans women of colour who viewed the film were rightfully critical of the film’s voyeuristic gaze and fixation on trauma. However, despite the many issues with the project, it’s worth highlighting the standout performances by Rodriguez and Taylor. Taylor used to be a sex worker herself, and she has picked up other roles in the years since Tangerine – notably, in indies like High Tide and Stage Mother – but Tangerine remains her most mainstream project to date. 

MODERN WHORE, 2025

Moving on from Sean Baker, we have Modern Whore. Written and produced by Andrea Werhun, who also stars in the film, the film is a documentary adaptation of her 2018 memoir of the same name, which explores her experiences as an escort. 

Debuting at TIFF last year, the film breaks with many documentaries about sex work in that it incorporates humour (and even animation!) alongside substantial considerations of topics like the marginalisation of sex workers and their lack of employment rights, as well as the privileges that whiteness and cisness can offer within the industry. 

THE STROLL, 2023

Another documentary to add to your list, The Stroll is co-directed by Kristen Lovell: a filmmaker, trans activist and former sex worker. During Lovell’s years doing street-based sex work in the late 90s and 2000s, she purchased a camera and began documenting her and other women’s daily experiences.

Lovell would later make use of this footage in her documentary The Stroll; a film exploring the lives of Black and Latina trans sex workers in the pre-gentrified Meatpacking District, which also broaches issues of trans liberation and justice. Urgent, galvanising and hopeful, the film won the special jury prize at Sundance. 

CAM, 2018

Departing from the world of realism, Cam is a psychological horror taking place in the heightened online world of camming. After climbing the ranks of a camming site, online sex worker Alice (Madeline Brewer) is disturbed to discover that she has been locked out of her account: which has now been taken over by a doppelganger using her exact likeness. 

The film is terrifyingly prescient in the age of non-consensual AI digital clones – which are of increasing concern to sex workers – but was inspired by its screenwriter Isa Mazzei’s experience as a cam girl, when her videos were pirated and redistributed without her consent. 

JEZEBEL, 2019

Written and directed by Numa Perrier, who also co-stars, Jezebel is a period piece which takes you into the early years of camming in the late 90s. Following 19-year-old Tiffany (Tiffany Tenille) as she starts sex work in order to attain financial independence after her mother’s death, the film is explicit about the racism which many Black sex workers face online – and the lack of support which they receive within precarious working situations in white-managed environments. 

The film is inspired by Perrier’s own experiences as a cam girl in Las Vegas in 1999, in particular the fetishisation she faced as the only Black model at the online website she worked for. Underscoring the importance of workplace protections for sex workers, particularly those who face additional layers of marginalisation, the film is a sober look at a world which is often hyper-glamourised in the media.  

A CYBORG MANIFESTO, 2020

It’s time to get meta. Four Chambers is the porn production company founded by artist, director and porn performer Vex Ashley: a multidisciplinary creative who creates adult cinema for fans of Cronenberg, Boy Harsher and the golden age of Tumblr. 

In 2020, Four Chambers released A Cyborg Manifesto: a short film commissioned by The Museum of Sex for its Cam Life exhibition. Referencing Donna Haraway’s seminal cyberfeminist text of the same name, the short reflects on digitally mediated sexuality and the reality that “thousands of people every day fuck and fuck themselves broadcast live via webcam”. 

If you’re interested in learning more about sex work and the fight for sex workers’ rights, you can visit Sex Workers Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM).