Although many people do not realize it, adult movies have had a huge impact on American culture. Indeed, ever since the video camera has been invented, it has been used to make adult movies. Before they were legal (thanks to strict obscenity laws), they were known as stag films and blue movies. Essentially, there are two kinds of adult movies: those that are hardcore, which show penetration in all of its glory as well as extreme fetish acts like bondage or S and M, and softcore, which does not show any penetration or extreme fetish acts.

The oldest adult movie ever filmed is up for debate, despite the fact that they were made around a hundred years ago. The two films in contention for the oldest porn movie ever made are A LEcu dOr ou la none auberge, which was made in Frande, and E. Satario, made in Argentina. The former is about a war weary soldier to goes to an inn and had an illicit tryst with a servant girl. Both of these adult movies are dated between the years 1907 and 1912 are held in the Kinsey Collection.

A few years later, Germany was coming out with some very influential adult movies. In 1910, the film Am Abend was made, which is a ten minute film which begins with a woman masturbating alone in her bedroom, and progresses to scenes of her with a man performing sex, fellatio and anal penetration, according to Patrick Robertson in his book Film Facts. This is surprising to most people, as the early 1900s are generally considered to be prudish times in world history.

Despite the fact that America is a free country, adult movies were generally banned both stateside and abroad. European adult movies like Karlekens Sprak and I Am Curious (Yellow) were films that were definitely sexual in nature, but were framed as documentaries. With this kind of format, they were pseudo legal.

Denmark was the first country to make hardcore adult movies legal, which happened in the year 1969. The United States finally started allowing adult movies to be viewed in public theaters in the 1970s, with a somewhat surprising result. When Deep Throat came out in 1972, it received a lot of critical acclaim. Outside of critical circles, it enjoyed a huge amount of success, with people lining up around the block of adult movie theaters to get a ticket.