Most mainstream films with gay characters have straights playing the parts, but with so many heterosexual stars doing the same-sex nasty, what are the very best gay-for-pay sex scenes of all time? We’ve trawled the sets of Hollywood for our favourites.

10. Harry Hamlin in Making Love

We’ve picked this one because it’s super ground-breaking. Arthur Hiller fought hard to make this film, which was turned down by every major studio. The story of a married gay man who must come out to his wife (Charlie’s Angel, Kate Jackson), it featured then big star, Harry Hamlin, straight off Clash of the Titans, taking a big risk by not only playing gay, but shagging the bones off an equally hot Michael Ontkean.

9. Leonardo DiCaprio in Total Eclipse

Leo is a pretty little top in this clip from the not-so-great Total Eclipse, playing the author Arthur Rimbaud having a steamy affair with his mentor, Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis). The film is a yawn-fest, but the sex scenes wake you up!

8. Matt Damon in Behind The Candleabra

Of course this high camp biopic starred straight ex sex-addict Michael Douglas as Liberace, but we all went to see it because Matt Damon got his gay on, like, big time. In this scene Michael gives him a blow job, but later things get a lot more explicit.

7. Jim Carrey in I Love You, Philip Morris

Funny man, Jim gives it his all in this high-octane gay-for-pay scene from this crazy comedy, in which Ewan McGregor also played gay.

6. Clive Owen in Bent

This is an odd one out, given that its set in a Nazi concentration camp and the characters never touch. Standing beside each other Clive Owen and Lothaire Bluteau make each other come with just a bit of verbal. It’s a beautiful scene in a bleak movie.

5. Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes

Twilight hottie Robert Pattinson plays surrealist Salvador Dalí in this film about the gay poet, Federico García Lorca, and he isn’t shy about exploring his gay side in plenty of gay scenes between the pair. Skip to 03:50 in this clip for the action!

4. Bradley Cooper in Wet Hot American Summer

Long before he became hot Hollywood property, beautiful Bradley had a supporting role in this summer camp ‘comedy’. Forget the voiceover conversation and concentrate on Bradley playing it for all he’s worth, with his socks on.

3. Daniel Day Lewis in My Beautiful Laundrette

Despite his dodgy haircut, Daniel Day Lewis’s cheeky chappy Johnny is naughty but nice in this comedy from Stephen Frears. This elongated sex scene, interspersed with some icky heterosexuality, is hardly explicit but it feels mighty real.

2. Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings

The voiceover on this clip is pretty sad and there’s a murder near the end, but we’re pretty happy about the action going down between Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan. Now here are two straight actors not to work hard for the money.

1. Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain

Oh, we’re getting all tingly. Our top gay-for-pay sex scene is from Ang Lee’s masterpiece, Brokeback Mountain, a film that not only united two of Hollywood’s hottest actors at the time, in the flesh, but changed the face of mainstream gay portrayals with its bravery. It’s not super explicit, but it’s homo love with a capital H.