These Sexy Period Pieces Will Make You Wish You Were Born In Another Era

The trailer for Tulip Fever is too sexy to be shown on television. Since it’s not guaranteed the movie will actually ever come out, we’ll have to settle for seeing the the one sexy frame that caused the trailer to be banned from Fox. Clearly, the people of Fox don’t have respect for one of cinema’s most specific and most wonderful sub-genres: The sexy period piece.

What is it about elaborate costumes, accents, and strict societal stratification that leads to such passionate love stories? Easy: These steamy tales are all about breaking rigid confines, about desire's triumph over society, about corsets ripping off and bodies being freed to explore.

I don't know about you, but I want my love stories set to lush music, and my characters bombarded with upwellings of earnest emotion. Generally, modern day romance movies feature meet-cutes, marital woes, misunderstandings that are eventually resolved with a kiss. They’re not sweeping, they’re not grand. It’s period pieces that are home to the life-defining love stories, the kind that you remember when you think of the word "love."

That's why we hope Tulip Fever comes out eventually. The world will never have enough stories of illicit love set back in the day.