21 iconic on-screen kisses to give you all the feelings

Cruel Intentions – Kathryn and Cecile

Now I can’t say this is a particularly romantic kiss, but it’s definitely memorable! In Cruel Intentions, Kathryn’s plan is to sabotage Cecile’s reputation at their uppity Catholic high school because Cecile stole away Kathryn’s boyfriend without even knowing it. Kathryn takes Cecile under her wing at Cecile’s mother’s insistence so she can make a good impression at her new school, but Kathryn has other plans.

Essentially, Kathryn’s plan is to make Cecile look like, for lack of a better word, like she’s easy. She tries to convince her that sleeping around is normal and will make her good at sex, and that everyone does it, they just don’t talk about it (it’s like a “secret society”). As part of her plan, Kathryn facilitates a secret romance between Cecile and her cello tutor, and then tells her mother where their love letters are hidden. She also convinces Cecile to hook up with Sebastian, Kathryn’s bad boy step-brother, in order to … improve her technique.

But there’s another scene that we’re interested in today, one that definitely caused some naughty thoughts to swirl in the minds of young men and women across the world in 1999 and well into the new millennium. Kathryn is having a picnic in the park with Cecile, who reveals she’s never even kissed a boy before, so her good friend Kathryn offers to help teach her to kiss. Practicing with your girlfriends is normal, duh!

The kiss is short and sweet at first, but then she goes back in for a real, intense make-out. The result was hot, but the subtle string of spit that lingers between their mouths was the butt of many jokes (and was even parodied in Not Another Teen Movie).