Incest in film and television

Incest as an either a thematic element or an incidental element of the plot, can be found in numerous films and television programs.

Film

Incestuous families

• The American horror films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original series 1974–1994 and remake series 2003–2006) and Wrong Turn (2003) feature villains who are the product of inbreeding.
• In the musical The Rocky Horror Show and the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien) and Magenta (Patricia Quinn) are revealed to be brother and sister who have a sexual relationship. In the unproduced sequel Revenge of the Old Queen, it is implied that Dr. Frank-N-Furter had been incestuously involved with his own mother, the "Old Queen" of the planet Transsexual (in the galaxy of Transylvania); she dies in the throes of seducing her own grandson.
• The sequel to Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical called Shock Treatment which meets Brad and Janet some time after their adventure with Frank 'n' Furter. In this film, brother and sister Cosmo and Nation McKinley are clearly displayed as having a sexual relationship. The film includes a bedroom scene between the two during the song "Lullaby". These two siblings are, as in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, played by O'Brien and Quinn.
• The pornographic Taboo film series of the 1980s deals exclusively with incest, including father-daughter, mother–son and brother–sister.
• The Greek art film Singapore Sling (1990), directed by Nikos Nikolaidis, is about a BDSM-related mother–daughter incestuous relationship. The daughter was raped by her father.
• In the film Kate & Leopold (2001), Stuart Bessers's (Liev Schreiber) ex-girlfriend Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) is revealed to be his close ancestor, as she is destined to travel back in time to marry another of Stuart's ancestors, Leopold (Hugh Jackman).
• In the film Van Helsing (2004), Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) intends to make a young Gypsy princess, Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), his newest bride, both of them knowing that Dracula and Anna are related.
  • Dracula is a son of a knight named Valerius and Anna is Valerius's descendant. Because Dracula did not have children (when he lived as a human), Anna must be a descendant of his unnamed brother or sister, which makes her Dracula's distant niece.
• Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy (2003) features an instance of brother-sister incest as well as father-daughter incest, both resulting in possible pregnancies. The director's film Stoker (2013) also features a teenage girl's infatuation with her long-lost uncle.
• The film The Quiet (2005) features an incestuous relationship between a father and a daughter.
• The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) features Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) as an incestuous journalist, also featuring his whole village in Kazakhstan living under an incestuous way of life.

Siblings

Instances of incest between siblings.

Historical films

• Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), when Anne Boleyn is on trial for treason by adultery, her own brother (among many others) is accused of being her lover. This theme is also used in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), where Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman), in pure desperation to be with child, asks her own brother George (Jim Sturgess) to have sex with her. At first, George agrees for the sake of Anne's safety, but as they prepare, they both realize they cannot go through with it. They are both later charged with incest, and although innocent, they are both sentenced to death.
• Incest is also a main plot device in the movie Caligula (1979), in which the title character (Malcolm McDowell) has sexual relations with his sisters.
• In Hamlet (1990), King Claudius (Alan Bates) murders his brother, Hamlet's father, by poisoning him so he could take his sister-in-law Queen Gertrude (Glenn Close) as his bride. Hamlet (Mel Gibson) is disgusted by this turn of events as well as his discovering his mother's incestuous affair with his uncle and plots revenge. The film also hints at the Oedipal relationship between Hamlet and Queen Gertrude as depicted in the "bedroom scene" with the fight between mother and son culminating in a rather passionate kiss given the unhealthy attraction between the two.

Fantasy and horror films

• In the film Excalibur (1981), Mordred is Arthur's illegitimate son born by his half-sister Morgana.
• In the film Amityville II: The Possession (1982), the possessed Sonny starts an incestuous relationship with his sister, Patricia.
• In the film The Hamiltons (2006), Wendell and his twin sister, Darlene, have an incestuous relationship and share it openly.
• In the horror fantasy film Tamara (2005), the protagonist Tamara suffers from constant verbal abuse from her alcoholic father Mr. Riley who is discovered to have incestuous fantasies towards his own daughter. Once she discovers this, Tamara compels him with her witchcraft to "finish" his whole beer bottle, causing his death.
• In the medieval horror film Red Riding Hood, adapted by Catherine Hardwicke, Lucie fell in love with a blacksmith named Henry Lazar and wanted to marry him (which according to tradition, the firstborn are to be the first to marry to their sweethearts) but she was forbidden by her mother Suzette to do so as she was Adrian Lazar's illegitimate daughter, who was her mother's lover, making her Henry's half-sister.
• In the film Crimson Peak, Lady Lucille Sharpe has been carrying on an incestuous relationship with her younger brother Sir Thomas Sharpe since they were children. Their relationship resulted in a sickly child who died soon after birth.
• In the fantasy adventure film Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), the rebellious older sister Lisa (Kristen Stewart) first meets the mysterious Astronaut (Dax Shepard) when the house was under attack by the Zorgons. She is scared but the Astronaut assures her to trust him and that everything will be okay. Taken by surprise by his blue eyes, Lisa agrees with him and tells him that she will never leave him. He leaves to take out the Zorgons, and Lisa takes shelter with her brothers. Having become infatuated with the Astronaut, Lisa comments on feeling safe and protected by him, noting also that "He has such gorgeous eyes", much to her brothers Walter and Danny's dismay. Walter tells her to not to try to get so close to the Astronaut but she does not listen. It is not until after Walter wishes for the Astronaut to have his brother back, who just happens to be Danny, that she's shocked to realize that the Astronaut is her younger brother Walter, from 15 years into the future.
• In the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Riff Raff and Magenta have an implied incestuous relationship.

Other films

• In Vixen! (1968), the lead character, Vixen (Erica Gavin), has sex with her brother, Judd (Jon Evans).
• In Summerfield (1977), siblings Jenny (Elizabeth Alexander) and David (John Waters) are caught having sex near the end of the film by the protagonist Simon (Nick Tate).
• In The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), John (Rob Lowe) feels intense sexual desire for his sister, Franny (Jodie Foster). Franny succumbs and, after spending an entire day having sex, they move on to a strictly platonic relationship.
• In Flowers in the Attic (1987), a film adaptation of the V.C. Andrews novel of the same name, four siblings discover that they are the product of an incestuous relationship, following the death of their father and that their parents were uncle and niece. The film differs from the novel in that the two eldest siblings, Cathy and Chris Dollanganger, do not embark on a relationship. However, the 2014 adapted television film sees the inclusion of a sexual relationship between Cathy and Chris. Following the 2014 version, three television films, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, and Seeds of Yesterday, all based on the Dollanganger book series, see the continued relationship of Cathy and Chris, and the birth of their children.
• In Close My Eyes (1991), siblings Richard (Clive Owen) and Natalie (Saskia Reeves) begin a passionate love affair, even while Natalie marries another man.
• In Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), adoptive siblings Richard LeStrange and Lilli Hargrave grow up as lovers and have a child after being marooned on a tropical island for many years, just as Richard's real parents had done before them.
• In The Cement Garden (1993), siblings Jack and Julie begin an incestuous relationship after the death of their mother.
• In Fun (1994), Hilary reveals to Bonnie that her father is in prison for having an affair with her and Bonnie recounts of how joking around with her brother turned into intercourse, and that she has kept it to herself.
• In Angels & Insects (1996), the hero discovers that his wife has been participating in an incestuous affair with her brother which began when they were young, and that all of his children are in fact not his own, but rather the product of the incestuous union.
• Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) stars Julien (Ewen Bremner) and his disturbing life and family. Toward the end of the film, it is revealed that his sister Pearl (Chloë Sevigny) is pregnant as a result of an incestuous action between the two of them.
• In L.I.E (2001), One of Howie Blitzer's friends also his age, Kevin, has an incestuous relationship with his sister during a time when they are all discovering their sexuality. He clearly states that "she won't fuck anyone else".
• In The Dreamers, twins Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel) share an incestuous relationship.
• In Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), Harold and Kumar are hiding from the FBI since they are accused to have been terrorists. They hide with a couple who turns out to be brother and sister and they tell Harold and Kumar to stay in the basement with their kid. But the guys get scared when they see that the kid is one-eyed.
• In Dogtooth (2009), a couple keep their adult children ignorant of the world. At some point, they make their son choose one of his two sisters. He fondles them, eyes closed, then chooses the elder one and has sex with her.
• In The Unspeakable Act (2012), the 17-year-old protagonist Jackie Kimball is deeply in love with her 18-year-old brother Matthew, and he, though moderately accepting of the fact, does not reciprocate.
• In Clueless (1995), former step-siblings Cherilyn "Cher" Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) and Josh Lucas (Paul Rudd) fall in love and begin a relationship together.
• In Not Another Teen Movie (2001), Jake Wyler (Chris Evans) attempts to avoid any physical contact with his younger sister Catherine Wyler (Mia Kirshner), who is sexually attracted to him and makes various attempts to win his affection, even going far as to dance seductively with him as his love interest Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) watches. Not to mention another similar stance happens to Janey in her home life as well: After her mother died, Janey had to take over a great deal of her responsibilities which includes "Cooking, cleaning, breastfeeding Mitch." Mitch being own her baby brother.
• In Joe Dirt (2001), Joe Dirt meets a seductive woman named Jill (Jaime Pressley) who shares the same interests and hobbies with him and it eventually leads them to making out during which Jill's storytelling of how she was abandoned by her parents at a bus stop causes Joe Dirt to worry the possibility that Jill could be his long-lost sister. However, he has sex with her first before telling her he could not see her anymore because she's his sister, but Jill clears up this misunderstanding about their being related to each other and they resume having sex only this time is a disaster as Joe is only aroused because he wants Jill to be his sister, which they both agree on and try again, succeeding in their more passionate lovemaking as they shout in ecstasy: "I'm your sister! You're my sister!".
• In High School Musical (2006) and the film's two sequels, a close (and seemingly incestuous) relationship is hinted between popular students Sharpay Evans and her twin brother/partner-in-crime, Ryan Evans as both twins are often singing love songs to each other are paired up as love interests in the school's play, and Ryan becomes jealous when Sharpay's love for Troy Bolton remains unrequited.
• In Illegitimate (2016), two siblings, a brother and sister, have an incestuous love.
• In Tromeo and Juliet (1996), star-crossed lovers Tromeo Que and Juliet Cap are discovered to be long-lost brother and sister as revealed by Tromeo's father Monty and Juliet's mother Ingrid; years ago when Ingrid was married to Monty, she was having an affair with Lord Capulet which resulted in the birth of a son named Tromeo which Monty raised as his own. Despite this revelation of their being siblings, Tromeo and Juliet share a passionate embrace and continue on with their affair, eventually living happily ever after married with six (inbred) children.
• In A Very Brady Sequel (1996), after their mother's first husband reappears into their lives wanting to be a family again and under the belief they may no longer be 'brother and sister', step-siblings Greg and Marcia Brady struggle with their rapidly progressing love for one another. As their repressed feelings deepen over time (with Greg and Marcia each discovering physical and sexual attraction after watching the other undress through bedroom curtains; Greg, not recognizing her at first, attempting to ask out Marcia after seeing her come out of a swimming pool in a bikini; and Marcia giving Greg mouth-to-mouth CPR, causing him to become aroused and panic after developing an erection), Greg and Marcia realize that they are in love with each other, but try to hide it out of respect for their 'sibling bond' (even though they are technically not related). By the film's end, on the day of their parent's second wedding on their anniversary, Greg and Marcia finally give in to their feelings and share a passionate incestuous kiss together.
• In The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), adopted siblings Richie Tenebaum (Luke Wilson) and Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) share a secret incestuous love for each other. At first, this love is unrequited due to Margot's marriage to a man named Raleigh and her affair with Richie's best friend and neighbor Eli. Only after discovering through Eli the true extent of Richie's love for her does this lead to a confrontation between the two siblings. Following Richie's suicide attempt they share a kiss.
• In The Flower of Evil (2003), step-siblings François and Michèle become incestuous lovers after his return from the United States. Soon after, Michèle is attacked by her drunk and angry stepfather Gérard who attempts to rape her but fails. Also, Michèle's aunt Line' confesses to having loved her own brother a little too closely before his untimely execution in the Second World War of the French Resistance.
• In Géminis (2005), twins Jeremías (Lucas Escáriz) and Meme (María Abadi) are in an ongoing sexual relationship while living with their unknowing parents. Their mother eventually catches them in the act, and is distraught with rage as she assaults both of them.
• In the Canadian film Blood (2004), an incestuous relationship is implied between estranged siblings Chris (Jacob Tierney) and Noelle (Emily Hampshire), who have a volatile and violent love–hate dynamic.
• In The Dark Side of Love (1984), estranged siblings Emilio (Lorenzo Lena) and Patrizia (Monica Guerritore) develop an incestuous relationship when Patrizia moves in with her brother.
• In the German film Der Kuß meiner Schwester (2000; Kissing My Sister), siblings Mattis (Florian Heiden) and Mieke (Alexandra Schalaudek), who grew up apart, fall in love and develop a sexual relationship when Mieke moves in with Mattis and their father for the summer. The latter eventually catches them in the act and is angered at first, but later comes to terms with the situation after Mieke runs away and threatens to jump from a moving train.
• In the French-Canadian film La coupure (2006; Torn Apart), siblings Christophe (Marc Thibaudeau) and Christine (Valérie Cantin) have had an incestuous relationship since childhood, despite Christine being married with two children. All the while her twelve-year-old daughter Tamara (Vickie Michon-Dagenais), Christophe's niece, is also falling in love with him. It turns out that Tamara already knows about Christophe and Christine's relationship and is jealous of this, while Christine's husband is the last to know and cannot come to terms with his wife's affair.
• In Little Sister (1995), estranged siblings Martijn (Romijn Conen) and Daantje (Kim van Kooten) struggle to recall an incestuous moment which happened in their childhood. It is eventually revealed that despite their relationship being sexual in nature, they did not actually have sex.
• In the American film Sixteen (1973), an incestuous relationship is implied between siblings Bruvver (John Lozier) and Naomi (Simone Griffeth), who live with their parents on a farm.
• In Alpine Fire (1985), siblings Franzi (Thomas Nock) and Belli (Johanna Lier) develop an incestuous relationship while living with their parents on a farm in the Swiss Alps. When Belli becomes pregnant, their father is enraged and tries to shoot them both, but is accidentally shot dead himself after a struggle with Franzi. This happens right in front of their mother, who immediately dies from shock. The siblings are then left to fend for themselves in the middle of winter.
• In Bad Family (2010), siblings Daniel (Lauri Tilkanen) and Tilda (Pihla Viitala), who grew up apart, fall in love when Tilda moves in with Daniel and their father. The latter immediately suspects a sexual relationship between the two and goes to extreme measures to keep them apart, but ultimately fails to do so as they run away together.
• In Kika (1993), siblings Pablo (Santiago Lajusticia) and Juana (Rossy de Palma) have had an incestuous relationship in the past.
• In Marguerite & Julien (2015), siblings Julien (Jérémie Elkaïm) and Marguerite (Anaïs Demoustier) have been in love since childhood, which continues into adulthood and becomes a sexual relationship. They are both arrested and executed. Before this, Marguerite gives birth to a baby, which is taken away in secret by their family to be raised by them.
• In Beautiful Kate (2009), Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) returns home with his fiancée to see his dying father on a farm in the Australian outback. Returning home brings up memories of his love affair with his twin sister Kate (Sophie Lowe), and his own tragic role in her death.
• In Feed (2017), incest is hinted between fraternal twins Matthew (Tom Felton) and Olivia (Troian Bellisario), who have shared a close relationship since birth. Such bond is so strong that when Matthew dies in a car crash, he comes back to haunt his sister in death. Due to the strength of her close bond with her brother, Olivia willingly risks having a near-fatal eating disorder in order to continue being in contact with her twin brother.
• In Daddy's Home 2 (2017), Dylan kisses his stepsister Adrianna under the mistletoe, much to the shock of both their parents watching.
• In The House of Yes (1997), fraternal twins Marty (Josh Hamilton) and Jacqueline (Parker Posey) have an ongoing incestuous relationship.
• In Blades of Glory (2007), a pair of twin brother-sister figure skaters who are revealed to be lovers. They were played by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who were married in real life at the time.
• In That's My Boy (2012), Jamie is caught having sex with her twin brother Chad by her fiancé's father Donny, and blackmailed at her wedding. After the siblings announce their relationship to their family, they are chastised but continue their affair. The enraged Todd calls off the wedding and ends his relationship with Jamie
• In How to Draw a Perfect Circle (2009), twins Guilherme (Rafael Morais) and Sofia (Joana de Verona) have sex after promising to each other in childhood that they would lose their virginity together.
• In the American film Fighting Fish (2010), estranged siblings David (Val Emmich) and Alice (Anna Moore) rekindle a past sexual encounter while living with their younger half-siblings, who remain oblivious to their relationship.
• In the Swiss-German film Schwarzer Panther (2014; Black Panther), estranged siblings Jakob (Ole Jacobs) and Emilie (Lucy Wirth) spend time together at a woodland house owned by their late parents. Having had a past attraction towards each other, they begin a sexual relationship despite Emilie having a boyfriend who is out of town.
• In Shock Treatment (1981), Cosmo and Nation McKinley (Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn) are siblings in an incestuous relationship.
• In Rabies (2010), siblings Ofer (Henry David) and Tali (Liat Har-lev) are on the run from their parents, who have found out about their incestuous relationship.
• In the American film Sin of Innocence (1986), step-siblings Tim (Dermot Mulroney) and Jenny (Megan Follows) fall in love, which causes much turmoil within their respective families.

Incest between half-siblings

• In The Crow (1994), the main antagonist Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) and his half-sister Myca (Bai Ling) are revealed to be lovers.
• In Homesick (2015), Charlotte (Ine Marie Wilmann) meets her half-brother Henrik (Simon J. Berger) for the first time when they are adults, and they begin having a sexual relationship.
• In The Falling (2014), Lydia (Maisie Williams) develops an incestuous relationship with her brother Kenneth (Joe Cole), bonding after the death of her close friend. As the pair have sex for the first time, their mother catches them in the act and forbids the siblings from being together, throwing Kenneth out of the house and threatening Lydia with a pair of scissors as she does so. Their mother also unwittingly reveals that Lydia and Kenneth are only half-siblings; Lydia being the product of a rape.
• In Drifters (2011), Mete (Andrea Bosca) is seduced by his younger half-sister Belinda (Miriam Giovanelli) and they have sex.
• In Shameless (2012), Tadek (Mateusz Kościukiewicz) seduces his older half-sister Anka (Agnieszka Grochowska) and they have sex.
• In Delta (2008), half-siblings Mihail (Félix Lajkó) and Fauna (Orsi Tóth) build a cabin in the middle of the Danube river and live together. An incestuous relationship is implied, while they face vitriolic disdain from their mother and the local community.
• In Kaboom (2010), during the climax of the film, it is revealed that lovers Smith (Thomas Dekker) and London (Juno Temple) are half-siblings, both having the same father. This revelation shocks both of them.
• In Demonios tus ojos (2017; Sister of Mine), Aurora (Ivana Baquero) is seduced by her older half-brother Oliver (Julio Perillán) and they have sex.
• In Spring Night, Summer Night (1967), half-siblings Carl (Ted Heimerdinger) and Jessica (Larue Hall) have sex one night, which leads to Jessica becoming pregnant.

Homosexual siblings

• A case of consensual incest between adult sisters Christine and Lea (Joely Richardson and Jodhi May) is portrayed in the English film Sister My Sister (1994), which is based on a true story.
• In the film Velvet Goldmine (1998), the singer, Curt Wilde, allegedly had an incestuous relationship with his older brother when he was 13. His parents had Wilde start shock treatments to "fry the fairy clean out of him".
• Harry + Max (2004) features an incestuous relationship between two teen idol brothers.
• In Starcrossed (2005), Darren (J. B. Ghuman Jr.) and Connor (Marshall Allman) are two brothers who, as teenagers, realize that the feelings they have for each other are not just those of brothers.
• In From Beginning to End (2009), features an incestuous relationship between two half-brothers.

Relationship unknown to the characters

Sometimes, two characters do not know about their blood relationship when they enter a sexual or romantic relationship, or one of them knows while the other does not.

• In Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia have romantic feelings for each other share a kiss. It is revealed later in Return of the Jedi (1983) that they are siblings, unbeknownst to either of them prior.
• At the end of the film Lone Star (1996), Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) and his high school sweetheart and current lover Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Peña) both learn they are half-siblings and have the same father, Pilar's mother having been Sam's father's mistress.
• In the film The King (2005), the main character has a sexual relationship with his pastor's daughter and gets her pregnant. He knows, though she does not, that the pastor is also his father and uncle, who had an affair with his mother, making the pastor's daughter his half-sister/cousin.
• In Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), a prince and his half-sister unknowingly enter into an incestuous relationship. There is also an instance between a woman and her stepson.
• In the teen film 17 Again (2009), after being magically transformed back into his 17-year-old self in attempts to mend bonds with his kids and high school sweetheart Scarlett (all of whom he became distant from), Mike O'Donnell (Zac Efron) must fend off the advances of his teenage daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) who becomes infatuated with him after being consoled from her break-up, all the while remaining completely unaware to the knowledge that her love interest is her father.
• In Back to the Future (1985), Marty McFly goes back in time and although saving his own father from being hit by a car, he accidentally disrupts the timing of his parents meeting for the first time, causing his own mother to fall in love with him instead of his father. Through the film, Marty attempts to get his parents to fall in love with each other in order to save his existence while Lorraine continually falls more in love with Marty after he saves her from the clutches of Biff Tannen numerous times. Only when Marty (though reluctant) takes Lorraine to a prom dance does she manage to passionately kiss him, then stops and stares at Marty with a shocked expression on her face upon feeling that the kiss somehow felt "wrong" (though Marty is aware of Lorraine being his mother, she is unaware to the knowledge that she and her love interest are future mother and son).

Non-consensual incest

• In the film The Shipping News (2001), based on E. Annie Proulx's 1993 novel of the same name, it is revealed that Agnis Hamm was raped by her 15-year-old half-brother Guy Quoyle when she was 12 and terminated the resulting pregnancy.
• In Murali K. Thalluri's film 2:37 (2006), high school student, Melody, is raped and impregnated by her brother, Marcus.
• In Daniel & Ana (2009), Daniel and Ana Torres are kidnapped and forced to have sex while being videotaped. After being released, they must return to their lives and family home as if nothing happened. Daniel unable to cope or speak to anyone about his feelings, and Ana going ahead with the marriage to her fiancé, culminates in Daniel raping Ana.
• In Home Run (2013), a woman named Karen reveals to a church consulting support group that she was sexually abused by her alcoholic father from early as five years old as well as revealing that she's unable to bear children.
• In Exposed (2016), the protagonist Isabel de La Cruz has suffered a child sexual abuse by her father.
• In the Peruvian film Dioses (2008; English title: Gods), Diego (Sergio Gjurinovic) is intensely attracted to his older sister Andrea (Anahí de Cárdenas). One night when Andrea is drunk and passed out in bed, Diego fondles and attempts to rape her but backs out of it as she starts to wake up.

Father/daughter incest

• In William A. Fraker's film A Reflection of Fear (1972), the main protagonist, 15-year-old Marguerite (Sondra Locke) vies for her father's attention sexually, even eliminating her mother and grandmother in the bargain.
• A notable example of censorship in this area surfaces in Kings Row (1942). While the relationship is explicit in Henry Bellamann's bestselling 1940 novel of the same name, Joseph Breen, director of the Production Code Authority and his superior, Will H. Hays, first president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America forbade clearly showing that Dr. Tower (Claude Rains) commits incest with his daughter Cassandra (Betty Field) in the film.
• Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) features Jack Nicholson's character forcing Faye Dunaway's character, one of his clientele, to admit, just before she is killed, to have been involved in father-daughter incest between her and John Huston's characters, resulting in the daughter giving birth to her own half-sister. In its sequel The Two Jakes (1990), in which Nicholson starred and which he also directed, Meg Tilly is revealed to be the daughter born from that action.
• In Butterfly (1982), a miner living in the Nevada desert, who has not seen his daughter for years, is confronted then seduced by his now sexy and troubling teenage child, while struggling against his own reluctance as well as the 1937 rural society.
• In the film U Turn (1997), Grace (Jennifer Lopez) and Jake (Nick Nolte) are initially thought to be husband and wife. In a plot twist, it is revealed that after the death of her mother, Grace married her father Jake.
• Wicked (1998), starring Julia Stiles and William R. Moses, features an incestuous father-daughter relationship.
• The film The Cider House Rules (1999) depicts a father-daughter incestuous relationship that results in the daughter's pregnancy.
• Tim Roth's film The War Zone (1999) explores the effect of father-daughter incest on a family.
• In Girl, Interrupted (2000), a recently released patient of the mental institution, Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), is well known to have had an incestuous relationship with her father. Being taunted over this eventually leads her to commit suicide.
• In Madeinusa (2006), An indigenous community celebrates the Good Friday and Easter Sunday believing God is dead and cannot see what is happening in the world. The Mayor of the community has sex with his two daughters.
• In Brian de Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006), aristocrat Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank) is caught having an incestuous relationship with her father Emmett Linscott. When the pair are found entwined on the stairs nearly kissing by LAPD Officer Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, they are interrogated for their aid in the murder of Elizabeth Short. A similar stance is depicted as well between a disfigured man Georgie Tilden and his infatuation with the Dahlia whom he attempted to have sex with, despite the woman's eerie resemblance to his own illegitimate daughter.
• In The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis), a widowed man with a heart condition and his beautiful but unstable daughter Rose (Camilla Belle) maintain a close relationship together after her mother left them years ago. However, when their relationship is threatened by Jack's new girlfriend Kathleen and her two sons, Rose goes to extreme lengths to get rid of the new family members and be with her father, even sharing a kiss with her father when he is asleep.
• In A Cure for Wellness (2016), a baron marries and has a daughter with his sister. The baron then marries their daughter after her first menstrual cycle in the hopes of continuing to keep his bloodline pure.
• In the neo-noir religious-horror film Angel Heart (1987), rocker Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) has sex with a woman named Epiphany (Lisa Bonet), unaware that the woman was his own daughter from a one-night stand 20 years prior.
• In the comedy film National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Incest is going on between Cousin Eddie and his daughter Vicki, according to her. She reveals to her cousin on the see-saw that she's already going steady and she can French-kiss and "Daddy says I'm the best at it", much to her cousin's disgust and confusion.

Sexual abuse

• In the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), a prequel to the television series Twin Peaks, a sexually abusive relationship between father and daughter leads to murder.
• The fact-based television film Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story (1993) starred Melissa Gilbert as Shari Karney, an incest victim who was sexually abused by her father.
• In the film An American Haunting (2005), the curse turns out to be caused by the father sexually abusing his daughter.
• In the television series Brookside Trevor Jordache abused his daughters.[1]
• In Forrest Gump (1994), the protagonist Forrest Gump discovers that his childhood love interest Jenny Curran (Robin Wright) along with her sisters, has been sexually abused by her widowed alcoholic father, narrating how her daddy was "a loving man. He was always kissing and touching her and her sisters."
• In the film Dolores Claiborne (1999), based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Stephen King, the troubled writer Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is revealed to have been molested by her alcoholic father Joe, as discovered in a repressed memory where a young Selena is being forced to give her father a handjob.
• In Perfect Stranger (2007), flashbacks reveal convicted killer Rowena (Halle Berry) was sexually abused by her father through her childhood, prompting her mother to kill him and both mother and child to bury his body in the front yard.
• In The Butterfly Effect (2004), a teenage girl named Kayleigh (Amy Smart) is discovered to have been molested by her father (Eric Stoltz) as depicted in flashbacks as he touches her while forcing her to partake in child pornography.
• In Stephen King's It (1986) and the 2017 remake, Beverly Marsh suffers constant physical and emotional abuse from her father, Alvin Marsh, who is discovered to be sexually attracted to his own daughter, even fantasizing about raping her and other sexual acts, such being the reasons why he inflicts abuse on her.
• In The Color Purple (1982 novel), a teenaged girl named Celie Harris is sexually abused by her father Alphonso and by the time she is 14, gives birth to two children named Adam and Olivia who are then taken away by her father. Alphonso also lusts after his other daughter, Nettie and makes various attempts to seduce her, much to Nettie's horror.
• In Eve's Bayou (1997), a young girl named Cisely reveals to her sister that although she and her father had a normal yet affectionate relationship, she attempted to seduce him. One night while consoling her drunk father, she attempts to kiss him first as a daughter then as a lover, causing her father to violently slap her and throw her on the ground. Though her father regretted hitting her and tried to apologize, being rejected by her father causes Cisely to plot his murder which her sister foresees.
• In Lee Daniels’ film Precious (2009) a disadvantaged teen girl has been raped by her father, who has AIDS, on a daily basis since she was three. Precious gives birth to two children as a result. After her father dies, her mother physically, verbally and sexually abuses Precious until she manages to escape her abusive household. Sadly, she then discovers she is HIV-positive from the abuse inflicted by her late father.
• In the television adapted movie Chasing Secrets (1999), a young girl named Jo Ann Foley (Yvonne Zima and Madeleine Zima) is forced into prostitution by her racist alcoholic illegitimate grandfather Hank Foley who tries to persuade her into wearing the same red dress her mother wore "working the street corners". After telling him "no", Jo Ann is nearly raped and beaten to death by her own grandfather but escapes, prompting her to run away and live with an elderly black couple for comfort.
• In Ken Park (2002), a teenage girl named Peaches is living alone with her obsessive and overly-religious father, who fixates on her as the embodiment of her deceased mother. After the father catches her and her boyfriend on her bed about to have sex, he savagely disciplines her, forcing her to participate in a quasi-incestuous wedding ritual with him.
• In the neo-noir drama Final Analysis (1992), villainess Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) is revealed to have suffered sexual abuse from her father in her early childhood shortly after her mother left the family (due to her father's alcoholism). After her father raped her twice, she kills him by setting him on fire after he is doused with alcohol.
• In the Robert Rodriguez action-packed film Machete (2010), Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) confesses to Padre in Confessionals that he has feelings for his daughter April (Lindsay Lohan), as he frequently has impure thoughts about her and he is disturbed by this.
• In the American drama film Black Snake Moan (2006), Rae Doole (Christina Ricci)'s promiscuity and hypersexuality are the result of her having been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend all through her adolescent years.
• In Audition (1999), villainess Asami's stepfather sexually abused her when she was a child.
• In the murder mystery thriller The Dead Girl (2006), Krista (Brittany Murphy)'s stepfather molested her and was the driving force behind her running away from home as a teenager
• In the teen drama independent film Short Term 12 (2009), after suspecting her roommate Jayden of being abused by her father and attempting to harm him in his sleep, Grace (Brie Larson) opens up to Jayden about being sexually abused by her own father, after her roommate Jayden shows Grace bruises from where her father hit her.
• In the psychological thriller film Horsemen (2009), Kristen (Zhang Ziyi), the War horseman, murders her adoptive mother, because her father continually molested her at night, and her mother did nothing to stop him.
• In the movie For Colored Girls, the majority of Tangie's scenes have her bringing someone home or escorting them out the door. When her mother shows up to blast her for sending her younger sister to an illegal abortionist, in the ensuing confrontation, it is revealed that she was molested by her grandfather, who had also molested her mother.
• In the 2004 film, El Padrino, Lars (Gary Busey) is an abusive father who forces his teen daughter to have sex with him and to prostitute herself, before he is arrested and then burned alive by a jail mob.
• In Machete Kills (2014), Desdemona (Sofia Vergara) reveals to one of her torture victims that as a child, she was raped by her father.

Father/son incest

• A subplot of the film The Gift (2000) involves a mentally unstable man being abused by his father.
• In the film Ken Park (2002), Claude's drunk father attempts to give him oral sex while he's sleeping.
• In Strella (2009), Yiorgos (George) meets Strella, a beautiful trans woman and falls in love with her. Later in the film, he learns that Strella is no other than his own son he has not seen for 14 years and feels conflicted.
• The film Aleksandr's Price (2012) follows a young male prostitute as he gathers clients in New York City, the last client accidentally being his own father.
• The film 8½ Women (1999) depicts the relationship of a man with his widowed father.
• In the short film The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), the father and son have sexual relationship where the son is the abuser.

Mother/son incest

• In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and the film's three sequels depict an incestuous relationship between Norman Bates and his late unstable mother Norma Bates, who abused him through his childhood up to his teen years. Being jilted from his mother choosing her lover over him prompted Norman to poison his mother as well as her lover then, reeling from her death, create another living personality in his head as "Mother" to replace his deceased mother, which causes him to kill women upon feeling an attraction towards them and the "Mother" personality becoming jealous.
• In the political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the character Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) has an incestuous relationship with his mother (who had an incestuous affair with her father) while in his hypnotized state. One of the film's most notable scenes is one which involves the two of them sharing a passionate kiss. Their relationship is shown more explicitly in the 2004 remake.
• In the movie The Damned (1969), by Luchino Visconti, the deviant young character of Martin (played by Helmut Berger) besides having paedophilian tendencies, forces his mother Sophie (played by Ingrid Thulin) into having sexual intercourse with him.
• My Lover My Son (1970), by John Newland, in which the main character (played by Romy Schneider) falls in love with her son (played by Dennis Waterman, who was only 10 years younger).
• Murmur of the Heart (French: Le souffle au cœur) (1971) by Louis Malle that tells a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old boy who is growing up in bourgeois surroundings in Dijon, France. The various adventures of the boy lead to an incestuous relationship with his mother.
• In Bernardo Bertolucci's film La Luna (a.k.a. Luna) (1979), Jill Clayburgh plays an opera singer on tour in Italy whose desperate attempts to detoxicate her drug-addicted son from drugs result in an incestuous relationship with the boy.
• In the horror film Sleepwalkers (1992), the energy vampires, Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (Alice Krige), maintain an incestuous relationship.
• The Australian film Bad Boy Bubby (1993) depicts an incestuous relationship between a mother and her adult son, who has never been outside his mother's house in his life.
• The film Spanking the Monkey (1994) depicts a situation in which mother-son incest takes place, leading the latter to attempt suicide.
• The French film Sitcom (1998), by François Ozon, depicts a mother seducing her son in an attempt to "cure" him of his homosexuality.
• In Not Another Teen Movie (2001), not wanting to see her son alone and miserable, Jake's mother, Mrs. Wyler (Julie Welch) offers herself sexually to her own son as a date for prom as well as to help him lose his virginity, much to Jake's disgust.
• The French film La Petite Lili (2005) portrays a fictional case of incipient consensual mother-son incest between independent adults.
• Savage Grace was released in 2007. Fact-based, it was modeled on the true story of the dysfunctional, incestuous relationship between heiress Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son Antony.
• Womb is a literary science fiction film released in 2011. After the death of her lover, a woman (Eva Green) decides to clone him and carry him inside her, eventually giving birth to him. They continue their sexual relationship with each other throughout the film.
• In Incendies (2010), Nawal Marwan, a Canadian immigrant, after her death let her two children, twins Jeanne and Simon, to discover that they are the products of rape and incest. Eventually, in past, during a civil war, Nawal was imprisoned and raped by torturer Abou Tareq, who in fact committed incest, unknowingly, because he was her son Nihad lost/abandoned after birth because was a result of an "impossible love". Nawal consequently gives birth to the twins.
• In the Korean film Moebius (2013), a Korean woman, driven mad after discovering her husband's infidelity, exacts revenge by sexually castrating then cannibalizing her only son's penis.
• In the film remake Black Christmas (2006), Billy's mother rapes her own son in order to conceive a child. Nine months later, their daughter Agnes is born. Eight years later, Billy then gouges his daughter/sister's eye and kills his mother by beating her to death with a rolling pin and makes Christmas cookies out of his mother's flesh.
• In The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, adapted from the novel of the same name, five-year-old Jeremiah is physically and sexually abused by his prostitute mother Sarah.
• In Blade (1998), After being unexpectedly reunited with his mother (who he long thought to have been dead) upon his mission to kill Frost, Blade's mother Vanessa Brooks (Sanaa Lathan), as a vampire, shows a more than motherly interest in her own son, to indicate how depraved she's become since Frost turned her.
• In the fantasy science-fiction film Jupiter Ascending (2015), the several millenniums old Titus Abrasax (Douglas Booth) tries to force Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), the reincarnation of his mother, to marry him. However, while he does creepily try to charm her, he only wants to marry her so he can be her heir, then immediately kill her to get the inheritance

Mother/daughter incest

• The Greek film Singapore Sling (1990), directed by Nikos Nikolaidis, is concerned with a lesbian mother-daughter incestuous relationship.
• The Action-packed film Machete (2010), features a scenario in which a porn star wannabe named April (Lindsay Lohan) films home pornographic films with her mother June (Alicia Marek) containing incestuous lesbian scenes with each other and/or threesomes.
• In the American drama Black Swan (2010), among the pressures of maintaining a strict 'perfect' ballet profession and other things, the film's storyline implies incest was inflicted upon Nina (Natalie Portman) by her overprotective mother Erica Sayers (Barbra Hershey) who abuses her mentally and physically on a daily basis. Fan debate rages heavily because of this.

Stepparents/stepchildren incest

• In Lolita (1962) (and its 1997 remake), a man and his stepdaughter have a sexual relationship.
• In the French film Beau-père (1981), after the sudden death of his wife, Remy (Patrick Dewaere), is forced to take care of his 14-year-old stepdaughter (Ariel Besse) who, unbeknownst to him, has fallen in love with him. He finally succumbs to the girl's insinuations and they move out of town and start living as a couple.
• The film Mini's First Time (2006) features a sexual relationship between the main character, Mini, and her stepfather, Martin.
• In the film Hallam Foe (2008), Hallam (Jamie Bell) suspects his stepmother Verity (Claire Forlani) is responsible for his mother's death. When Verity confronts him about his suspicions, she discovers he secretly fantasises about her. They end up having sex which leads to Hallam running away from home.
• Carl Th. Dreyer's film Day of Wrath (1943) deals with a stepmother-stepson romantic relationship.
• In The Diary Of A Teenage Girl (2015), teenage protagonist Minnie recklessly initiates an affair with her mother's boyfriend Munroe whilst undergoing her sexual awakening entering high school.
• In Desperate Housewives, it is revealed that when Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) was fifteen, her abusive stepfather Alejandro once came home drunk and raped her. Nobody believed Gabrielle when she tried to report it, especially her own mother.

Mixed

• In Pedro Almodóvar's film Volver (2006), a man lusts after his stepdaughter, who is, in fact, the product of incest between her mother and her mother's father.

Cousin

The practice of cousin incest remains legal in many US states today as well as many countries, where cousin marriage is allowed.

• In Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (published 1814), Fanny ends up marrying her first cousin, Edmund, the son of her mother's sister, with whom she has been in love since he befriended her as a child. This relationship is explicit in the novel and in several adaptations of it, a BBC series starring Sylvestra Le Touzel in 1983, a 1999 film starring Frances O'Connor, a television adaptation in 2007 starring Billie Piper and a chamber opera commissioned and produced by Heritage Opera in July–August 2011, although there is no sexual component to it until they are married.
• A subplot in The Godfather Part III (1990) features Mary Corleone falling in love with her first cousin; the Godfather's heir, Vincent Mancini.
• The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) and her cousin, Ralph (Martin Donovan) share a close friendship until, upon Ralph's deathbed, they each admit to being in love with the other (although this may not have been considered incest at the time the film is set). One the films most memorable scenes is an interpolated dream sequence in which Isabel has an erotic fantasy involving her cousin.
• Kissing Cousins (2008), starring Samrat Chakrabarti and Rebecca Hazlewood, a "relatively" romantic comedy about a professional heartbreaker (and cynical bachelor) who teams up with his attractive cousin from the United Kingdom in order to deceive his friends into believing he is capable of a relationship.
• In The Blue Lagoon (1980), based on the novel of the same name, cousins Richard and Emmaline LeStrange grow up as lovers and have a child after being marooned on a tropical island for many years, before they meet their doom in a tragic accident.
• In Jude (1996), starring Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston, based upon the Thomas Hardy novel Jude the Obscure, cousins Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead burn for each other, but for various reasons the love is unrequited until Sue breaks down one evening and professes her love for Jude and they begin to live together. Only when Jude's estranged wife reenters his life does Sue finally give herself sexually to Jude and they have several children together.
• In Muhteşem Yüzyıl:
  • In season 2, Ayşe Hafsa Sultan (Nebahat Çehre) tries to arrange the marriage between her niece Aybige Hatun (Ezgi Eyüboğlu) and her grandson Şehzade Mustafa (Mehmet Günsür).
  • In season 3, Esmahan Sultan (Ecem Çalık) falls in love with her first cousin Şehzade Mehmed (Gürbey İleri).
  • In season 4, Şehzade Bayezid (Aras Bulut İynemli) and Şehzade Cihangir (Tolga Sarıtaş) fall in love with their first cousin Huricihan Sultan (Burcu Özberk). Bayezid and Huricihan marry secretly.
• In the classic film Gone with the Wind (1939), based on the novel of the same name, distant cousins Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton fall in love, wed and have two children together. Ashley's sister India Wilkes is also betrothed to her cousin Charles Hamilton, such of which is tradition in the Wilkes family who have traditionally wed their cousins. However, generations of inbreeding has resulted in many possible illness in the Wilkes family.
• In Mean Girls (2004), Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried) is attracted to her (unseen but mentioned) cousin Seth Mosakowski and shares it openly, much to Gretchen's disgust. She even admits her cousin is a good kisser due to making out with him on several occasions and tries to defend her incestuous relationship by defying that he's only her first cousin, unaware that first cousins are directly related to family. Against Gretchen's objections, Karen still continues her relationship with Seth at the Halloween party.

Aunt

• In The Perk of Being a Wallflower (2012) based on the novel of the same name, the protagonist Charlie (Logan Lerman) is revealed to have suffered child sexual abuse from his mentally unstable Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey) who died in a car crash Christmas night when he was five and flashbacks from long-repressed memories of the abuse cause Charlie to eventually suffer a nervous breakdown and wind up in a mental hospital.
• In the Australian soap opera Neighbours, Nicola West pursues a relationship with her adoptive nephew Riley Parker.
• In the Game of Thrones series, Daenerys Targaryen has a relationship with her nephew Jon Snow.
• In the French film Lila Says, the title character is sexually abused by her aunt.
• In the extended cut of Wild Things (1998), Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell) is revealed to be Kelly Van Ryan's (Denise Richards) aunt (whose grandfather was a notorious philanderer). As part of Suzie's scheme to con her older half-sister Sandra Van Ryan (Kelly's mother) out of millions of dollars, she knowingly had sex with her own niece several times. Although no one except Suzie was ever aware of this and Kelly never learns the truth.

Uncle

• In the Chilean film Sexo con Amor (2003), a man has sex with his niece on top of a washing machine.
• In the Korean film Old Boy (2003), a man has sex with a woman who turns out to be his daughter, whom he has not seen in years. Elsewhere, another character had an incestuous relationship with his sister, who committed suicide when she suspected she was pregnant and the relationship was accidentally publicized.
• In the mystery/thriller film Unfriended (2015), series of e-mails reveal that bullying victim Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) had a troubled relationship with her uncle and it was assumed by her former close friends that she was sexually abused by him. Though not explicitly stated, Blaire tries to tell Mitch that Laura was abused, perhaps sexually, by her uncle. The implications are there, even if she cannot bring herself to complete the sentence
• In Blood and Chocolate, seeking a member of his pack to join him as his alpha female in accordance with pack law, the alpha male werewolf Gabriel (Oliver Martinez) desires to take the reluctant orphan Vivian (Agnes Bruckner) as his mate despite his knowledge of their being uncle and niece.
• In Catherine Hardwicke's teen drama 13 (2003), Evie (Nikki Reed) was molested by her uncle, which was the reason why he ended doing seven years in jail. Also the explanation of why she behaves like she does (drugs, sex, shoplifting, etc.).
• In the Bollywood film Monsoon Wedding, one of the subplots involves an uncle who abused the bride's cousin Ria as a child and now she's worried that he's doing the same thing to an even younger cousin.
• In Slumber Party Massacre III, the killer is hinted to have had an incestuous relationship with his uncle.
• In The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Felicia describes sabotaging a creepy uncle in childhood. "Get your mum, Uncle's stuck in the plug hole!".
• In Hellraiser, Frank is sexually attracted to his niece Kirsty. Initially, his main target of interest was Kristy's stepmother, with whom he had an affair. However, he eventually tires of her, and is shown to later set his sights on Kristy, whom he even mentions has "gotten beautiful". He later tries to rape her, and in the sequel, tries again... and gets a little further when she kisses him to distract him.

Television

Several kinds of incest on the same series

• The 1980s American soap opera Dynasty featured a storyline whereby Fallon Colby and Adam Carrington become attracted to one another, eventually sharing a kiss, not realizing that they were, in fact, sister and brother. Fallon would also go on to marry and divorce two of her second-cousins, Jeff and Miles Colby.
• The FOX television drama House featured two young patients, a husband and wife, who share the same symptoms. Later it is revealed that they are agnate half-siblings and they suffer from hereditary angioedema inherited from their father. (Episode 3x05, "Fools for Love"). In the episode 2x13 "Skin Deep", a teenage supermodel confesses to having an incestuous relationship with her father simply to get what she wants. In the episode 2x14 "Sex Kills", a teenage boy suffering from an odd fixation towards cows and inappropriate "messages" admits that his attractive stepmother is coming onto him and turns to Dr. House for prescriptions to kill his sex drive until he graduates and moves out.
• In The Simpsons, Springfield's rival town Shelbyville was founded specifically to allow men to marry their cousins because, according to Shelbyville Manhattan, the founder of the city, "they're so attractive". There was also the relationship between Cletus Spuckler and his wife Brandine, who may be siblings, cousins, mother and son, or even father and daughter.
• In HBO's Rome, Octavia seduces her brother Octavian in the hopes of learning some of his secrets during pillow-talk, and Octavian is once accused of having an affair with his great uncle, Julius Caesar.
• In the crime drama CSI, the quadruple-murder episode "Blood Drops" shows that a teenage girl named Tina (Allison Lange) was sexually abused by her father from when she was six years old and that her little sister Brenda (Dakota Fanning) is actually her half-sister/daughter born from such abuse. The little girl Brenda was also victimized with the same sexual abuse by her father/grandfather, prompting Tina to have him and their entire family murdered. In the episode "Table Stakes", a young wealthy married couple, Patrick and Amanda Haynes (Shawn Christian and Elizabeth Lackey) are discovered to be brother and sister in an incestuous relationship, posing under different aliases in attempts to kill numerous rich socialites for their money. In the season two episode "Got Murder?", a teenage girl, Nora Easton (Evan Rachel Wood), suspected in the murder of her father's girlfriend, is revealed to having a sexual attraction towards her father. Flashbacks detail of Nora's engaging in incestous lovemaking with her father before she was caught in the act by her father's girlfriend, culminating with the jealous Nora pushing her down the stairs. Nora even desired to carry her father's baby, causing her body to undergo "false pregnancy". In "Burden of Proof", a shy teenage girl, Jodie Bradley (Sara Paxton), is discovered to being sexually abused by her father Russ. When Jodie tried to get help from her innocent stepfather Mike, her father kills the stepfather to silence Jodie before he is finally arrested by the authorities. In the Season 10 episode "Lost and Found", a missing teenage girl Emily Marsh (Mackenzie Mauzy), is revealed to have been raped and sexually abused by her maternal uncle Bill (Christopher Shyer), resulting in the teen giving birth to her cousin/son and accidentally killing her baby brother when he accuses her of consensual incest with their uncle.
• In the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, after his father abandoned him and his mother when he was a little boy, Howard Wolowitz maintained a close yet dysfunctional relationship with his mother, the late Mrs. Wolowitz continually even to his adult years, causing Sheldon and several of his friends to mock Wolowitz's relationship with his mother to be compared to the unresolved Oedipus complex. In season two, after being stoned from ingesting "magic cookies", Howard confesses to losing his virginity to his cousin Jeannie in the backseat of his uncle's car during his uncle's funeral.
• In the TvLand sitcom Hot In Cleveland, Victoria Chase starred in Edge of Tomorrow, where her character Honor St. Raven shoots, has sex with, and abandons her brother to die in an abandoned diamond mine. In episode 2, Joy goes on a date with a younger man and after he reveals his birth mother gave him up for adoption, Joy begins to fear she may be accidentally dating her son. In season 5, Joy goes to meet a cousin she has not met in years and instantly becomes attracted to him, prompting her to overlook the "taboo" nature of her crush and even considered dating him and having his kids, much to her roommates disgust.

Incestuous families

• The FOX television drama The X-Files featured an episode, "Home", in which a family in the real Pennsylvania town of Home had pursued incestuous relationships for several generations and, as a result, developed genetic deformities.
• The HBO series Game of Thrones has several examples of incestuous families; House Targaryen was known for practicing incest among their siblings in order to keep the bloodline pure, as well as to maintain control over their dragons. As a result, several cases of the Targaryen household showed signs of mental illness as the centuries passed. By the time the series starts, Cersei and Jaime has three children, born out of incest: Joffrey Baratheon, Myrcella Baratheon, and Tommen Baratheon are bastards born out of incest.

British series

• I, Claudius was a 1976 BBC Television adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius and Claudius the God. In it, the sordid lives of the Caesars are detailed, including the historical incestuous relationship between Caligula and his sister Drusilla.
• The soap opera Brookside ran a controversial storyline featuring consensual incestuous sex between the two sibling characters, Nat and Georgia Simpson, in 1997.[2]
• In "The Killings at Badger's Drift", an episode of Midsomer Murders, an old woman discovers a brother and sister in an incestuous relationship.
• The soap opera Family Affairs featured a storyline involving Gavin and Polly Arnold, a brother and sister in a consensual incestuous relationship.
• In the Channel 4 series Coming Up, a woman who is obsessed with breaking social taboos seduces her brother during the 7 July 2005 London bombings. They eventually part ways as they realize they cannot be a normal couple.
• In the sketch comedy series Bo! in the USA, a spin-off from Bo' Selecta!, siblings Avid Merrion (Leigh Francis) and Sacha Merrion (Barunka O'Shaughnessy) are married.

American series

• The television series Prison Break (2005) portrays the character Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper) as the product of incestuous rape, specifically that of his Down syndrome-afflicted aunt by his father; he was also molested by his father. Siblings President Caroline Reynolds and Terrence Steadman were also incestuous lovers.
• Cesare Borgia and Lucretia Borgia share an incestuous relationship on the TV series The Borgias. The real Lucretia Borgia was accused of such an affair after the marriage with her first husband was annulled. However, these accusations have never been historically proven.
• In the finale episode of the third season of FX Network's television drama Nip/Tuck, Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos) and Kit McGraw (Rhona Mitra) are exposed as incestuous lovers, of likewise incestuous parents. This discovery comes soon after Quentin is unmasked as the serial killer The Carver, the main antagonist of the third season, along with his accomplice, Kit. In the sixth season, it is Matt Macnamara who has incestuous intercourse with a girl who turns out to be his half-sister.
• The sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia features brothers Doyle and Liam McPoyle, who serve as rivals of the main characters and are shown to have an incestuous relationship with themselves and the rest of their family. This is evident in their family sharing certain traits with each other, most notably unibrows.
• The television series The Fosters depicts an on-again-off-again incestuous relationship between foster/adoptive siblings Brandon Foster and Callie Jacobs-Foster, who fall in love but continually break up for the sake of Callie getting adopted by Brandon's family.
• In the CW television series Riverdale, some time after Jason Blossom was murdered, Polly Cooper reveals she had been sleeping with Jason and is pregnant. Her father Hal goes nuts and demands she get an abortion. The rest of the family assumes this is because the Blossoms and Coopers are feuding families, but Hal reveals that his grandfather was the brother of Jason's great-grandfather (but estranged from the Blossom family and changed his last name to Cooper, which is what started the feud in the first place), which meant that unbeknownst to each other, Jason and Polly were third cousins. Alice does the math and realizes to her and the Cooper family's horror that Jason and Polly's unborn babies are inbred and "Blossoms by blood". Despite this incest revelation, Polly decides she does not care and will carry the pregnancy to term.
• In True Blood, vampire Bill Compton finds out his human one night-stand Portia is actually his 3rd great-granddaughter, but Bill is the only one who's grossed out by this. Portia is more than willing to continue their relationship (and great sex), citing logical reasons why this should not affect them (e.g. their genetic differences are about the same as with any other person, there's no risk of children since he's a vampire, most states are rethinking their cousin marrying laws). Bill then hypnotizes her into having a screaming fit every time she sees him. Also, Sookie was molested by her great-uncle Bartlett. Like in the book series, Bill kills him in revenge for what he did to Sookie. Sookie later learns that Bartlett had left her everything he owned in his will.
• In Hope & Faith, Faith Fairfield discovers in a court case that the elder man and his stepdaughter testifying against her mother are lovers plotting to put her mother in prison so they could be together. Against judge's orders, Faith exposes the old man and his stepdaughter of their plot as well as their incestuous relationship to the court, leaving the old man and his stepdaughter no choice but to confess of their crimes.
• In The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Adrian Lee meets her stepbrother Max for the first time and the two have sex and begin dating upon feeling a connection together. However, her father catches them in the act and forbids them from seeing each other. Also, Ricky Underwood reveals to Amy that both he and his mother were sexually abused by his father, Bob Underwood when he was a child.
• In Tales from the Crypt, Season Two episode "Four-Sided Triangle", a beautiful but seemingly mad farm hand (Patricia Arquette), is sexually abused by her own father, prompting the woman to seek help from a scarecrow she believes to be alive. In the episode "Seance'", a young woman engages in an incestuous relationship with her distant cousin simply to steal money from him. In the Final season's premiere episode "Fatal Caper", an elderly man (Leslie Phillips) close to death discovers that the beautiful young woman (Natasha Richardson) he attempted to sleep with is discovered to be not only a transsexual but also his own long-lost son whom he has not seen in years.
• Several episodes of Criminal Minds had dealt with incestuous themes:
  • In Season 2, episode 5, "Seven Seconds", an abducted five-year-old girl is revealed to being sexually abused by her uncle and her aunt (who refuses to believe her husband is a pedophile) blames her niece for their failing marriage and proceeds to 'remove her from the picture', doing so by abducting her, bounding and gagging her with rope before she is found unconscious yet alive by the FBI.
  • In Season 4, Episode 19, "House On Fire", after the deaths of their parents in a tragic fire, orphans Tommy and Tina Wheeler maintain a close relationship growing up due to the both of them being emotionally traumatized from the fire. Eventually, that bond developed into an incestuous relationship and after Tommy and Tina were caught getting close in a movie theater, the townspeople spread rumors about it. This makes Tommy go on the run, change his name and start numerous fires, killing the same people who forbade him and Tina from being together in the first place.
  • In the episode "Taboo", it had an interesting take. The unsub was adopted as a baby by a single mother with a biological teenage daughter. The daughter was hypersexual, thanks to a brain injury, and the boy grew up attracted to her, even spying on her as she had sex with his friends. When she takes him to a lover's lane for privacy, he gleefully makes his move, pointing out that they are not full-blood siblings, so it's about time for him to get his turn. She then reveals the truth: she's not his sister, she's his mother. The boy snaps, blaming his "sister" and "mother" for turning him into an abomination.
  • In Season 9, episode 20, "Blood Relations", crime suspects Malachi Lee and Magdalene "Cissy" Lee-Morgan are discovered to had a consensual incestuous relationship together when they were teenagers. The two occasionally had sex in a shack located in the woods and after accidentally conceiving a child together, they kept it in secret while fearing their parent's reactions. Soon after giving birth to the child, they gave it up for adoption and that same inbred child grew up to become the "Killer Woodsman" lurking in the woods and killing numerous people.
• In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air season five episode "To Thine Own Self Be Blue... and Gold", siblings Carlton Banks and Hilary Banks try online dating in hopes of finding suitable matches, only to discover too late that they've been paired up with each other. Though the siblings are reluctant to go through with their date, they change their minds when they find a briefcase filled with money (belonging to their father) and decide "even though we're related, we could still have a good time".
• In Married...With Children season four episode You Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em, after the family goes to Las Vegas to confront Peggy and Marcy for overcharging Al's credit card in Las Vegas, it is revealed that Kelly knows the lucky numbers for craps when the role the dice. Every time Kelly's mind goes blank she knows the number the dice are going to be when they are rolled. Then Kelly's brother Bud said he's in love with her and proposes to her since she can help him win a lot of money gambling.
• In the television drama series Pretty Little Liars, antagonist and fellow mean girl Jenna Marshall is revealed to have incestuous feelings towards her older step-brother Toby Cavanaugh. Jenna is obsessed with Toby and has blackmailed him by forcing into a sexual relationship with her in the past, and then blackmailed him again to keep their affair secret by threatening to tell everyone that he forced himself onto her. (This is reversed in the book series where Toby forces Jenna into having sex with him) After Toby returned from juvie, Jenna seemed to still have feelings for him, since she became jealous every time Emily, Spencer or any other girl was talking to him.
• In the American comedy sitcom Life in Pieces episode "Annulled Roommate Pill Shower" (2016), Clementine's unusual parents, partners Mary-Lynn (Megan Mullaby) and Spencer (Nick Offerman) are revealed to be siblings in an happy incestuous relationship and share it openly.
• In the television series Degrassi Takes Manhattan, Fiona kisses Declan in an attempt to make Holly J. jealous. This results in a rumor spread about "Twincest".
• In Beverly Hills 90210, Valerie Malone was sexually assaulted by her father multiple times, which led to Valerie killing him, which is the reason Val moved to L.A. in the first place.

Japanese animation

• Koi Kaze is about the relationship between a man and his adolescent sister, whom he had not seen for many years. The series attempts a serious take on the subject, exploring the consequences of their relationship and its impact on the people close to them.
• Although sexual innuendo or love infatuation between siblings is a common plot device in many Japanese animation stories, series like Angel Sanctuary, Boku wa Imouto ni Koi o Suru, Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!, Yosuga no Sora, Aki Sora, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, and Onegai Twins, Nisemonogatari and Penguin Drum play or directly deal with the subject of incest.

Incest involving twins

• In the HBO original series Game of Thrones, Jaime and Cersei Lannister share a consensual, incestuous relationship with each other. Their relationship began at a very early age and was known to their mother, while their father only learns of it later in the series. The twins have three children together which are (at least at the beginning of the series) widely regarded as the children of Cersei and her husband Robert Baratheon. The show also holds an abundance of other incestuous instances.
• In the CW television series Riverdale, there is a lot of incest subtext between twins Cheryl and Jason Blossom. The pilot starts with them getting into a boat together acting more like a romantic couple than siblings. Not to mention, she refers to him as her soulmate at his memorial. With the season three reveal of their mother Penelope being adopted and groomed by the Blossoms to be Clifford's bride, this could be an intentional move by the Blossom family.
• In the television series 8 Simple Rules, after Aunt Maggie gets a water bra and becomes more buxom, Rory is more than eager and willing to continue asking his aunt for more hugs just so he could feel her chest.

Half-siblings incest

• A recent Hollyoaks plot has dealt with incest between two members of the Ashworth family, Rhys Ashworth and his half-sister Beth Clement. They did not know they were half brother and sister when they began seeing each other; upon finding out they were related when their dad died, they tried to halt the relationship, but in the end could not stay away despite Rhys moving into a relationship with Mercedes McQueen and Beth moving into a relationship with Rhys' best friend, Gilly Roach. When Beth is planning to be married to Gilly, they decide they must leave Hollyoaks, as they cannot end their relationship and see no other way to be together.
• In the British soap opera Emmerdale, characters Ryan and Maisie were in a romantic and sexual relationship until it was revealed that they shared the same father.
• In the CBS horror series Harper's Island, it is revealed in the last episode that main characters Abby Mills and Henry Dunn are half-siblings, sharing the same mother even though the mother gave Henry up for adoption. Henry learned of this from his biological father and is still in love with Abby. However, when Abby finds out, she calls him sick and wants to leave him.
• In the FOX television series Two and a Half Men, Charlie Harper has a one-night stand with a woman named Gloria, who is revealed to be his and Alan's half sister from when their mother's husband had an affair with another woman.
• In the FX original series Sons of Anarchy, Protagonist Jax Teller and Irish IRA family member Trinity Ashby were developing romantic interest towards each other while Jax and SAMCRO were in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Before they had sex, both of their mothers walked in and were forced to tell them that they are paternal half siblings as a result of an affair between Jax's father and Trinity's mother.
• In the BBC drama Taboo, upon James Delaney's return to London, he reunites with his half-sister, Zilpha Geary, with whom he had an incestuous relationship in their youth which was forcibly ended by their father when Zilpha became pregnant with James' child and James left for Africa. Though Zilpha initially rebukes James' pursuit of her, she is undeniably drawn to him, something that adds to the anger her husband already feels towards her for not giving him a child. When Zilpha eventually kills her husband, she and James consume their relationship again.
• In the television series Bored to Death, the main character Jonathan has sex with a woman who he later finds out is his half sister, their father being the same sperm donor.
• In the CSI: Miami episode, "Divorce Party" the detectives learn that a murder victim had been living a double life, having a son, Heath, with one woman and a daughter, Brianna, with another. When the two children are taken in for questioning, they reveal that they began a relationship after meeting each other at a party. They were unaware that they were related until Heath witnessed their father visiting Brianna while he was supposed to be away on business, though they decided to continue their relationship. They also found out that Brianna had become pregnant by Heath. When their father learned of their relationship and pregnancy, he condemned them and pressured them to get an abortion, prompting them to murder him to protect their child.

Parent/children incest

• The protagonist of the music video for "Crawling" by Linkin Park is heavily implied to be a victim of parental incest.

Father/daughter incest

• In the 2005 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent named "Death Roe", a famous cook commits various crimes as he maintains an incestual relationship with his daughter.
• In the 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit named "Taboo", a young woman seduces and is impregnated by her father. The franchise touched again on the issue in the 2009 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent named "Family Values". Paul Devildis develops an incestuous attraction towards his daughter Kathy, which due to his deep religious beliefs makes him believe everyone else as well is attracted to her in a lustful way and therefore sinners. In turn, he goes on a killing spree under the belief he is doing God's work.
• In Twin Peaks, David Lynch's 1990–91 cult hit, 17-year-old Laura Palmer, whose brutal murder causes the events depicted in the series to unfold, has been sexually abused on a regular basis by a demonic entity referred to as Bob, who has taken possession of her father Leland.
• In CBS's Numb3rs, episode 12 of season 3 ("Nine Wives") features the discovery of incest in a polygamist fundamentalist cult. A teenage victim, Josephine Kirtland learns that her mother, Emmanueline (played by Anne Dudek) is also her half-sister.
• In the television series 21 Jump Street, episode "Blindsided", a teenage girl named Diane (Sherilyn Fenn) who's being sexually abused by her father, repeatedly tries to get help from police and social workers for her home situation, but they repeatedly fail to help her—because her own, abusing, father is a police Captain and uses his police influence to habitually dismiss her case. It's made even worse by the fact that the girl also has lost her mother already, and that the father has recently started abusing the girl's younger sister too
• In Grace's backstory in American Horror Story: Asylum, reveals that she murdered her father for molesting her and her stepmother for not doing anything about it.
• In The Walking Dead, this is implied with Sofia's father, Ed. As far as we know, he never actually did anything to her, but the intention was there. At one point, he grabs her arm when the two are alone in a tent, and he has been accused of looking at her the wrong way. Carol mentions that her dead husband Ed, "looked at Sophia in ways a father should never look at his daughter".
• In the third season of This Is Us, episode "Sometimes", Zoe Baker reveals to her boyfriend Kevin Pearson that she was sexually abused by her father when she growing up. That is why she does not want to see the unnamed man, talk about him, or open up her budding relationship with Kevin to him in any way.
• In the series Veronica Mars 1x07 episode "The Girl Next Door", it's discovered that the reason why Sarah (Jessica Chastain) runs away and does not want to see her parents or discuss her unborn child's paternity was because she was raped and it was her stepfather Randall who impregnated her.
• In the Netflix series Daredevil, a father is overheard molesting his daughter in her room at night when his wife is sleeping. This prompts Matt Murdock to take up vigilantism after hearing such sounds and get revenge for the girl when child protective services could not do anything.
• In Beverly Hills, 90210, character Valerie Malone was repeatedly raped by her father as a child and her mother blamed her for it.

Mother/son incest

• The British comedy Green Wing features a mother and son, Joanna and Guy, sleeping together, albeit unknowingly as Guy was abandoned by Joanna as a baby.
• In Boardwalk Empire, Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol) was a dancer who was raped at the age of 13 and gave birth to Jimmy Darmody, (Michael Pitt). Their relationship is unusually close and a flashback in the second-season episode "Under God's Power She Flourishes" reveals that Gillian had seduced Jimmy when he was a student at Princeton, leading to him dropping out and enlisting to fight in World War I.
• In the FX series, American Horror Story: Coven, Kyle has an incestuous relationship with his mother, shown when he is brought home after being resurrected. It is not revealed whether the relationship is consented on Kyle's part, and it seems that his mother is incredibly in love with him.
• In the FX series, American Horror Story: Asylum, escaped serial killer Johnny Morgan harbors an incestuous fixation on his mother Lana Winters. His grudge towards his mother stemmed from an unresolved Oedipus Complex because she abandoned him as a child and neglected his emotional childhood needs. This spilled into his personal life as he kidnapped and skinned numerous women alive and hired newly mother prostitutes to breastfeed him during sexual intercourse. At one point, even masturbating while thinking of his past childhood memories with his mother.
• In American Horror Story: Roanoke, it is implied that the matriarch of the Polk clan has sex with her sons.
• In the CW television series Smallville, antagonists Genevieve Teague and her son Jason Teague are revealed to have an continual incestuous relationship together as it was mentioned by Lionel Luthor many times who took pride in mocking their illicit incestuous affair in comparison to the Oedipus complex.
• In Animal Kingdom, Janine "Smurf" Cody (Ellen Barkin), the protective matriarch of her family who maintains a close relationship with each of her grownup sons, harbors a borderline-incestuous love toward them as shown in one particular episode where she openly ogles her sons' shirtless bodies during the family's summer car wash.

Cousin incest

• A recent storyline in the BBC soap EastEnders involves a romance between cousins Lauren and Joey Branning.
• In the Seinfeld episode "The Junk Mail" (1997), George dates his cousin Lisa in an attempt to further enrage his parents over their differences.
• In the How I Met Your Mother episode Okay Awesome, Barney was dancing with a girl at the nightclub and didn't see her face but when she turned around it was his cousin Leslie and they both runaway from the club with disgust.
• The sitcom Arrested Development features a recurring theme in which George Michael develops a crush on his cousin Maeby. While the two do come close to forming a relationship, it is suggested many times throughout the series that Maeby may have been adopted and that she and George Michael are not related by blood at all. Later story lines feature Maeby developing a relationship with a classmate of hers named Steve Holt, only to discover, he too, is her cousin.

Other kinds of incest

• EastEnders also featured a storyline between Zoe Slater, Kat Slater and Harry Slater. Zoe discovered Kat, who she thought was her sister, is actually her mother who had been sexually abused by her uncle Harry resulting in her becoming pregnant with Zoe. To make matters worst, he attempted to do the same thing with Zoe.
• In the Futurama episode "Roswell that Ends Well" (2001), the crew is sent back in time to the 1940s while watching a supernova occur. With the loss of all guidance systems, their ship crash lands at Roswell, where Philip J. Fry meets his grandfather, Enos. Professor Farnsworth then warns Fry not to interfere with anything lest he disrupt his own timeline. However, in an attempt to prevent his grandfather's death, Fry locks him in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere – which unknown to him is a nuclear test zone (resulting in his grandfather's death). Soon afterward, he quickly becomes entangled in his young grandmother's emotional despair and ends up sleeping with her. He justifies this by thinking that, since he still exists, the people he thought were his grandparents must not have been. The Professor, after discovering the two, then informs Fry that he is his own grandfather. This is a reference to the famous grandfather paradox of time travel. A later episode ("The Day the Earth Stood Stupid") cites this scenario as the cause for Fry's lack of a cognitive function called the Delta Brain Wave, enabling him to be immune to an invasion of intelligence-absorbing flying Brains.

See also

• Incest in popular culture
• Incest in literature
• Incest in the Bible
• Incest in folklore
• Incest pornography

References

1. Cooper, Lorna. "Brookside: Trevor Jordache – Soap villains: is Karl Munro the baddest baddie?". Tv.uk.msn.com. Archived from the original on 2014-08-21. Retrieved 2014-08-21.
2. "Entertainment | Brookside's two decades of trauma". BBC News. 2002-10-10. Retrieved 2014-08-21.