The Rise of Gonzo Porn: Best Gonzo Porn Sites, What Makes Gonzo Movies Unique?

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Gonzo porn is a style of porn-making that takes you directly into the action.

With the camera often being held by the actors, you crash through the fourth wall of traditional moviemaking and feel like you are right there seeing everything, warts and all. 

34 years after its invention, Gonzo porn is more popular than ever. Many would argue that it has become the ‘default’ shooting style for contemporary adult movies. We’re here to look at why, how, and who started it. Our guide will show you the best sites to find top-notch Gonzo porn in all its natural, rampant glory. Plus we’ll break down the exact anatomy of a gonzo porn movie.

What sets it apart from traditional porn? Let’s take a look!

What Is Gonzo Porn?

Best Gonzo Porn

Gonzo porn is a style of filming that dominates adult movies, with an estimated 70% of all porn being shot in gonzo style, but the question is, why?

The answer is simple: Gonzo is more carnal, more raw, and less false than scripted, pre-planned porn, and thus, it appeals for its authenticity. Somehow, you’re not looking through a lens, you are among the writhing and moaning, the slurping and sucking, the gasps and groans… You get the picture

However, ask three porn professionals who invented Gonzo porn, and you’ll likely get three different answers.

Jamie Gillis is one candidate, thanks to his ‘On the Prowl’ series of adult videos, while the same year (1989), Ed Powers co-directed ‘Dirty Debutantes’ with Gillis, and John Stagliano started his ‘The Adventures of Buttman’ series. All are considered the founding fathers of gonzo porn.

What Makes Gonzo Porn Unique?

The Oxford English Dictionary describes gonzo as exaggerated and fictionalized journalism. (See any British tabloid for an example.) It also uses the words ‘Crazy’ and ‘Bizarre.’

Gonzo porn cuts straight to the sex without a script and with little direction, so the results can be pretty crazy. However, they tend to be more wild than bizarre. The results are often a more reality-based viewing experience.

The term originated in journalism, but the style is more easily illustrated by reality TV shows, where the host is actively involved in unfolding events.

In shows like Big Brother, The Amazing Race, or Love Island, the host stands apart from the action, leads it or comments on it, but the competitors create the mayhem. That’s like gonzo porn, where the director has called the shoot, but the sex is down to the cast.

In gonzo scenes, the ‘host’ is one of the actors and a big part of the action. Usually the ‘he’ of the scene, this model acts as director to the other models.

Also, gonzo porn brings unscripted scenes alive with close-ups rather than wide shots, roving cameras rather than static, and the action happens in short sections.

Compare that to an episode of Survivor, and you can see how that popular TV show is made in the gonzo style. Together, these techniques produce a more realistic porn or reality TV experience. 

What To Expect In Gonzo Porn

What is Gonzo Porn?

How does gonzo porn differ from other porn genres, and movies shot from scripts? 

Below we explore the anatomy of a gonzo porn movie:

POV Camera Angles

In moviemaking, POV stands for Point Of View. This is where the camera is attached to the model, so you’re totally immersed in the scene and see precisely what he, sometimes she, sees. Historically, this style of filming was used to save on the budget (you can cut out a cameraman, focus puller, and dolly grip). It also gave the audience a new perspective. 

‘The Great Train Robbery’ of 1903 has a shot where a character points a gun directly at the camera, thereby breaking through the ‘fourth wall’ for the first time, and in ‘The Lady in the Lake,’ in 1947, the whole thing was shot through the eyes of the main character. Hence, you, the audience, became him. In the 1950s, POV filming was famous in B movies because budgets were low and, by then, cameras were lighter.

POV is everywhere in porn and mainstream movies these days. POV camera angles tend to get you closer to the action; you’re not watching from across the hotel room or from the other side of the pool as the couple bangs away; you are on top, looking directly into her eyes or looking along your body as she goes down on you. Therefore, it’s easier to imagine you are involved; thus, the sex becomes more personal.

Whole porn sites and networks are dedicated to this style of filming, and if you want to check out POV porn, you can do worse than head over to Bad Daddy for taboo POV, or Team Skeet’s POV Life. For a full-immersive, 3D experience, there’s POVD. Each of these sites uses point-of-view filming to great effect.

Straight To The Action

How often have you fast-forwarded through a scene to get to the action? If you have, the chances are, you’re watching a reality scene. These are movies where there’s a setup, characters and dialogue before the sex starts. OK, if you like an erotic buildup, but if you want to leap straight into the sex, then, usually, gonzo will give you what you want.

It is possible to have a reality/gonzo mix, and you see it in audition movies like the ones you find on Net Video Girls or Casting Couch HD.

Here, the interviewer is the director and porn guy. The interviews may follow a list of set questions, but when the girl is asked to perform, what she does is up to her. Often, parts of these movies are filmed from the director’s point of view, and there is no story narrative other than, “Tell us about yourself… Now get your clothes off…”

Straight-to-the-action style movies, such as in the network Perfect Gonzo, often begin with the female model fondling herself and stripping. There’s no need to know who she is, where she is or what she’s all about because it’s clear from the start you’re here for the sex.

These movies quickly shift from strip to BJ to penetration to creampie or facial with little or no dialogue, yet manage to give us a full 20 minutes or so of porn.

Breaking The Fourth Wall

Traditional porn doesn’t acknowledge the viewer’s presence, while gonzo porn occasionally addresses the viewer directly.

Think of a play in a theatre where the characters talk among themselves, or, better, a reality porn movie where we’re spying on the plumber and a lonely housewife… you’re looking through a fourth wall.

Gonzo porn usually does away with that ‘wall’, and uses fast and loose camera movements, moving quickly between the fast and loose action. Sometimes, the models talk to the camera as they make love to the lens, and, therefore, to the viewer. This is called ‘breaking the fourth wall.’

This porn-making is used in almost all major networks, and Reality Kings is a good example. There, you find a mix of porn styles in the 45 exclusive sites, including gonzo, POV, and POV-gonzo, in use in their reality/fantasy movies.

First Time Auditions and Dare Dorm are two good examples of this no-fourth-wall style of filming,

Close Up Shots

With Gonzo filming, because the camera is in there among the humping and heaving, writhing and wriggling, the viewer can get up close and personal in each scene.

Traditional, fourth-wall porn tends to keep the cameras at a distance to give you an overview of the scene to the extent that if the visuals suddenly cut to a close-up dick-in-pussy shot, the effect can be jarring.

With Gonzo porn, the viewer expects just this kind of close-up detail. In fact, it’s what many viewers want from Gonzo, and they would be disappointed if they weren’t close enough to taste the action.

If you want an extreme example of how close-up filming is used in porn, check out some of the Kink.com ‘Everything Butt’ series, where every insertion is examined more or less under a microscope. For something less kinky, 18 Close Up is a masturbation and lesbian gonzo site featuring 100% close-up porn.

Raw and Unscripted

Nubiles Unscripted Porn

Another aspect that makes a gonzo porn movie gonzo porn is the script — or the lack of one. Many gonzo movies are designed to feel unscripted, keeping the action realistic.

Improvised porn plays a big part in successful gonzo, but to carry it off well, the models must be a) into each other, b) experienced, and c) inhibition-free, as most good porn models are.

Unscripted porn isn’t made because there aren’t enough writers; it’s made because viewers want to view natural, raw sex. This filmmaking relies on the actors’ chemistry, but it’s hot as hell when it works.

An excellent way to taste some off-the-cuff, ‘fake it up as you go along’ porn is to look at Nubiles Unscripted. It’s an old archive of lesbian scenes famous for its off-the-cuff action. Unscripted porn is also standard on sites like Fake Hub.

Digital Playground has a name for role-play movies (as improvised porn is sometimes called), and Mofos provides many impro-gonzo scenes.

Amateur Set-Pieces

Many gonzo porn movies rely on amateur set pieces designed to minimize any sense that the actors are ‘acting.’

You won’t hear clichéd sexy speak when the movie involves genuine amateurs, as they do in the Fake Hub sites such as Fake Taxi, Fake Agent, and Fake Cop.

Fake Agent Gonzo porn

These popular gonzo movies follow a three-part formula:

  • Reality scenario: Horny guy picks up a women in a taxi.
  • Unscripted encounter: He persuades her to have sex in the back.
  • Amateur porn: To the girl’s ‘surprise’, he whips out his camera and films the sex.

This sub-niche of gonzo, the ‘amateur girl being convinced to make porn while on her way to work’ type of scenario, is more common than you think.

One of the reasons for this is because ‘amateur’ often means gonzo. There’s no need to learn a script, you just let the guy or more experienced girl take charge.

Apart from the Fake Hub sites, you can also find this gonzo style on ‘Hunter’ sites, where a roving and permanently horny guy seeks random, unsuspecting girls who will fuck and suck.

See Milf Hunter from Reality Kings, or Cuck Hunter with its network access.

For trans, set-piece amateur videos, you have TS Pussy Hunters (a Kink.com site), and for a similar experience in gay porn, try Czech Hunter.

Simple Shooting

Gonzo porn typically uses a simple shooting style, but there’s a difference between amateur and professional camerawork.

Large porn companies know what they are doing, so they will give you a high-standard, gonzo experience even if the movies are designed to appear amateur. This involves simple but effective camerawork. It doesn’t miss the key moments; it accentuates them.

Beneath this level comes homemade porn, arguably the true gonzo of gonzo, but we all know how dodgy homemade porn can be. Give a horny amateur a phone camera, and you’ll likely get a similar simple shooting style, but it probably won’t make for the best-quality porn.

If you want high production values, it’s best to stick to professional pay sites.

How Did Gonzo Porn Become Popular?

It’s widely believed that Gonzo started with Jamie Gillis and his ‘On the Prowl’ series of adult videos. Released in 1989, the series inspired ‘Boogie Nights’ and followed a simple premise: Gillis persuaded random men to have sex with a porn model. That was it. 

Result?

It was one of the first-ever gonzo porn movies, which proved so popular that it sold for twice the price of a regular porn video.

However, in 1989, Ed Powers co-directed ‘Dirty Debutantes’ with Gillis, so he also gets the credit for inventing Gonzo. In this case, we saw the rise of interview/audition porn with fresh amateur girls interviewed and banged; no scripts, no pack drill, just ‘as-it-happened’ porn. This also proved popular, and movies in the series still sell on Adult Empire for $25.99 apiece.

1989 was a landmark year in the Rise of Gonzo as John Stagliano began his classic series ‘The Adventures of Buttman.’ These movies brought even more attention to the expanding gonzo genre.

Adventures of Buttman

Gonzo became so popular that many others soon followed suit.

John Leslie, Rocco Siffredi, Christoph Clark, Seymore Butts, Ben Dover, and other porn greats all leaped on the unscripted bandwagon. Hundreds more are riding it to this day.

One of the reasons Gonzo remains popular for the viewer is because it’s easy to forget you’re watching hired models sexing it up under arc lights with a crew of clipboard-wielding production assistants off-camera. After all, there is no ‘off camera,’ as such.

That’s also why it’s a popular genre for porn studios. As with most things, it comes down to money. 

Buy one Go-Pro and attach it to a model, and you’ve negated the need for a cameraman, the focus puller, the grip and his dollies, tracks, jibs, tripods, and all that other off-shot paraphernalia.

Time is another money-led factor.

Because gonzo filming uses the same camera, the director has consistently flowing shooting angles, lighting and sound, etc.; therefore, it cuts down on editing. It also cuts down on resetting between takes. Cameras are now so much more sophisticated, making a quality HD gonzo porn shoot with little technical equipment is relatively easy.

Internet distribution, as opposed to the old porn store networks of the past, also makes it easier to sell a porn flick once it’s made. Yes, big studios still go for top-end locations involving glamour models, scripts, catering vans and the rest, but why do that if you can sell a more cheaply made product for the same price?

Although moviemaking costs vary widely, a traditional porn shoot can set you back up to $200,000, while a gonzo movie cuts out much of that expenditure.

Without the costs, here’s a list of the essential components that make up a movie shoot and a comparison between a traditional location porn shoot and a gonzo one.

CostTraditional PornGonzo Porn
Idea generationYesYes
ScriptwritingYesNo
Cast and crewManyFew
LocationGlamorous / LuxuryCheap, Public
Storyboards/shot listsYes (Time Consuming)No (Quick)
ShootingComplicatedEasy
EditingComplexSimple
Sound and musicUsuallyNot Often

This is not to imply that gonzo equals ‘cheap’ porn.

It’s still a costly business, and the best gonzo studios know that to keep customers, they still have to provide quality adult entertainment with high production standards. There’s a lot of competition in the paid porn site market — you can’t cut too many corners.

Which leads us to ask, where do we find this gonzo porn? What are the best Gonzo porn sites in 2023?

What Are The Best Gonzo Porn Sites?

With 70% of today’s porn shot in the gonzo style, it’s no surprise that several porn studios have made a sweet fortune on the back of this genre.

Below we explore some of the most famous Gonzo porn producers and the top-rated sites where you can get your next Gonzo porn fix:

1. Evil Angel

https://evilangel.com

Evil Angel porn studio

John Stagliano was partly-responsible for launching the gonzo genre, so it’s no surprise his Evil Angel site comes top of this list. John started as a male stripper, ‘Evil John,’ who dated a girl known as ‘Angel,’ hence the title of his site and company, which has specialized in gonzo porn since 1989.

Since it began selling VHS porn tapes to porn stores, Evil Angel has become one of the top porn production houses in the USA. The site holds over 17,800 videos, with 5,900 explicitly listed in the gonzo category. The movies are available at up to 4K HD and feature star names such as Aiden Starr, April Olsen, and Valentina Nappi, with award-winning male pornstars including legends Mark Wood and John Stagliano himself.

Much of the Evil Angel collection concentrates on close-ups shot by roving cameras, while the cast of experienced models gets on with the sex. Very few Evil Angel movies are scripted beyond an initial setup, giving you authentic gonzo videos and a lot of them. Also including full-length gonzo DVDs and downloadable galleries, Evil Angel comes in at $19.99 per month (for streaming only), making it an affordable and popular signup for lovers of gonzo porn.

2. Elegant Raw

https://elegantraw.com

Elegant Raw

Elegant Raw offers exclusive gonzo movies mainly shot in Europe. Nathan Blake is behind the made-up mayhem as top European stars like Mandy Dee and Aleska Diamond get down to some raunchy and natural hardcore scenes. The collection of 360+ exclusives includes interracial gonzo and threesomes.

There are some scripted scenes in the collection, but even these end up with a classic gonzo feel, as Nathan has his style of lighting, filming and editing, which add to the ‘as it happened’ feel of the movies. Another notable feature of Elegant Raw is their 24-hour-a-day streaming porn channel, where you can indulge in on-stop gonzo from dawn till dusk (if you’ve got the stamina…)

Membership to Elegant Raw comes with full access to Adult Prime and over 130 sites in one network. For $19.99 per month, it’s one of the best value subscriptions in the space.

3. Jules Jordan

https://julesjordan.com

Jules Jordan gonzo porn

Noted director and pornstar Jules Jordan started working in an adult DVD store before making his own amateur hardcore movies in the Gonzo style. Before long, he’d made a name for himself as a director and now produces porn that is regularly nominated for awards at the AVN, XBIZ, and other industry-celebrating events.

Among many other awards, in 2008, Jules Jordan won the XBIZ Award for Gonzo Director of the Year, and in 2022, the AVN Award for Best Director of a Gonzo Production. It’s no surprise that his site is known for its gonzo, and with more than 2,500 movies, there’s plenty of it. Without too much scripting, his scenes involve DP, interracial, anal, threesomes and classic duos, all shot with roving, hand-held cameras, with many a close-up and a real-feel vibe.

Having top stars lining up to work for him helps, and the site gives you Kira Noir, Autumn Falls, Laha Rhoades, Gianna Dior and other classic beauties all working off-script and doing what comes naturally. 

Access to this top gonzo collection comes at a slightly higher price than many membership sites because of the exclusivity of the scenes, many of which are presented in stunning 4K HD. Your $39.95 also gives you access to two bonus sites, which help lessen the blow, but with ongoing updates and award-winning gonzo, it’s still a small price for some of the best gonzo porno in the business.

4. Reality Kings

https://realitykings.com

Reality Kings 4K porn site

For over 20 years, Reality Kings has continued to pump out both scripted and unscripted gonzo porn flicks that win industry awards and set the standards for reality porn. They’ve got a knack for mixing off-the-cuff gonzo with reality scenarios, and not many other porn production companies or sites do this. The mix makes for totally believable scenes, even if the cast is often made up of unbelievably gorgeous porn goddesses like Phoenix Marie, Abella Danger and Luna Star.

The membership site offers over 10,300 scenes, and although only 93 show up under a ‘gonzo’ search, there are plenty more reality/gonzo-mixed videos. In fact, just about all of them employ gonzo techniques, such as the POV close-ups when a girl is squirting or when a guy’s getting a BJ. 

Another thing to note is that a Reality Kings membership includes 45 sites, each of them with its own theme, and many of them being classics. Big Naturals, the first site RK ever produced, is there along with Milf Hunter (in the ‘hunter’ style we looked at earlier) and First Time Auditions, which is in the unscripted style that makes amateur and gonzo such a popular mix.

At $29.99 per month (but often discounted to $14.99), a membership to Reality Kings gives you all channels, sites and a vast collection of movies, with easy ways to filter and find the gonzo. It also updates regularly, making a longer-term, ongoing membership worth considering.

5. MOFOs

https://www.mofos.com

Mofos Gonzo porn

Another site priding itself on the quality of its reality porn is MOFOs, a company that’s been shooting porn for over ten years and hosts a collection of content from over 20 sites. The primary thrust of the network is hardcore, but within that, you find some gonzo channels and collections that rely on the classic gonzo style for their shooting technique.

Take ‘Let’s Post It’, for example. Although the scenarios here are reality, the filming style is very much gonzo. A girl goes to work in an office (reality), but while there, she masturbates in full view of those around her and then goes down on one of her work colleagues (gonzo). The combination is typical of MOFOs who, like Reality Kings, manage to blend believable but scripted setups with porn models going off on tangents and letting the sex happen as they feel it should. 

There are newbies and amateurs at MOFOs, as it’s the starting ground for many a porn girl, but there are also girls who have gone on to be top of the A list; Abella Danger, Kimmy Granger, Anya Olsen, and Aidra Fox have all made several movies for Mofos.

You can see them in semi-scripted action for $29.99 per month, and like Reality Kings, there are sometimes discounts. Memberships include unlimited access to all sites in the network.

6. Bang Bros

https://bangbrosonline.com

BangBros online

Bang Bros has been through several ups and downs since it launched in Florida in 2000, but remains focused on its core porn niche: amateur.

Now a Aylo/MindGeek-owned site, Bang Bros continues to publish professionally made amateur porn with girls like Rachel Starr, Ava Addams, and Jada Stevens.

But isn’t gonzo supposed to be amateur stars only?

Yes and no. It all has to do with the filming style. They might be stars, but you’d never guess it from the way Bang Bros shoot their porn.

Many of the movies employ POV techniques, allowing the male star to change the angles, focus on the girl servicing his cock, or get up close to her during the hardcore scenes. Like Reality Kings and MOFOs, scenes may start with a premise but soon go off-script while staying within the set scenario, giving similar results.

Now that Bang Bros has joined the MindGeek stable, all three sites look very similar in design, navigation, and the filming style of the content.

Also similar is the price. Bang Bros costs $29.95 per month with discounts available including 53 sites and channels in one membership. These include POV, casting, and ‘hunter’ themed sites in true gonzo style.

7. XEmpire

https://www.xempire.com

XEmpire porn site

The brainchild of renowned female director Mason, the first thing you see on the tour at XEmpire are the words, ‘Latest Gonzo Porn Movies.’ That’s because the network comprises five unique sites that focus on gonzo porn. 

With a raft of award nominations and wins, XEmpire delivers top-quality gonzo with a range of themes, primarily ebony and interracial porn with Dark X and All Black X, lesbian porn with Lesbian X, and hardcore gonzo with Hard X. Recently, they added Erotica X which, although slightly removed from the gonzo theme, offers another slant on natural porn making.

XEmpire presents you with 2,000 exclusive movies from their DVD collection, with 700 scenes being in 4K HD. The gonzo action comes thick and fast. Roving cameras, unscripted scenes and close-ups are all evident in the movies, which can be sampled via roll-over trailers on the free tour pages.

Accessing this award-winning gonzo porn costs as little as $19.95 per month (streaming only) or $29.95 per month, including downloads. With regular updates, and Mason directing star names such as Lana Rhoades, Riley Reid, and Ava Devine, you get good gonzo value with an XEmpire membership. 

8. Vixen Media Group

https://vixen.com

Vixen 4K porn site

Founded by Frenchman Greg Lansky in 2014, the Vixen Media Group runs various top—brand gonzo porn sites, including Tushy, Blacked, and Vixen itself. Dubbed ‘The Spielberg of Porn’ (allegedly by himself), Lansky’s sites ensure excellent quality, great porn entertainment, and natural, gonzo-style viewing. 

If you need proof of Vixen’s command of the gonzo genre, then note that their site, Blacked Raw, picked up the 2022 AVN Award for Best Gonzo/Compendium Series or Channel and the 2023 AVN Award for Best Gonzo/Cinemacore Series or Channel.

Blacked and Blacked Raw are two of their gonzo sites offering glamcore gonzo. This is where glamorous porn models appear in slinky, seductive movies with high production values. Added to these requirements, in this case, is the gonzo element. These stars are experienced and spontaneous, so many of the HD-shot glamcore scenes are unscripted; hence the gonzo.

The Vixen.com movies give gonzo a new slant. We sometimes associate the gonzo genre as being slapdash or made up as you go, and yes, it can be, but the Vixen gonzo style is more glamorous than that.

Although still not scenario-based or scripted, the scenes are played out by models who know what they are doing. In many Vixen movies, we’re straight into naked action or seduction, and the sex develops from there. The up-close angels and other gonzo elements are apparent, but it’s all done with more finesse than your regular gonzo porn.

The other top-shelf site from Vixen that employs a lot of gonzo is Tushy. This anal porn site was launched in 2015 and has been building an outstanding stock of natural, unscripted, ‘as it happens’ anal movies ever since. The glamcore style is evident, being a Vixen site, and the collection includes many top-name porn models.

Each Vixen site can be joined separately for $29.95 monthly. However, they also offer a seven-site bundle for $49.95 per month.

9. Perfect Gonzo

https://perfectgonzo.com

Perfect Gonzo

The content at Perfect Gonzo takes you right into the action with close-ups, roving cameras, and all the gonzo elements needed to make perfect off-the-cuff porn. They’ve been publishing pornstar and amateur gonzo movies since 2003, amassing a library of 2,300+ scenes, with new content added regularly.

These are classic gonzo movies, starting with the model stripping direct to the cam, fingering herself or getting into some dildo action while still looking at you through the lens. In the hardcore movies, she’s still connecting with you as the guy comes in and starts banging, and even when they’re not POV movies, you still feel like you’re there and part of the action. 

Perfect Gonzo is another site employing professional models who know how to go off-script, and you’ll find some popular girls in the cast list: Kandy Kross, for example. There are also gifted newbies in the lineup of over 1,100 gonzo girls, and you can get to meet them all for the standard price of $29.95 per month.

10. Sapphix

https://sapphix.com

Sapphix lesbian gonzo porn

Sapphix is a teen lesbian network that employs a lot of natural-style gonzo filming. It has the same look and layout as Perfect Gonzo (because it’s from the same team) and has the same high production values behind its 2,000+ girl/girl movies.

Sapphix has stuck to its guns for 20 years, offering gorgeous lesbian girls in duo and threesome scenes.

The girls are encouraged to treat the sex scenes with spontaneity, similar to the the hardcore movies on Perfect Gonzo. There may be a little intro or setup, but that’s just scene setting. The girls soon fall into each other and their sexy actions as if the cameras weren’t there, until they give you a sly wink while scissoring — just to let you know you’re welcome to watch the sultry, sexy action…

This is high-class gonzo made with high-class models, and it’s available for $29.95 a month, with discounts for longer-term memberships. 

Is Gonzo Porn The Same as POV Porn?

Gonzo vs POV porn

Point of View (POV) is a filming technique often used when making gonzo-style movies, so it’s a gonzo element, but not all POV porn would be classified as gonzo.

  • Gonzo often has the feel of behind-the-scenes footage, whereas the best POV porn has the feel of in-the-scene footage.
  • POV movies can have a storyline, with the viewer as the main character seeing the action as that character does. Gonzo scenes rarely have a storyline other than the sex. There are exceptions, of course. The Adventures of Buttman is a classic example.
  • Viewer interaction is different. In a POV movie, it’s as if she’s saying, ‘It’s just you and me’. But in a gonzo film, she’s saying, ‘I know you are watching; come and join in.’

In short, POV filming can be used as part or all of a gonzo scene, but for a video to be authentic gonzo, it must have elements other than POV. Don’t worry about it if you’re confused — just enjoy the porn!

Is Gonzo Porn The Same as Hamedori Porn?

Hamedori is the Japanese term for Point of View used in Japanese adult videos. The style of filming was used as far back as the early 1980s, and the term came into general porn use around 1988-1989, making it contemporary with the origins of ‘gonzo.’

Still, it’s not exactly POV and it’s not exactly Western gonzo.

In classic hamedori movies:

  • The director is also part of the action.
  • Filming is from his point of view.
  • There are often interviews with the female model before the porn shooting begins. 

These elements are not always used in gonzo or even POV movies.

The Gonzo Porn Checklist

For a porn movie to be considered true gonzo, it needs to include some techniques but exclude others. Generally speaking, a gonzo checklist looks like this:

  • Freestyle filming
  • Few or no resets and retakes
  • No scripts or storylines
  • No ‘fourth wall’ element
  • Cameras in the hands of the actors
  • A raw edge
  • A ‘behind-the-scenes’ feel

Left to the masters like Stagliano, Jamie Gillis, or Joanna Angel, gonzo porn brings the viewer to the heat of the action. It’s one of the most prominent adult filming techniques in the world today. And you’ve probably seen a lot of it without even knowing it!


Who are your favorite Kings and Queens of Gonzo porn? Got any top-rated Gonzo porn sites that we failed to mention on our list? Let’s hear your recommendations and top picks.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Jackson Marsh

Jackson has written for the adult industry for over 17 years. He has contributed to major review sites reviewing straight, gay and trans porn, and has written for print and online porn publications. When not writing about the adult industry, he writes and publishes historical mystery and romance novels, and has won a European Gay Porn Award for his erotic fiction. Follow Jackson's work on his website, or his latest releases on Amazon.
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