The "inappropriate" screening happened on a Qantas flight from Sydney to Tokyo after the plane's in-flight entertainment system failed to work before take-off.

After staff were unable to fix the fault, the plane took off after a delay of more than an hour – with the crew deciding to show the same film to everyone instead.

However, to the horror of some passengers on board the nine-and-a-half-hour flight, the sexually explicit drama Daddio then began to play.

To make matters worse, travellers reported they were effectively forced to watch because they were unable to turn off, pause or even dim their individual screens.

One of those on board wrote on the website Reddit: "The movie they played was extremely inappropriate. It featured graphic nudity and a lot of sexting – the kind where you could literally read the texts on screen without needing headphones.

"It took almost an hour of this before they switched to a more kid-friendly movie, but it was super uncomfortable for everyone, especially with families and kids onboard."

They added: "How is this acceptable for a major airline?"

The film, which was released last year, stars Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson, and tells the story of a woman and a taxi driver who discuss sex and relationships.

Daddio is rated 18 in the UK for its language, sexual material and nudity, "Restricted" (R) in the US, and MA15+ for "strong coarse language and nudity" in Australia.

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Following Saturday's flight, Qantas said in a statement to Sky's US partner NBC News: "The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologise to customers for this experience.

"All screens were changed to a family-friendly movie for the rest of the flight, which is our standard practice for the rare cases where individual movie selection isn't possible."

A spokesperson added: "We are reviewing how the movie was selected."