Hollywood actress Halle Berry has been crowned the world's sexiest woman by men's magazine Esquire.[Agencies]

Halle Berry may be a mum of a certain age, but men's magazine Esquire says the Oscar-winning actress is still the Sexiest Woman Alive.

In an article posted on the magazine's website, Berry poses in a parody of a 2000 cover photograph of former US President Bill Clinton, and writes about what she thinks of winning Esquire's annual honour for the first time.

"Well, I don't know exactly what it means but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I'll take it," Berry wrote.

Esquire said it dressed Berry in a racier version of Clinton's suit jacket and blue tie to recreate an iconic cover for its 75th anniversary celebration.

Berry starred last year in the movie Things We Lost in the Fire and is due to star next year in Frankie and Alice, a film about a woman with multiple personality disorder.

In the Esquire article, Berry describes things she finds sexy. It turns out that spaghetti and wine are major turn-ons.

"Sexy is not about wearing sexy clothes or shaking your booty until you damn near get hip dysplasia; it's about knowing that sexiness is a state of mind - a comfortable state of being," she said.

Berry won an Oscar in 2002 for her role in the movie Monster's Ball. She played the wife of an executed murderer who becomes romantically involved with a guard at the prison where her husband had been held.

With the Oscar win, Berry became the first black woman to take home an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Berry gave birth in March to a baby girl. The father is Berry's partner, French-Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, 32.

Berry has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to baseball player David Justice.

She adopted the daughter of her second husband, musician Eric Benet, but the couple broke up in 2003.