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Cinema is in a sex crisis. At least that\u2019s what a number of cinephiles and scholars have insisted<\/a> over the past few years, their headline question being: Why aren\u2019t people engaged in the act on the big screen any more?<\/p>\n With franchise blockbusters and superhero flicks dominating the box office, sex and desire have seemingly become afterthoughts. According to a 2024 study<\/a>, there\u2019s almost 40 per cent less sexual content in big-release films compared with the start of the century. Gen Z, meanwhile, has apparently sworn off carnal desires, with some studies suggesting the number of young people who haven\u2019t had sex in the past year doubled between 2010 and 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n But despite this so-called \u201cpuritanical era\u201d, 2026 has delivered a lot of raunch. In Harry Lighton\u2019s Pillion, a timid parking warden experiences a sexual awakening with a dominant leather-clad biker, including the raunchiest picnic encounter imaginable. In Olivia Wilde\u2019s The Invite, meanwhile, a disillusioned married couple are introduced to the world of polyamory and group sex through their free-loving neighbours.<\/p>\n Sure, blockbusters like The Odyssey are still largely sexless. But that hasn\u2019t stopped indie films \u2013 and even certain larger titles such as Wuthering Heights and Marty Supreme \u2013 from reviving cinematic smut.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a moment where there are real, material threats to sexual expression and gender identity,\u201d says Dr Astrid Lorange, a senior lecturer at UNSW Sydney\u2019s School of Art & Design. \u201cIndie films might be responding to audiences\u2019 tendencies to moralise sex on-screen by attempting to show more nuanced and complex representations of sex, desire and fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n To be sure, sex never disappeared from screens. Even during the \u201cdry spell\u201d, the likes of Poor Things, Challengers, Babygirl and Saltburn all tested boundaries around desire and sexuality.<\/p>\n Yet, this year\u2019s \u201csexy\u201d films seem different \u2013 they adopt a far messier, and more realistic, approach to sex.<\/p>\n In Gregg Araki\u2019s I Want Your Sex, art world intern Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) becomes swept up in a workplace affair with his older, domineering gallerist boss (Olivia Wilde). Despite the obvious abuse of power, he develops a liking for being spanked, whipped and chastised. Sex underlines everything in the film, from the phallic art displayed to the conversations around Gen Z \u201cwokeness\u201d destroying pleasure. Its strength comes from the imperfection it reveals \u2013 experimenting with sex can be awkward, embarrassing and confusing. It can also be liberating.<\/p>\n Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma explores similar themes, though with a somewhat lighter touch. A young queer filmmaker is hired to reboot her favourite \u201980s slasher, so she attempts to recruit the franchise\u2019s original \u201cfinal girl\u201d. But what begins as a filmmaking exploit becomes a journey into shared sexual repression, the psychological heft of queer desire, and a search for genuine intimacy.<\/p>\n \u201cInfluential concepts like the male and imperial gaze, as well as trends towards broader media representation, have changed fundamentally how we see, interpret and judge films for their approach to sex,\u201d Lorange says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a greater awareness of the way sex is a site in which power relations are reproduced and contested, as well as a site in which fantasy comes into contact with the real. As such, there are more nuanced mainstream accounts for sex in relation to racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism.\u201d<\/p>\n These films aren\u2019t just showing sex just to titillate. Dean of RMIT\u2019s School of Media and Communications Lisa French says the sex instead feels intentional and timely.<\/p>\n \u201cOur screen content always reflects the preoccupations of the culture that produced it. This is potentially about intimacy and its difficulties, fuelled by a world where the digital rather than the human occupy more time than they did before.\u201d<\/p>\n This is probably helped by the fact that many of the directors are female and\/or queer \u2013 their sex scenes don\u2019t cater to the traditional male gaze. For example, Olivia Wilde\u2019s The Invite doesn\u2019t show the women as passive objects of desire; rather they\u2019re as sexually curious as the men.<\/p>\n This shift is clever for two reasons. First, studies have already suggested zoomers aren\u2019t as interested in seeing sex on-screen<\/a>, but they could be more intrigued by nuanced, realistic conversations around why that is in the first place, as seen in I Want Your Sex.<\/p>\n Second, today\u2019s sexy films would struggle to meet the steaminess of \u201980s and \u201990s erotic thrillers such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. They were so intent on being \u201csexily subversive\u201d that ethics largely went out the window<\/a>. In comparison, this year\u2019s films seem genuinely interested in pleasure \u2013 they don\u2019t shame kinks or desires, and usually operate within consensual parameters. They\u2019re also more likely to hire intimacy co-ordinators, Lorange notes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be able to critically engage with sex on-screen, as well as be afforded the opportunity to find pleasure, humour and insight in how cinema grapples with sex. It\u2019s never \u2018just\u2019 sex. It\u2019s always about many other things, like gender, race, class, power and history. A good film recognises this.\u201d<\/p>\n There are exceptions, of course. Will Gluck\u2019s One Night Only is set in a dystopian reality where premarital sex is illegal except for one annual 12-hour window (The Purge, but with sex). However, instead of focusing on repressed singletons discovering liberation through fornication, it opts for a more traditional approach wherein two people seek only innocent connection on sex purge night. There are subsequently no explicit sex scenes \u2013 arguably a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, French says some recent films are still sexually gratuitous or violent, particularly against women.<\/p>\n But most of what younger people see isn\u2019t on the big screen. Lorange notes that in \u201can era of platform media and algorithmically organised social media feeds\u201d, the impact of the film industry on sexual norms is arguably less.<\/p>\n If audiences are looking for sex done well on-screen, French suggests turning to TV. \u201cShows like Sex Education opened up space to see the complexities across generations and also give it the awkward reality of how teens encounter it. Sexual identities are also more fluid in that show.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar could be said of Heated Rivalry and its approach to queer eroticism, or Dying for Sex and its exploration of mortality intersecting with desire.<\/p>\n![\"From](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15636a72031462c8be3bb45a1da91cf36e516ce1.jpeg\")
From Pillion to I Want Your Sex, indie films are getting people hot under the collar again.Compiled by Matt Willis<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/acd9298aa0ff2a85d1dc304fd9418c8c442d683c.jpeg\")
The love triangle between Zendaya, Josh O\u2019Connor and Mike Faist in Challengers was still pretty saucy in 2024.<\/p>\n![\"Hannah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/891ce15f7b70f394ffe59fb0127009e92311ca8c.jpeg\")
Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.\u00a0Madman Films<\/p>\n![\"Fatal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5456b32ca475fd59448b8b5b0e97e68118dabba3.jpeg\")
Fatal Attraction was hot, but it wasn\u2019t exactly great for female representation.<\/p>\n![\"With](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/80865016310075cb79304f27162691d47927b9c5.jpeg\")
With Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro as its stars, One Night Only could have been sexy as hell. Instead, it was largely sexless.Universal Pictures<\/p>\n
![\"Ariana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787331986_614_6005f3a6aec42a3172de138ee8064be427e7a8a2.jpeg\")
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