Indie filmmakers are bringing sexy back, but not in the way you’d expect

Cinema is in a sex crisis. At least that’s what a number of cinephiles and scholars have insisted over the past few years, their headline question being: Why aren’t people engaged in the act on the big screen any more?

With franchise blockbusters and superhero flicks dominating the box office, sex and desire have seemingly become afterthoughts. According to a 2024 study , there’s 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’t had sex in the past year doubled between 2010 and 2024 .

But despite this so-called “puritanical era”, 2026 has delivered a lot of raunch. In Harry Lighton’s Pillion , a timid parking warden experiences a sexual awakening with a dominant leather-clad biker, including the raunchiest picnic encounter imaginable. In Olivia Wilde’s The Invite , meanwhile, a disillusioned married couple are introduced to the world of polyamory and group sex through their free-loving neighbours.

Sure, blockbusters like The Odyssey are still largely sexless. But that hasn’t stopped indie films – and even certain larger titles such as Wuthering Heights and Marty Supreme – from reviving cinematic smut.

“We’re in a moment where there are real, material threats to sexual expression and gender identity,” says Dr Astrid Lorange, a senior lecturer at UNSW Sydney’s School of Art & Design. “Indie films might be responding to audiences’ tendencies to moralise sex on-screen by attempting to show more nuanced and complex representations of sex, desire and fantasy.”

To be sure, sex never disappeared from screens. Even during the “dry spell”, the likes of Poor Things , Challengers , Babygirl and Saltburn all tested boundaries around desire and sexuality.

Yet, this year’s “sexy” films seem different – they adopt a far messier, and more realistic, approach to sex.

In Gregg Araki’s 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 “wokeness” destroying pleasure. Its strength comes from the imperfection it reveals – experimenting with sex can be awkward, embarrassing and confusing. It can also be liberating.

Jane Schoenbrun’s 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 ’80s slasher, so she attempts to recruit the franchise’s original “final girl”.