Queer 70s: A curator’s pick of the best post-Stonewall LGBTQ+ cinema, ahead of new Barbican season

The Stonewall Riots of 1969 helped trigger a wave of Gay Liberation movements across the world and cinema began to show more interesting and complex portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters on screen in the following decade. Throughout the 1970s, new queer voices emerged behind and in front of the movie camera and the clichés of miserable or villainous gay people that appeared in previous decades began to disappear in favour of more nuanced depictions.

Featuring films from Australia, India, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA, Queer 70s, a new film season at the Barbican, dives into some of the most exciting queer cinema made during this fascinating time. Kicking off in Pride month, I have chosen eight of the best from across the season, from an acclaimed Roman epic with copious nudity to an Australian curio forgotten to the sands of time…

Bye Bye Love (1974)

Forget Bonnie and Clyde, meet Giko and Utamaro. Thought lost until a negative was recently unearthed, Bye Bye Love is wild, weird and often violent road trip across Japan, with a queer partnership at its centre. Two disaffected youths form a crazed genderqueer partnership in crime and go on the run in Isao Fujisawa’s thrilling, provocative movie, which rebels against the broken promises of the Japanese government. In a fairer world, this would now be a beloved cult classic.

Thu 12 Jun 2025, 18:30, Cinema 3 

The Set (1970)

An essential piece of gay Australian cinema history or a campy slice of soap opera? Perhaps both apply to this uber-rare screening of a melodrama about a naïve young man who explores his sexuality and is chewed up and spat out by Sydney’s high society. While the representation of LGBTQ+ characters is certainly of its time, it is nevertheless a fascinating curio with a rare chance to see gay men on screen at a time when same-sex relationships were still illegal in every state and territory in Australia.

Sun 15 Jun 2025, 15:00, Cinema 1 

Ticket of No Return (1979)

Tabea Blumenschein commands the screen in UIrike Ottinger’s playful and wonderfully bizarre trip through West Berlin, a decade before Germany’s reunification. She plays an immaculately dressed, unnamed woman (Blumenschein also designed the extraordinary costumes) whose drunken mission is accompanied by a Greek chorus. Along the way, she encounters another woman with whom she begins a semi-romantic relationship. This fabulous and stylish avant-garde feast for the sense captures late-1970s Berlin, shrewdly described by the chorus as the ‘centre of homosexuality’. We’ll drink to that.

Tue 17 Jun 2025, 18:20, Cinema 3

Car Wash (1976)

Never seen Car Wash? Well, remedy that immediately, as this lively comedy is fun soup from beginning to end. A fantastic soundtrack from Rose Royce, great cameos from Richard Pryor and The Pointer Sisters and, best of all, Antonio Fargas’ scene-stealing turn as the flamboyant Lindy make this an essential serving of summer fun. It is Fargas who delivers one of the all-time great comebacks when, after a homophobic confrontation with a colleague, retorts: “Honey, I’m more man than you’ll ever be and more woman than you’ll ever get”.

Thu 19 Jun 2025, 18:20, Cinema 3 

Badnam Basti (1971)

Considered India’s first queer film, Prem Kapoor’s captivating melodrama revolves around a bisexual love triangle. Thought lost for four decades, Prem Kapoor’s intense melodrama follows a truck driver with a criminal past who begins to develop feelings for another man, Shivraj (Amar Kakkad), a relationship which grows increasingly intimate. In an extraordinary moment for its time, Sarnam declares his passion for Shivraj with the line: “I thirst for you”. 

Sun 22 Jun 2025, 17:30, Cinema 1

My Dearest Senorita (1972)

Extraordinary that a film about a character assigned the wrong sex at birth is at the centre of a film made in Franco’s Spain, an era of intense homophobic oppression. Extraordinary that the character is sympathetic and relatable. Extraordinary that such a film received enough acclaim that it was nominated for an Oscar. And extraordinary that this remarkable film has been so hard to see for decades – until now. A small supporting role is played by Chus Lampreave, later a regular of Pedro Almodóvar, whose queer cinema would thrive in the years after Franco’s death.

Wed 25 Jun 2025, 18:20, Cinema 2

A Woman Like Eve (1979)

Dutch filmmaker Nouchka van Brakel’s feminist cinema is barely known in the UK, an injustice I hope is rectified soon. In her sensitive 1979 melodrama, Eve, a married mother faces difficult challenges and decisions about her future when she falls in love with another woman. Eve’s husband is furious when she wishes to continue her new relationship and a bitter custody battle begins. Moniek van de Ven gives an excellent performance as the conflicted main character.

Wed 9 Jul 2025, 18:30, Cinema 2

Sebastiane (1976)

Few films outside gay pornography feature as much male flesh as Sebastiane, the feature debut of Derek Jarman, who went on to make some of the queerest, most interesting British films of the next few decades before his death of an AIDS-related illness in 1994. His first film is a queer reimagining of the last days of Saint Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio), the Christian martyr tortured and executed by bow and arrow during his banishment. The tale is told in Latin with English subtitles, lingering on male bodies through an unapologetically gay gaze.

Wed 16 Jul 2025, 18:20, Cinema 1