Bartel also directed 11 low-budget films, many of which he also acted in or wrote. His started in 1968 with the short The Secret Cinema, a paranoid delusional fantasy of self-referential cinema. He graduated to features in 1972 with the horror-comedy Private Parts. He would go on to direct such cult films as Death Race 2000 (1975), Eating Raoul (1982), Lust in the Dust (1985) and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989).