After endless stage and television work, Barrie received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance in the ground-breaking racial drama One Potato, Two Potato (1964), as Julie, a young, white mother who marries a black man after she and her daughter are abandoned by her husband. The following decade, Barrie portrayed Evelyn in Breaking Away (1979), which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and later, an Emmy nomination, when she reprised the role in the television series based on the film. Later in her career, Barrie also was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for her performance as Sue Berlin, mother to the title character, Judy Berlin (1999).