From gluttonous buffets to quiet and pensive family meals that expose the loves and tragedies of humanity, eating is a way of expression that is sometimes at the core of the cinematic experience. Below, Chris Cotonou and Luke Georgiades offer up a serving of 9 films that in one way or another tap into food’s ability to bring people together.
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994, dir. Ang Lee)
One of the most delectably filmed foodie passages of all time occurs in the opening of Ang Lee’s ode to the Sunday family dinner, in which retired chef and widower Zhu (Sihung Lung) adoringly prepares a grand feast for his three young daughters, who each bring their own personal and professional affairs to the dinner table. The final instalment in Lee’s Father Knows Best trilogy. – LG
Chocolat (2000, dir. Lasse Hallström)
Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche find love in this delightful romance about a woman and her daughter who open a chocolate shop in a conservative French village. It might just make your heart melt (like chocolate). – CC
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003, dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Nowhere else on this list, or this planet, can you catch RZA and GZA of the Wu chopping it up with Bill Murray, other than in Jim Jarmusch’s love letter to the act of sitting around a table talking shit, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. It also stars Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Alfred Molina, Roberto Benigni, and more. Hangout movies don’t get much cooler than this. – LG
Only Yesterday (1991, dir. Isao Takahata)
Even if you’ve seen just one or two Hayao Miyazaki films, you’ll know the master animator has a penchant for bringing food to life on screen. Yet, arguably, the Ghibli moment that best encapsulates the complicated emotions involved with eating is Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday, which sees a family sit around the table, a single blanket covering their legs, curiously trying a pineapple for the first time—with the fruit not quite living up to their expectations. – LG
Only Yesterday (1991, dir. Isao Takahata)
The Lunchbox (2013, dir. Ritesh Batra)
A neglected housewife (Nimrat Kaur) strikes up a friendship with a lonely widower on the verge of retirement (the late, great Irrfan Khan), after a packed lunch she made for her husband accidentally ends up in the hands of the latter. A sweet and touching drama that fuses a You’ve Got Mail-esque story with gorgeous Indian home cooking. – LG
Big Night (1996, dir. Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott)
Two brothers try to save their Italian-American restaurant by hosting an ambitiously mouth-watering dinner party. This is a cult favourite, with a quotable performance from Tony Shalhoub. But the big question is: will Louis Prima really show up to dinner? – CC
La Grande Bouffe (1973, dir. Marco Ferreri)
This absurd Italian classic makes dining seem like a perverted nightmare. The premise involves three men who intend to eat themselves to death and engage in an orgy, building an atmosphere of repulsive gluttony and eroticism. – CC
La Grande Bouffe (1973, dir. Marco Ferreri)
Babette’s Feast (1987, dir. Gabriel Axel)
In a film that shows the transformative power of gastronomy, Babette, a French servant, devises a dinner party for a Danish puritan family. The beauty of the ingredients against the drabness of the setting is unforgettable. Every frame is a painting. – CC
The Taste of Things (2023, dir. Tran Anh Hung)
Food becomes a love language in Tran Anh Hung’s drama, which stars French powerhouses Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel as a 19th-century cook and her gourmand employer. A feast for the senses with some of the most decadent plates of food committed to screen. – CC
