9 movies where food is the main course

Actress Juliette Binoche stars in Miramax's 2000 film 'Chocolat'

'Chocolat' (2000) plays with the capacity of chocolate to alter how the residents of a French village live

(Image credit: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy)

published 28 October 2024

It is impossible to eat a movie scene, but that has not stopped filmmakers from saluting food and cuisine over the years. Sometimes eating is shorthand for longing; sometimes it is a representation of intemperance. The plate, spoon and knife always have a lot to say about what it means to be human.

'Chocolat'

Any movie that centers pleasure as an essential element of human existence is keen-eyed. 'Chocolat,' the 2000 film from director Lasse Hallström, plays with the capacity of, yes, chocolate to alter how the residents of a French village live. Juliette Binoche gives a winning performance in the film that is a "call for tolerance, not just tolerance for indulgent pleasures like chocolate but a deeper appreciation for the wide expanse of human foibles and quirks," said Hallström to Cinema.com.

Gluttonous banquets play a principal role in this 1989 movie directed by Peter Greenaway. When it was released, the movie was considered so extreme that that the MPAA forced the distributors to either give the movie an "X" rating or release it as "Unrated." It is not an easy watch but that is its intent, "because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated. Those who think it is only about gluttony, lust, barbarism and bad table manners will have to think again. It is a film that uses the most basic strengths and weaknesses of the human body as a way of giving physical form to the corruption of the human soul," said Roger Ebert.

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Yes, the blogger 1.0 Julie character played by Amy Adams, who cooks her way through Julia Child's famous magnus opus, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," is insufferable. You still (sorta) feel for her, though, because who would be anything but entranced by the writing and recipes of Child? Especially when Child is portrayed by the adroit Meryl Streep in 2009's "Julie & Julia." "Streep's incarnation of Julia Child towers, literally and figuratively, over the movie. She plays the beefy, 6-foot-2-inch Child with lusty comic verve," said Dana Stevens at Slate.

Lingering, melancholic, ravishing: The "mood" part of the title of this 2001 film from Wong Kar-wai is no tease. As the impossible romance between two married neighbors in early 1960s Hong Kong blooms, the hazy density of the city becomes a character itself. So, too, do the meals, including one in which Mrs. Chan cooks sesame soup for her sickly would-be lover, preparing "a whole pot of it, pouring into the pot the cares and the repressed love towards her beloved, which until the end remains a distant, impossible dream," said Michela Becchi in the Italian food publication Gambero Rosso.

Laura Esquivel's lusty, high-emotion novel by the same name was a hit in Spanish. Then Alfonso Arau, Esquivel's husband, directed a movie adaptation in 1992, and the movie and novel reached an international audience. "Flitting gracefully from high comedy to tragedy to whimsy with a sureness born of its unifying vision — a loving celebration of women and the work they do — this is original, arresting and full of visual delight, accelerating gently to an almost unbearable poignancy," said Angie Errigo at Empire. The sway of "Like Water for Chocolate" remains firm: a new series adaptation from Max debuts on November 3.

Oh, the sweet joy of watching Remy the rat's fine-dining kitchen journey. It reminds viewers that dreams are always worth dreaming. As A.O. Scott said at The New York Times when the movie debuted in 2007, "'Ratatouille' is a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film. It provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised."

Spoiler alert! Because this Demi Moore-helmed thriller is brand new, not everyone knows what is what. Not every movie that stars eating and food need be a dewy-eyed paean to pleasure. Food, instead, is a weapon in 2024's "The Substance." Shrimp practically beg for clemency early in the movie when Elisabeth's (Demi Moore) boss slurps and chomps as he fires Elisabeth from her long-running TV show. Later, As Elisabeth gorily cooks her way through a classic French cookbook, the film's stance crystallizes, as it "depicts the cruelty that women face as they age in the glare of the spotlight, and how women can become the agents of such cruelty against themselves. For Elisabeth, each meal becomes an opportunity for self-flagellation," said Mayukh Sen at Eater.

Ostensibly about the hunt for the perfect ramen, Juzo Itami's 1985 film is unafraid to wander. The movie "played with the language of film as it tried to do it all: to be a comedy and a drama, to show death, sex and food all together – sometimes in the same scene," said Richard Vine at The Guardian. Food is sustenance; in "Tampopo," it is also an invitation to experience the breadth of what a life can do and mean.

Rural France at the end of the nineteenth century. A renowned local chef and gourmand draws like-minded eaters to his country home for grand meals, executed with assistance from his second-in-command who also happens to be his lover. Benoît Magimel and Juliette Binoche are astounding as the pair; likewise the extended cooking sequences emulate the true protractedness of complicated cooking. 2023's "The Taste of Things" is an homage to the good life, in its glorious reach and fugacious brevity.

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Scott Hocker is an award-winning freelance writer and editor at The Week Digital. He has written food, travel, culture and lifestyle stories for local, national and international publications for more than 20 years. Scott also has more than 15 years of experience creating, implementing and managing content initiatives while working across departments to grow companies. His most recent editorial post was as editor-in-chief of Liquor.com. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Tasting Table and a senior editor at San Francisco magazine.