Searching For The Best Food Movie?
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My List Of Some Of The Best Food Movies
Picking the best movie has proven to be very difficult though as best lists are always subject to interpretation. What each individual enjoys in a movie is different. You could be looking for drama, romance, comedy or a myriad of other qualities in your movies. Maybe you LOVE an actor like Johnny Depp (I do) or maybe you do not.
I was, therefore, fairly loose with this list. I chose to include those movies that appeal to me from Amazon's bestseller lists and those that are frequently discussed on other best food movie lists.
I will definitely be looking for your ideas and recommendations. As a matter of fact, you can vote for your favorite food movie which will help us come up with a short list of the best-ever food movies. Plus, you can add your recommendations in the comment box near the end on this page and I'll consider adding them to the master list.
By the way, I have chosen to exclude foreign language movies with English subtitles because, generally speaking, I do not enjoy them. I have also excluded food documentaries as I was looking for entertaining movies and not-so-much informative ones.
Since I keep finding new cooking movies that I have NOT seen but which sound interesting, this page is sure to be a growing resource. Be sure to bookmark it and to come back and see what new movies we have added to the list. It would also be great if you come back to add your review of any new movies that you see.
Contents at a Glance
Feast On These Movies!
Chocolat
Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche literally sizzle in this Academy Award nominated movie.
Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, Chocolat is a wonderful movie packed with it all. That is, with great talent, chocolate and sizzle. The star studded cast features Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Juliette Binoche, Alfred Molina and Lena Olin.
The story? Vianne Rocher travels with her young daughter, encountering much skepticism and resistance in France in a conservative, rural town when they open a beautiful chocolate shop during Lent. However, the townsfolk soon embrace her zest for life and her chocolates. All that is, except the major who wants to have her shop closed. In this movie, Vianne teaches the townsfolk about acceptance when a group of river drifters arrives and she falls in love at the same time.
I definitely love this movie. I love the book and I love the soundtrack.
Click here to order this
Chocolat movie poster from Amazon
or right here to order the movie
on DVD or blu-ray.
"One Taste Is All It Takes"
Chocolat Trailer From YouTube
Yes, one taste of this video and you're going to want to see this movie or, like me, watch it again and you might find yourself wanting some chocolate!
Amazon Customer Review of the Chocolate Blu-ray Movie
Mark Zablotny says, "This is NOT a chick flick!"
"First off, I like good movies with "guts" - i.e. - if you liked Armageddon (or most of the movies produced today) we are in two different worlds. Chocolat is not a "girlie" movie. It was very cleverly written and has great acting. Dame Judith Dench was particularly outstanding (my favorite movie of hers). The blu-ray version is clear and vibrant. Superlative movie in every way." ~~ Mark Zablotny
Click here to order your copy of
Chocolat on blu-ray
from Amazon.
List Price: $32.99
Price: $26.99 with free shipping
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More Chocolat
Chocolat on DVD and the Chocolat Book By Joane Harris
Ratatouille
Rat-a-too-ee ~~ Remy spices up life in this Acadamy Award winning movie.
No, I haven't gone crazy and no, I'm not a particularly big fan of animated movies, either but Ratatouille is another story altogether. I love Ratatouille. It is the animated movie that I set out to buy FOR ME and NOT for my children. I love the fact that this movie is set in Paris (it is actually installed as my wallpaper on my computer) and I love the food in the kitchen where Remy aspires to work. That pot of soup, c'est magnifique!
And no, I wouldn't ordinarily want a rat in my kitchen, but for this world-famous, well-loved rat named Remy, I would make an exception!
How can you resist a food movie that was nominated for FIVE Academy Awards which included Original Score, Achievement in Sound Editing, Achievement in Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay and Animated Feature Film and the category in which it won, Best Animated Feature?
Click here to order this
Ratatouille cast movie poster
from Amazon.
"He's dying to become a chef!"
Ratatouille Movie Trailer
Amazon Customer Review of the Ratatouille Blu-ray Movie
"A Rat Chef Dishes Up Delights...Bon Appetit!" ~~ Gerard D. Launay
"Everything about this film is wonderful...the streets of Paris are recreated in rich colors and exquisite detail. I haven't seen a European city look this good in an animated film since Disney's "Pinocchio." Yes, it is definitely worth experiencing this delight on Blu-Ray. Oh my, even the French copper pots look authentic." ~~ Gerard D. Launay
Click here to order your copy of
Ratatouille on blu-ray
from Amazon.
More Ratatouille
Visit My Dedicated Ratatouille Movie Review
Julie and Julia
Based on two true cooking stories.
If you like cooking and you like movies, there is no way you could have missed the presence of this movie this past year. You might, however, have been unable to fit it into your busy schedule yet. (I have not.) However, do to the immense popularity of the Julie and Julia blog, the Julie and Julia book and the movie, I am assuming it is a must add movie to this list and I have put it firmly on my list to watch this weekend. I will definitely report back.
Meanwhile, the story, in case you just happen to have missed it. Young Julie was a bored office worker who decided to give her life a focus by cooking every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook...and blogging about it. One book and one movie later, I guess you'd have to call her experiment a success!
The cast features Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Vanessa Ferlito. About Streep, Rolling Stone reviewer Peter Travers wrote, "Meryl Streep - at her brilliant, beguiling best - is the spice that does the trick for the yummy Julie & Julia."
Kenneth Turan, writing for the Los Angeles Times, said "[Julie & Julia] does it right. A consummate entertainment that echoes the rhythms and attitudes of classic Hollywood, it's a satisfying throwback to those old-fashioned movie fantasies where impossible dreams do come true. And, in this case, it really happened. Twice."
Definitely sounds like a food movie worthy of any foodie's attention.
Click here to order
this Julie & Julia movie poster
from Amazon.
The Julie/Julia Project
Julie and Julia Movie Trailer
I cook my way through Julia Child's cookbook, 365 days, 524 recipes.
High Def Digest Review of Julie & Julia
Click here to order your copy of
Julie & Julia on Blu-ray
from Amazon.
More Julie & Julia
Julie and Julia Book Review
If you are interested in reading more about the book, you will find my review page at this link.
Pieces of April Movie Review
An unexpectedly lovely Thanksgiving movie.
Cooking With Stella
Here's a brand-new food movie that will transport you to Delhi, India and feed you, too!
More Cooking With Stella Information
An interesting new food movie that I just discovered but have not seen yet.
- Cooking With Stella ~~ Indian Food and A Movie
- My blog post on Music & Movie Treasures By Brenda, with a longer discussion of this movie.
- Cooking with Stella (2009) - Plot Summary
- A newly posted Canadian diplomatic couple Michael and Maya arrive with their baby and, after an initial jolt when she learns that Michael will be staying home as "diplomatic housewife" while Maya goes off to work, everything goes swimmingly for Stella. Michael was a chef in Ottawa and he is longing to learn authentic Indian cooking. Stella agrees to be his "cooking guru". But Stella's cozy domestic set-up implodes when Tannu, an honest nanny, joins the household, and threatens to expose Stella's deceptions.
The Best Food Movie, A List
Vote for your favorite food and cooking movies here.
The following movies are on my to-see list; they are cooking or food related movies that I have seen recommended elsewhere. I have chosen to leave the movies that I have seen on this list so that it can operate as a complete reference of cooking movies.
You can vote any of your favorite movies up on this list by clicking on that little gray arrow on the left. Also, please feel free to bookmark this page or print and use this list as your list of movies to see. Finally, don't forget to add any food themed movies that I have missed in the comment box below along with your reason for recommending them!
And oh, yes, you can click on this link to see the food themed movies that Amazon has available PLUS you can click on any of the links shown on this list of movies to read more about or to buy that particular movie on Amazon.
1
Julie & Julia (On my short list to watch.)
Julie & Julia is based on the book by Julie Powell, a frustrated New York bureaucrat who wants to be a writer. "But you're not a writer until someone publishes you," she moans. So she gives herself a challenge: to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and to blog about it. As Powell (played with chirpy determination by Amy Adams), begins to find her groove as a cook, and her voice as a writer, the project takes on a life of its own...
2
Pieces of April
Rebellious daughter April Burns has offered to host an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner for her suburban clan in her grubby Lower East Side apartment. But her attempts to create an unforgettable feast go awry when she discovers that her oven doesn't work. Read my complete Pieces of April review by clicking right here.
3
Chocolat (One of my absolute favorite movies.)
Chocolat is a beautiful and captivating comedy. Nobody could have imagined the impact that the striking Vianne would make when she arrived in a tranquil, old-fashioned French town. In her very unusual chocolate shop, Vianne begins to create mouth-watering confections that almost magically inspire the straitlaced villagers to abandon themselves to temptation and happiness!
4
Woman on Top
When Isabella decides to break free from her rocky marriage and move to San Francisco, she discovers the perfect recipe for coming out on top - her own hit TV cooking show. But when her producer falls in love and her ex-husband comes to town to win her affection back, who knows which man will end up on the bottom?
5
Eat Drink Man Woman
This is not a movie to see on an empty stomach. Writer-director Ang Lee's 1994 Oscar nominee tells a family story about a chef and his three daughters through the meals the chef prepares and serves his family. This touching, dryly funny story of a family coping with personal lives and the way those lives intersect with the family relationships captures a shift in generations in Taipei. The father, a famous chef who has lost his taste buds, still cooks, though he draws no pleasure from eating.
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Spanglish
John Clasky is a devoted dad whose skills as a chef have afforded his family a very upscale life, including a summer home in Malibu and a breathtaking new housekeeper, Flor who has recently immigrated to L.A. from Mexico, and is trying to find a better life for her remarkable daughter, Cristina, who is rapidly embracing the American way of life.
7
Fried Green Tomatoes
After befriending a lonely old woman, Bates hears the story of a lifelong friendship between two other women who once ran a cafe in town against many personal odds. The tale inspires Bates to take further command over her life. Bates develops a real attitude toward her thickheaded spouse at home and some uppity girls in a parking lot, but dignity is generally the key to Avnet's approach with the story's crucial relationships.
8
Ratatouille (The French chef, Remy, stole my heart!)
A break-through comedy with something for everyone. With delightful new characters experience Paris from an all-new perspective. In one of Paris' finest restaurants Remy a determined young rat dreams of becoming a renowned French chef. Torn between his family's wishes and his true calling Remy and his pal Linguini set in motion a hilarious chain of events that turns the City of Lights upside down.
9
Babette's Feast
Some movies can only be described as delicious. In Babette's Feast, a woman flees the French civil war and lands in a small seacoast village in Denmark, where she comes to work for two spinsters, devout daughters of a puritan minister. After many years, Babette unexpectedly wins a lottery, and decides to create a real French dinner--which leads the sisters to fear for their souls. Joining them for the meal will be a Danish general who, as a young soldier, courted one of the sisters.
10
Mostly Martha
Mostly Martha is a rich addition to the recent banquet of movies about food. Martha, the domineering chef at a fancy restaurant, has her rigid routine broken when her sister dies in a car wreck, leaving behind her 9-year-old daughter Lina. Martha takes the girl in, but has no gift for maternal expression; she offers Lina food, but Lina refuses to eat...
11
Tortilla Soup
Three grown sisters try to cope with thier father who has one simple rule: be at home for sunday dinner. Attendance is mandatory and non-negotiable. Tradition is not to be messed with. Heated talk of course is as common as jalapenos.
12
Dinner Rush
During the course of one frenzied evening, a restaurant owner and bookmaker deals with a potential hostile takeover, a snooty critic, and his attraction to his dead partner's widow. Danny Aiello and John Corbett bring the behind-the-scenes drama of a NYC Italian restaurant to life through an exciting tale of gangsters and gourmet food.
13
Big Night
Big Night is an intimate look at the immigrant struggle to attain the American Dream, set in New Jersey in the 1950s. The brothers in Big Night, chef Primo and businessman Secondo, have come to New Jersey to open a bistro named The Paradise that serves the finest in traditional, authentic Italian cuisine. Their every move is foiled by rival restaurant Pascal's, which serves mile-high servings of spaghetti and meatballs and flasks of bad Chianti at exorbitant prices.
14
Like Water for Chocolate
Tita and Pedro are passionately in love. But their love is forbidden by an ancient family tradition. To be near Tita, Pedro marries her sister. And Tita, as the family cook, expresses her passion for Pedro through preparing delectable dishes. Now, in Tita's kitchen, ordinary spices become a recipe for passion. Her creations bring on tears of longing, heated desire, or chronic pain -- while Tita and Pedro wait for the moment to fulfill their most hidden pleasures.
15
I Like Killing Flies
A flavorful snack of a documentary, I LIKE KILLING FLIES is a hearty tribute to the quick-witted, cantankerous chef whose Greenwich Village restaurant, Shopsins, has become a New York legend. With more than 900 items on its menu, all made from scratch in a tiny kitchen humming with improvised Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, Shopsins has long been a quirky gem of New York food culture.
16
What's Cooking?
At first glance, What's Cooking? looks like it was dreamed up by some politically correct screenwriting committee: a series of overlapping stories that intercut among four families (one Hispanic, one Vietnamese, one African American, one Jewish) all preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. But what could be toothless and smarmy is made gripping and genuinely affecting by a mixture of observant writing, fluid direction, and a truly superb ensemble of actors.
17
The Green Butchers
"The Green Butchers" brings you the dynamic duo of Bjarne and Svend, two pals who decide to open their own butcher shop. Grappling with a competitive market and an evil ex-boss, the two come up with a special dish that suddenly has everyone flocking to their counter and dying for more. As business heats up however, so does the competition and suddenly everyone is asking about Bjarne and Svend's "special ingredients."
18
Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley top the bill of fare in this food- and fun-filled mystery garnished with wit. Segal plays a glib fast-food tycoon and Bisset is his ex-wife, a pastry chef who may become the last course in an enigmatic killer's banquet of death. Morley has a tasty field day as an acerbic gourmet magazine publisher whose cascading series of chins and stomachs bear witness to his love of fine dining.
19
Masterpiece Theatre - Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton
Just as Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart have turned Americans and Britons into nations of wannabe domestic goddesses, the Victorians had their own preacher in the shape of Mrs. Isabella Beeton.
20
Eating Raoul
The Blands are a couple living in swinging Los Angeles with their ultra-conservative ways. They find it hard to live life in the midst of all of the completely obnoxious swinging bachelors. Their dreams of running a small restaurant seem to be in jeopardy until they devise a plan to off the swingers in their apartment building with the use of a frying pan to the head, dispose of the bodies and keep the wallets.
21
Eat This New York
Eat This NY is a documentary about 2 best friends struggling to open a bistro in Brooklyn. Suffering through financial crisis and a crumbling friendship, the two friends learn what it really takes to open and run a restaurant. As a foil to these novices, the filmmakers turn their camera on legends of the NY food world, going behind the scenes at Le Cirque, Balthazar, Gramercy Tavern, Jean Georges, and other four star eateries.
22
In the Weeds
Simmering with comedy and passion, this tasty movie treat is a stylish look at the highs and lows of one night at a cool New York City restaurant. Everyone knows that the waiters and waitresses at a busy big city bistro are really just aspiring actors, models, and writers looking for a shot at stardom. What they don't know is that tonight...some will get their big break, some will break up and others will break....
More Food Movies
My Best-Ever Recipe Collection
For those of you who are, like me, always looking for a new recipe!
What is your favorite food movie? What cooking movie(s) do you think I should add to this list?
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SalmonRecipes
Nov 23, 2011 @ 3:13 am | delete
- My favorite movie is Ratatouille it is awesome movie.
I am going to my childhood automatically when I watch this movie.
:D
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clouda9
Sep 30, 2011 @ 10:21 pm | delete
- Had to stop by again today...read your headline in my paper. *Blessed as I flit on outta here to read the rest :)
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gonzalezdenise
Sep 13, 2011 @ 8:22 pm | delete
- Never heard of Chocolate. You have a very interesting lens.
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ToTheTooth
Sep 8, 2011 @ 12:05 am | delete
- Short Order is pretty amazing
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wahm4u
Aug 4, 2011 @ 9:23 pm | delete
- Love Ratatouille...and it's health! Love your lens too!
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howdoyouspellstupid
Oct 23, 2010 @ 2:55 am | delete
- What a great list of food movies!! I've only seen a couple of these... including Ratatouille, which was awesome! Now I'm hungry, and I want to watch these!!
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CreativeArtist Mar 15, 2010 @ 3:01 pm | delete
- I recommend two Brenda; Ramen Girl, and No Reservation.
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TopMovieSoundtracks Feb 23, 2010 @ 5:51 am | delete
- Love the idea of this lens. Have one more movie to add -- Tanpopo -- a Japanese movie about ramen noodles
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Treasures-By-Brenda
Mar 26, 2010 @ 8:04 pm | delete
- Another interesting recommendation. Thank you!
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SoyCandleLover-Maker
Jan 26, 2010 @ 9:24 pm | delete
- What a great topic. I didn't realize how much i liked cooking and food movies until viewing your listing. I've seen most of these and like them all, so it's hard to pick a favorite
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Treasures-By-Brenda
Jan 22, 2010 @ 3:47 pm | delete
- Okay. I did it, Susan. I watched Julie & Julia and I loved it. I loved the scenes in Paris and the food. Good story but make sure you don't miss the extras. One is all about Julia Child's career; the other about the making of the movie. Meryl Streep put on 15 pounds making this film!
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WordCustard
Jan 21, 2010 @ 4:36 pm | delete
- Mmm, delicious! A wonderful selection here, and some new ones for me to taste.. er, watch. ;)
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Treasures-By-Brenda
Mar 26, 2010 @ 8:03 pm | delete
- Taste away!
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hlkljgk Jan 20, 2010 @ 12:40 am | delete
- such a great idea
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Pukeko
Jan 18, 2010 @ 4:18 am | delete
- Interesting list of movie. Makes me hungry.
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MiaBellezza
Jan 17, 2010 @ 8:39 am | delete
- My favorite food movie that I see listed here is "Friend Green Tomatoes" though I wouldn't want to taste the (real theme recipe) of the movie - blaaah! I also enjoyed Chocolat, and would like to see Julie & Julia. I have one of Julia Child's old recipe books and she's the master.
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mistyriver
Jan 15, 2010 @ 10:40 pm | delete
- Chocolat is one of my favorites (it doesn't hurt that Johnny Depp is in it!). I also love Julie and Julia, it surpassed any of my expectations based on reviews! And Ratatouille is so cute, who can pick a favorite, they are all so good!
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Kylyssa
Jan 14, 2010 @ 4:58 pm | delete
- Awesome collection of movies! I really want to see Julie & Julia. Since I enjoy cooking and looking at what my roommate calls "food porn" these are my kind of movies.
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mariatjader
Jan 13, 2010 @ 10:02 am | delete
- Great collection of wonderful films!
I was especially happy to see the Pieces of April on the plexo, although my ever favourite is the Chocolat. Enjoyed the Julie & Julia a lot as well ..
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Treasures-By-Brenda
Jan 14, 2010 @ 9:19 am | delete
- I have a copy of Pieces of April on hand and ready to be viewed, I was glad to receive your comment at this time.
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by Treasures-By-Brenda
If you are looking for the best food movie, you are sure to find it on this list. If you have a favorite, make sure to cast your vote!
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