Best Food Scenes in Movies

Do not read this list hungry. Or do, and order something.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A deli table with a towering pastrami sandwich, a pickle and a hanging sign-shaped placard above, in a busy old-fashioned deli.

    10. When Harry Met Sally...

    Rob Reiner · 1989

    At Katz's Delicatessen, Sally makes a loud, persuasive point about what men can't tell, and the woman at the next table, Rob Reiner's mother Estelle, orders what she's having. Katz's still marks the table. The sandwich is a pastrami, and nobody remembers that.

  2. A grilled cheese sandwich being sliced on a food truck's flat-top grill, melted cheese stretching, a Cuban sandwich press nearby.

    09. Chef

    Jon Favreau · 2014

    A burned-out chef starts a food truck and the movie stops repeatedly to watch him make Cuban sandwiches and a grilled cheese for his kid. Roy Choi oversaw the food, and Favreau worked in Choi's kitchens to prepare. You will want a sandwich within ten minutes.

  3. A checkered tablecloth on an alley table with one plate of spaghetti and meatballs, a candle in a wine bottle, under a full moon.

    08. Lady and the Tramp

    Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske · 1955

    Two dogs share a plate of spaghetti behind Tony's restaurant while Bella Notte plays, and one noodle ends in a kiss. Walt Disney wanted the scene cut. Animator Frank Thomas found the discarded reel and animated it anyway. Walt kept it. So has every Italian place since.

  4. A big pot of tomato sauce simmering on an old stove, meatballs and sausages beside it, a pink bakery box of cannoli on the counter.

    07. The Godfather

    Francis Ford Coppola · 1972

    Clemenza teaches Michael to make Sunday gravy for a crowd, a sprinkle of sugar included, between discussions of mattresses. Earlier he tells his man to take the cannoli and leave the gun. A lesson in priorities that has outlived most cooking shows.

  5. A kitchen table at 3 a.m. with plates of pasta, a coffee pot and a kitchen knife, a framed painting of two dogs on the wall.

    06. Goodfellas

    Martin Scorsese · 1990

    The crew stops at Tommy's mother's house in the middle of the night with a body in the trunk, and she makes them a full meal. She was played by Scorsese's own mother, Catherine, and the scene was largely improvised. Nobody mentions the trunk. Everyone has seconds.

  6. A round family dining table in Taipei covered with a dozen elaborate dishes, steam rising, three empty chairs.

    05. Eat Drink Man Woman

    Ang Lee · 1994

    A widowed master chef in Taipei prepares a vast Sunday lunch for his three daughters, who barely want to be there. The opening cooking sequence took over a week to film, with a real master chef doubling the actor's hands. The chef is losing his sense of taste. Cruel.

  7. A steaming bowl of ramen on a worn noodle-shop counter, pork slices arranged on top and a pair of chopsticks resting across the rim.

    04. Tampopo

    Juzo Itami · 1985

    Billed as the first ramen western. In the opening, an old master teaches a student how to approach a bowl of ramen with something close to reverence, starting with a long look. Ebert gave it four stars, and Alice Waters made it required viewing for her kitchen staff.

  8. A candlelit wooden table set in a bare Danish parsonage, quail in puff pastry, a tureen of soup and crystal glasses of wine.

    03. Babette's Feast

    Gabriel Axel · 1987

    A French refugee wins 10,000 francs in a lottery and spends every centime on one dinner for a pious Danish village sworn not to enjoy it. Turtle soup, blinis with caviar, quail in pastry. They enjoy it. First Danish film to win the foreign-language Oscar.

  9. A golden dome-shaped baked pasta drum on a carving board, one wedge cut away to show layers, in an empty 1950s Italian restaurant.

    02. Big Night

    Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci · 1996

    Two brothers stake their failing restaurant on one dinner for Louis Prima, and the centerpiece is the timpano, a pasta drum the size of a hatbox. Prima never shows. The film ends with one long, silent take of an omelette. It made $14.2 million on a $4.1 million budget.

  10. A neat spiral of thin-sliced vegetables on a white plate under a warm kitchen lamp, a tiny chef's hat on the counter beside it.

    01. Ratatouille

    Brad Bird · 2007

    A rat serves a feared critic a peasant vegetable dish and one bite sends him back to his mother's kitchen. Thomas Keller designed the fancy layered version for the film. Peter O'Toole voiced the critic. It won the Oscar and made a generation forgive the rat.

Honorable mentions

  • An empty glowing food stall piled with steaming buns and meat, two discarded chopsticks, lanterns overhead at dusk.

    Spirited Away

    Hayao Miyazaki · 2001

    Chihiro's parents help themselves at an empty food stall and turn into pigs, the strongest warning against unattended buffets ever filmed. Later, Haku hands her rice balls and she cries while eating them. Every Miyazaki meal looks better than anything you have had.

Dishonorable mentions

  • An ornate banquet platter of rubbery beetles beside a carved ceremonial monkey-shaped serving bowl, candles flickering.

    Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

    Steven Spielberg · 1984

    The palace banquet serves baby snakes, beetles, eyeball soup and chilled monkey brains, which were raspberry custard. None of it is Indian food, and scholars have documented students hearing it was. The custard was the most authentic thing on the table.

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