The 32 greatest movies about food that will make you hungry

Movies and popcorn are synonymous, but there are also great films that are about food, not just meant to be enjoyed with it. Just as people gather around a screen to watch a work of cinema, they also gather around a table to share food with one another, so it's no wonder that cooking and eating has been the subject of many great works.

Feast upon 32 of the best movies about food ever made. Most of these films will have your stomach grumbling, wishing that you could jump into the screen and enjoy some of the scrumptious-looking meals. However, other films might leave you a little bit nauseated—still about food, but of the sort you shouldn't eat. (With one exception, you also won't find movies about cannibalism, even though such films are technically about food.) The following list of movies includes dramas, romances, biopics, horror movies, and comedies. You won't find any documentaries on the menu, though. Documentaries about food could be a list all their own.

32. Soylent Green

Year: 1973
Director: Richard Fleischer

It seems a bit perverse to put Soylent Green on a list of great food movies, and yet the classic '70s sci-fi film is very much about the titular food product. Starring Charlton Heston as a cop in an over-crowded, dystopian New York City, Soylent Green is about his investigation of a murder that results in a horrifying discovery that might make you think twice about whatever processed snack you're eating. Soylent Green, the go-to meal for most of the population, is made out of the reprocessed bodies of the systematically euthanized elderly. (Heston telling the world about this terrible truth is one of the greatest quotes in sci-fi cinema.)

31. The Stuff

Year: 1985
Director: Larry Cohen

This '80s comedy horror puts a gnarly spin on food trends. When a strange white ooze is discovered in the ground of a quarry, marketers soon capitalize on how the marshmallow fluff-like substance is delicious and has no calories or apparent downsides—other than its completely inexplicable origin, of course. When people across the country start eating "the Stuff," they soon learn that what they're consuming is actually an alien parasite that turns those who eat it into zombies before leaving their corpses a shriveled husk. The Stuff is nicely gross and funny, and it's a surprisingly cutting look at how food products get marketed.

30. Goodburger

Year: 1997
Director: Brian Robbins

A feature-length spin-off of Nickelodeon's kids variety series All That, Goodburger stars Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell as two somewhat stupid teens who get a job working at a burger shop. They soon find themselves having to defend Goodburger against a rival fast food joint. Although it's hardly high art, Goodburger has a bit of a cult following, and even if you don't watch it, it's worth watching Siskel and Ebert get into a heated debate about the standards by which the protagonists should be judged.

29. Waiting…

Year: 2005
Director: Rob McKittrick

Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, and Justin Long star in this indie comedy about a single shift at a fictional chain restaurant called Shenaniganz. Although crass and exaggerated, anybody who has ever worked a service job at a restaurant will probably see something to identify with in Waiting… as it tracks the cast of servers, line cooks, hosts, and other restaurant staff as they deal with nightmare customers, nightmare bosses, and all the other dining headaches.

28. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Year: 2004
Director: Danny Leiner

The first movie in the buddy comedy series is undeniably about food, even if the whole point of the film is how waylaid Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) get in their late-night quest for the fast food chain's iconic sliders. Their quest for munchies has them dealing with raccoon attacks, a freakish tow-truck driver, an insane Neil Patrick Harris, and more, but at the end of the day, they do get to White Castle. And, man… those sliders look good.

27. Julie & Julia

Year: 2009
Director: Nora Ephron

The consensus is that one half of Nora Ephron's movie is great. Julie & Julia is a a biopic about two different subjects, the iconic chef Julia Child (Meryl Streep) who fought gender norms and revolutionized home cooking in the '50s, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a woman in the '00s who decided to blog her efforts to cook every recipe in Child's famed book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. With all due respect to Powell, who died in 2022, Child's story is much more cinematic.

26. The Founder

Year: 2016
Director: John Lee Hancock

Michael Keaton leads this 2016 biopic as Ray Kroc, the businessman who swindled and pushed out brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) from the fast food restaurant they created, establishing a fast food empire in the process. The business world and the restaurant world are both cutthroat, and The Founder combines both to showcase the darkness behind the iconic Golden Arches. Linda Cardellini and Laura Dern co-star.

25. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Year: 1971
Director: Mel Stuart

Gene Wilder stars as the kooky chocolatier in this beloved adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Following young Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) after he and four other children find golden tickets granting them a tour of the whimsical candy factory, the film is a sugary delight (with just enough of Dahl's signature darkness cutting through the sweetness to stop it from getting too saccharine.) It's impossible to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and not imagine touring such a fantastic, yummy-seeming place yourself. Do the snozzberries really taste like snozzberries?

24. Okja

Year: 2017
Director: Bong Joon Ho

Okja, one of acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon Ho's English-language films, is a bizarre parable about capitalism and the meat industry in the way that only Bong's singular films can be. Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) is a young girl who has raised—and befriended—a genetically modified super pig named Okja that kind of resembles a cross between a pig, a hippo, and a few other animals. Tilda Swinton plays Lucy Mirando, the CEO of the corporation behind the super-pigs who is determined to use Okja to revolutionize the pork industry—and make a killing in the process of all the slaughtering.

23. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Year: 2009
Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

A loose adaptation of the beloved 1978 children's book book of the same name, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is about an island where oversized food falls from the sky, with spaghetti and cheeseburgers coming from the clouds rather than rain. In the book, this is a natural phenomena; the movie jazzes up the plot by having the edible weather be the result of a science experiment gone wrong. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who would go on to make The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it's a fun, tasty-looking family comedy.

22. Chef

Year: 2014
Director: Jon Favreau

Jon Favreau directed, wrote, and starred in this 2014 dramedy about a Los Angeles celebrity chef who starts a food truck with his buddies and son after a very public falling from grace at the fancy restaurant where he used to work. It's a very charming little film about regaining one's passions, and in addition to being a great food movie, it's also a pretty good movie about dads, since the relationship between Favreau's Carl and his son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), is a major plot point.

21. Mystic Pizza

Year: 1988
Director: Donald Petrie

Julia Roberts' breakout role came in this 1988 rom-com where she played one of three friends (Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor played the others) working at a pizza shop in the seaside town of Mystic, Connecticut. It's a delectable coming-of-age tale, and the pizza looks great. (However, it must be said that the pizza in the film and in the real-life restaurant is not New Haven-style pizza, which is a shame because that is the best type of pizza, hands down.) Matt Damon also makes his acting debut in this film in a tiny role.

20. The Menu

Year: 2022
Director: Mark Mylod

Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy star as a foodie and his date who go to an exclusive tasting as a fancy fine dining establishment on an island, only to discover that the famous chef behind the restaurant (Ralph Fiennes), has seemingly gone insane. A darkly funny satire about food and influencer culture, The Menu is perhaps not as insightful or smart as some of its biggest fans seem to think it is, but it's a wickedly good time at the movies. It's a popcorn flick, but with maybe just a bit of fancy seasoning on top to elevate it just a little.

19. Waitress

Year: 2007
Director: Adrienne Shelly

Bittersweet is perhaps a bit of an on-the-nose descriptor for a food movie, but this 2007 comedy drama certainly earns the adjective. Keri Russell stars as Jenna Hunterson, a young woman trying to make it working as a waitress in a small town in the South while she deals with an abusive husband (Jeremy Sisto) and an unplanned pregnancy. It's a very observed slice of life—that also prominently features slices of pies, and Waitress was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical of the same name.

18. Soul Food

Year: 1997
Director: George Tillman Jr.

This great Black '90s comedy drama follows an extended family living in Chicago whose members (played by an ensemble cast including Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox, Nia Long, and more), gather each week for Sunday dinner. Over the course of the film, different generations of the family begin to experience different problems, and the distasteful realities of real life threaten to spoil the delicious meal on the table—though as is often the case, enjoying good food with good company ultimately helps it go down a little smoother.

17. Chocolat

Year: 2000
Director: Lasse Hallström

Juliette Binoche leads as Vianne Rocher, a spirited woman who moves to Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, a fictional french village, and opens up a chocolaterie at the end of the 1950s. Her presence and the tasty treats—which are very much at times a stand-in for more carnal pleasures—begin to drive the conservative townsfolk mad and/or wild. Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, and Johnny Depp also star. It's a lighthearted good time, and Chocolat ended up getting six nominations at the Academy Awards, though it didn't win anything.

16. Sideways

Year: 2004
Director: Alexander Payne

Do "drinking" movies count as "food" movies? You can quibble with the definition, but just as a good meal is often accompanied by a nice beverage, so too can food movies. Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church star as two fortysomething friends who are both in a rut and decide to take a trip to California's Central Coast and its many vineyards and wineries. Occasionally dry and occasionally juicy, it's a charming, full-bodied comedy drama. (Fun fact: Giamatti's character goes off on a rant about how much he dislikes Merlot, and indeed sales of that variety were down after Sideways' release.)

15. First Cow

Year: 2019
Director: Kelly Reichardt

John Magaro and Orion Lee star as a traveling cook and a Chinese immigrant in 1820 Oregon who form a close friendship when they start a baking business that they believe can help them escape the frontier and make a life for themselves in the city. The catch is that there is only one cow in the area, forcing Otis "Cookie" Figowitz (Magaro) and King-Lu (Lee) to steal milk from the bovine so they can make their treats. A festival darling when it was first released before it went on to be one of the most acclaimed films of an otherwise largely barren 2020, First Cow is a beautiful, tragic story about friendship and food.

14. Goodfellas

Year: 1990
Director: Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas isn't primarily a food movie the way lots of other films in this genre are—it's a gangster movie, first and foremost—but the sequence where rising mob man Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) cooks an elaborate dinner behind bars with his fellow criminals is one of the greatest cooking scenes in all of film. (The key is using a razor blade to slice the garlic so thin that it liquefies in the pan with just a little oil.) That alone makes Goodfellas an instant entry on any list of great movies about food.

13. The Trip

Year: 2010
Director: Michael Winterbottom

British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play fictionalized versions of themselves in The Trip, a movie adaptation of a BBC TV series of the same name. The Trip follows the pair as they go to some of the country's finest restaurants for Coogan to review them for a publication, with Brydon tagging along after Coogan's girlfriend ditches him. Largely improvised, The Trip is a low-key but side-splitting affair, highlighting some of the funny banter that makes meals so special. The company at the table can be just as important as the food on the plate.

12. The Lunchbox

Year: 2013
Director: Ritesh Batra

A Mumbai housewife in a stagnant marriage (Nimrat Kaur) strikes up an unlikely friendship with a widowed businessman (Irrfan Khan) when the lunch she's prepared for her husband is accidentally delivered to the wrong person. The mix-up prompts these two strangers to start exchanging letters with one another, and the pair soon realize their connection goes much deeper than just a food flub. The Lunchbox was a hit in India and acclaimed abroad as well, although behind-the-scenes drama with the Film Federation of India prevented it from getting the Best Foreign Film nomination at the Oscars many assumed it would.

11. Macario

Year: 1960
Director: Roberto Gavaldón

This acclaimed Mexican film follows Macario, a poor Indigenous woodcutter (Ignacio López Tarso) who is determined not to die until he's eaten an entire roast turkey all by himself. When his wife steals a turkey to make his dream come true, Macario is soon confronted by God, the Devil, and a peasant who later reveals himself to be Death, all wanting a bite for themselves. Macario refuses the first two but offers to share with the third, leading to a friendship with Death incarnate that comes with all sorts of complications. It's a food fairy tale and a classic work of Mexican cinema.

10. Little Forest

Year: 2018
Director: Yim Soon-rye

A South Korean adaptation of a Japanese slice-of-life manga series, Little Forest follows Song Hye-won (Kim Tae-ri), a woman who has abandoned her dream of trying to make it in the big city and returned to her childhood home in the little, traditional village where she grew up. As she takes stock of her life, reconnecting with old memories and old friends, she prepares and cooks a lot of food. Little Forest is an extremely low-stakes, unhurried, and comforting movie. Sometimes it's just nice to get lost in a kitchen.

9. Big Night

Year: 1996
Directors: Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci (who co-directs) and Tony Shalhoub play a pair of Italian immigrant brothers in the 1950s who own a struggling restaurant on the Jersey Shore. In a bid to gain exposure and buzz, they decided to host a night of free food and beverages, hoping that the guests (including a famous jazz trumpeter they believe will be in attendance) will be impressed and rave about it. However, pots on the stove aren't the only thing simmering as the duo prepare for this big, high-stakes night; their personal drama threatens to heat up as well. It's a lovely movie about food and family.

8. Spirited Away

Year: 2001
Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Another one of those movies that spiritually counts as a food movie even though food isn't necessarily the driving plot, Hayao Miyazaki's anime masterpiece might have some of Studio Ghibli's tastiest-looking meals. That's saying something, considering how the studio is legendary for its animated dishes. Food does play an essential role in Spirited Away, as it's only after young Chihiro's parents eat a banquet of food they're not meant to and turn into pigs that she finds herself working at a bathhouse for spirits. Food comes up again in one of the most emotional scenes when Chihiro breaks down in this strange world while eating a rice cake, and again when the ravenous spirit No-Face starts devouring everything.

7. Boiling Point

Year: 2021
Director: Philip Barantini

Cooking can be magical and meditative—and it often is portrayed this way on screen. Kitchens can also be stressful nightmares, which Boiling Point captures extremely well. Filmed in one take that really showcases how unrelenting the complications of a restaurant kitchen can be, Boiling Point stars Stephen Graham as Andy Jones, a head chef of a fancy London restaurant who is having an awful night as everything goes wrong in the kitchen and in his personal life.

6. The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and Her Lover

Year: 1989
Director: Peter Greenaway

The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and Her Lover is, forgive the pun, a lot to digest but it's an incredible cinematic meal. Starring Helen Mirren as the abused wife of a nasty criminal (Michael Gambon) who has taken a lover (Alan Howard) at the fancy restaurant her husband frequents (where Richard Bohringer plays the head chef), the graphic, lavish, and lurid art film is a sensory overwhelming masterpiece. It won't be to everybody's taste, but it looks incredible.

5. Babette's Feast

Year: 1987
Director: Gabriel Axel

One of the most acclaimed Danish films, Babette's Feast is about a French housekeeper (Stéphane Audran) who comes to work for two elderly ladies who live in an elderly and fading religious community in 19th-century Denmark. For more than a decade, Babette cooks for them, eventually culminating in a massive, fancy feast and a revelation about Babette's past. Warm and delicious-looking, Babette's Feast is a celebration of the art of cooking with all the love and creation that goes into it.

4. The Taste of Things

Year: 2023
Director: Tran Anh Hùng

A gourmet romance, The Taste of Things is an acclaimed French film about an esteemed professional chef (Benoît Magimel) in 1889 who lives with and has a longstanding romantic relationship with his personal cook (Juliette Binoche). Although they are undeniably in love with one another, they have not gotten married, and The Taste of Things is a beautiful exploration of the way that we use food to show how we feel about one another. The Taste of Things was a critical success, though at the Oscars that year it was overshadowed by another, much-less-delicious French film, Anatomy of a Fall.

3. Eat Drink Man Woman

Year: 1994
Director: Ang Lee

One of the finest films about fathers and daughters in addition to being a mouth-watering food movie, Ang Lee's quiet masterpiece stars Lung Sihung as Zhu, an elderly master chef and widowed father to three young adult women in Taiwan. All three daughters have their own issues they're dealing with—his eldest has devoted herself to Christianity after heartbreak, his middle daughter is a successful businessman who wanted to be a chef like dad but was dissuaded from it, and the youngest is still in college, working at a fast food restaurant. As all three daughters experience life events, it changes the dynamic between all four members of the family. It's a beautiful and rich look at family, featuring several sequences where Zhu cooks a meal so delicious-looking you'll wish you could jump into the movie and dine with them.

2. Tampopo

Year: 1985
Director: Juzo Itami

One of the most charming and warmly odd movies ever made, Tampopo follows the titular widowed owner of a truck stop ramen joint (Nobuko Miyamoto) who is struggling to make her restaurant a success. Gorō (Tsutomu Yamazaki) is a veteran trucker who also knows his way around a noodle, and he volunteers to teach Tampopo the art of noodle soup making. This main plot is accompanied by numerous vignettes of other food-related stories, including a group of Japanese businessmen struggling with Western dining etiquette at a fancy French restaurant, lovers involving food in their romance, and more. Tampopo is a singular ode to food and film that lovers of both arts will enjoy.

1. Ratatouille

Year: 2007
Director: Brad Bird

Pixar's best film is perhaps the most magical, wondrous film about the joy of cooking. Patton Oswalt voices Remy, a rat living outside of Paris who wants to experience fine dining rather than eating trash like the rest of his rodent family. Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) is a hapless, culinarily inept garbage boy working at a fancy restaurant. When Remy and Linguini have a chance encounter that results in the human realizing the rat can hide under his chef's hat and puppeteer him to greatness in the kitchen, they become a cooking sensation. Ratatouille is a beautifully animated celebration of fancy restaurants and fine food, but more than that, it's declaring its wonderful central message: anyone can cook.