Here at BA, we obviously love food. We also love movies. Which means that, most of all, we love food movies—or, at the very least, movies with tantalizing food scenes in ’em. From Tampopo all the way to Birds of Prey, these films offer us wondrous escapism, allowing us to consume all kinds of food without actually leaving the couch. Though BYO snacks are, of course, recommended. (Just try and watch Eat Pray Love without ordering pizza, I dare you.) Whether they give us opportunities to live vicariously through our favorite characters or simply inspiration for tonight’s dinner, these food movies hold a special place in our hearts and stomachs.
Bao
I watched Bao, Pixar’s short film about a mom and her anthropomorphic bao son, on an airplane, and I cried so loudly and effusively that I’m sure my seatmate is still trotting out the story at dinner parties. This movie is for parents, children, and anyone who wants to be emotionally manipulated. Pair with Brandon Jew’s Mantou Knots. —MacKenzie Chung Fegan, senior commerce editor
Big Night
Watching Big Night is like observing my dream dinner party play out before my eyes. People dance, they drink, they lay on a table in a food coma (relatable), and—of course—they eat! Most of the movie focuses on one big night when a pair of brothers from Italy throw a blowout party to attract a famous Italian American singer in the hopes that it boosts their struggling Italian restaurant in New Jersey. My stomach always grumbles nonstop when I see the brothers serve course after course of a decadent meal that ends with an incredible baked pasta known as a timpano. That might be too intense to make for a movie night, so I recommend pairing the film with spaghetti and meatballs, risotto, or an omelet to match an incredibly emotional closing scene. —Olivia Quintana, associate manager, social media
Birds of Prey
Birds of Prey is a silly and entertaining adventure that follows DC’s Harley Quinn after she and the Joker end their tumultuous relationship and she’s left to navigate the world and its challenges without the protection of the Clown Prince of Crime. What this movie does so well is showcase Harley’s chaotic, passionate personality, and, in one iconic scene, her deep appreciation for the perfect egg sandwich. Nothing soothes a person more than a comforting breakfast sandwich with, as Harley puts it, “Egg! Bacon! American cheese! Soft, toasted buttered roll! Just a dash of hot sauce!” The scene perfectly captures the art of making an egg sandwich. You see the obsession in Harley’s eyes and then find yourself craving one no matter what time of day you’re watching. Pair this movie, obviously, with a breakfast sandwich or a hefty, hash brown–stuffed burrito. May your cooking adventure be less trouble than Harley’s. —Jessie YuChen, contributor
Chef
Chef features Jon Favreau as chef Carl Casper, who’s in “a creative rut,” working at a restaurant in L.A. that forces him to serve boring chocolate lava cake over and over to guests. When a famous food critic pans his meal (even though the cake looked pretty good, IMO) in a brutal review that goes viral, Carl throws a fit both on Twitter and IRL in front of all the guests and staff. He’s done! So he quits and opens up El Jefe, a bombastic food truck specializing in the most indulgent Cubanos slathered in butter and cheese. And he takes along his son and his old friend and line cook as they drive through America delighting hungry pedestrians. I love the film’s shots and sounds of frantic slicing and frying and sizzling, but also its depiction of food culture, all the people who make it up, and all their chaos and joy. Make a Cubano beforehand and pair it with a refreshing cocktail. —Karen Yuan, lifestyle editor
Eat Pray Love
I can tell my colleagues know how obsessed I am with Italy from the amount of times they’ve edited jokey-but-actually-serious Eat Pray Love references out of my pieces. Still, I prevail. This feel-good film, based on the 2006 namesake memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, is a feast for the senses. The author, burned-out from her divorce and big corporate life, takes a year off to travel through Italy, India, and Indonesia to find herself. (Feel you, Liz.) The first third of the film is set mostly in Rome, where she eats salmon-hued gelato on a stone bench with some cute nuns, wanders through a food market to watch butchers hack passionately at cuts of meat, takes Italian lessons with the delicious Giovanni over plates of golden fried squash blossoms, and hosts a Friendsgiving with her new pals. It’s a dreamy, romantic reminder that food fills us up in more ways than one. Watch it with an enorme bowl of Bucatini all'Amatriciana or a sheet-pan pizza. —Ali Francis, associate editor
The Farewell
Almost all my family memories are centered around meals—and the same is true for Billi in The Farewell. Billi returns to China where her beloved Nai Nai (“grandmother”) is, unknowingly to the latter, diagnosed with cancer. So much of the family dynamic plays out around a table, whether it’s in Nai Nai’s apartment, a restaurant dining room, or a wedding banquet. When Billi surprises her family at the beginning of the movie, she’s immediately ushered to a table to eat, and I couldn’t help but think of how I get the same treatment, whether it’s from my mom in Texas or when we see her sisters in Singapore. Watch this movie with your favorite comfort foods (congee, for me), because there will be tears. —O.Q.
Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers
As Bon Appétit’s official Garlic Girl, I simply had to talk about Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers. Les Blank’s 1980 mouthwatering documentary plunges into the history of garlic in the United States and centers the people who look at a recipe and think, “Two cloves of garlic?! Make it forty.” Featuring interviews from Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters to members of the garlic appreciation society, Lovers of the Stinking Rose, Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers is more than a documentary. It’s a love letter to the edible bulb that serves as the base to so many of our favorite dishes. This movie deserves a pairing that calls for one head of garlic minimum. Enter: Garlic-and-Parmesan-Braised Greens. —Esra Erol, senior manager, social media
Howl’s Moving Castle
My favorite parts of every Studio Ghibli movie are always the mystical side characters—Jiji the cat, Yakul the elk, or My Neighbor Totoro’s iconic cat bus, to name a few—and the mouthwatering food scenes. Something truly magical happens when the two overlap, and there’s no better example than the breakfast scene from Howl’s Moving Castle. Starting the moment Sophie plops down the thick-cut slabs of bacon, there’s a satisfying fluidity to every action, from Howl cracking the eggs to the way their whites bubble as they hit the pan. But best of all is Calcifer—the sassy sentient fire fueling Howl’s magical fortress—gobbling up the egg shells, his flame. The scene is less than a minute long, but of all the unforgettable moments and mind-blowing imagery, it’s always been the film’s most indelible in my mind. A simple, wholesome meal where no one, not even the stove itself, goes hungry. It makes me wish my stove were alive to keep me company while I make molletes, breakfast burritos, or a filling multipart hash to eat alongside the film. —Nico Avalle, digital operations associate
Julie & Julia
If there was a movie moment I resonated with most during the pandemic, it was seeing Amy Adams as Julie Powell have a meltdown on her kitchen floor. We’ve all been there, right? Right? All jokes aside, this movie is a perfect nostalgic watch. You get the parallel timelines of Julie Powell cooking through Julia Child’s cookbook and Julia Child settling into life in France and learning to cook herself. There are as many cooking challenges (think onion chopping, lobster boiling, deboning a duck) as victories. Plus, I will always watch Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci talk about food. Pair with some Beef Bourguignonne, easy crepes, or this seven-hour leg of lamb. —O.Q.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
This is a love story with food (and Windex) at the center of it. Thirty-year-old unmarried Toula Portokalos lives in a blue-and-white house with her very traditional Greek family in Chicago. They also own a Greek diner called Dancing Zorba’s, where Toula works as a waitress and eventually meets her future husband, Ian Miller. The catch? Ian isn’t Greek, and he’s also a vegetarian, which doesn’t go over well with Toula’s Aunt Voula when she offers to cook for him. My favorite scene happens when Ian’s parents meet Toula’s family to celebrate their engagement. Ian’s mother brings a Bundt cake, and what follows is a back-and-forth between Toula’s and Ian’s mothers that is giggle-inducing: What is it? It’s a Bundt. A bun? Bundt. Bun-Bunk? Bunk? Bundt! Buuunnndt. BUNDT! BUNDT! Make sure this toffee-date bundt cake is ready to go and imagine Toula’s mother, Maria, saying, “There’s a hole in this cake.” —Kate Kassin, editorial operations associate
Mystic Pizza
The movie centers around three young women who work in—you guessed it—a pizza shop, which serves as a home base of sorts where the girls argue, go through breakups, and even get married. And while much of the plot centers around their love lives, some of my favorite scenes are tied to an elite food reviewer with the potential to put Mystic Pizza on the map. If you didn’t carve out enough time to make a pizza (though I really think you should), pizza beans are also an acceptable pairing. If you really want to think outside the box, you could cook some fish to honor the moment when Julia Roberts dumps an entire truck full of fish into her date’s Porsche. —O.Q.
Parallel Mothers
The latest film from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar deals in aesthetic delight, plot twists that strike viewers with emotional whiplash, and abundant sexual tension between beautiful people. The film stars Penélope Cruz, who earned a 2022 Academy Award nomination for her role as Janis, a fashion photographer embarking on the journey of motherhood after a summer fling with an archaeologist she enlisted to help women from her village properly bury family members entombed in mass graves during the Spanish Civil War. In the maternity hospital, Janis meets Ana, a teenage single mother who is apprehensive about parenthood and lacks a support system at home. Janis and Ana’s lives quickly become entangled in ways neither sees coming.
Food anchors the absolutely bonkers plot by providing a relatable backdrop of domesticity. In one scene, Janis has taken Ana into her own home after she’s been cut off by her family. In the magnificent kitchen in her Madrid apartment, Janis teaches Ana how to cook, peeling potatoes and chatting. It’s an apt depiction of the veneer of perfection that Janis has cultivated in Ana’s presence, hiding a terrible secret all the while. Best to watch it all fall apart over comfort food, like patatas bravas from a Michelin-starred chef. —Jenna Adrian-Diaz, assistant to the editor in chief
Parasite
After watching it three times in theaters, it’s safe to say that Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite was my favorite movie of 2019. This genre-bending Korean film follows an impoverished family scamming their way into working for a wealthy one. The Academy Award–winning film cleverly uses food as a means to push integral plot points along. From symbolizing financial progression, to devising sinister plays against other characters, food is used as both a weapon and a cinematic tool. Take the infamous Ram-don scene: A casual celebration of faux-professional success turns into a night of horrors, all while the mother needs to cook an unfamiliar dish for the wealthy family when they return home. More formally known as Jjapaguri, Ram-don is a hybrid dish of packaged ramen and udon noodles, combined with high-quality steak (like sirloin). This dish is a direct reflection of the economic disparity between the two families. Cheap noodles paired with expensive meat. And it marks the moment the tone of the film suddenly shifts from lighthearted and humorous to seriously stress-inducing. Pair it with a bowl of sesame-ginger ramen and steak, obviously. — Julia Duarte, art assistant
The Parent Trap
Nancy Meyers’s 1998 remake of The Parent Trap—which stars Lindsay Lohan and centers on two twins, Hallie and Annie, who were separated at birth and meet accidentally at a summer camp 12 years later—is hardly a culinary heavy hitter. But when it comes to food as a narrative device, it’s deployed expertly in the scene right before the moment Hallie and Annie finally realize they are, in fact, sisters. After being banished to the isolation cabin for their constant tomfoolery, they bond over a shared love of Oreos dipped in peanut butter. It’s a moment that led pretty much every kid born in the ’90s to copy the idea, but it’s also deeply symbolic: Despite their decade-plus apart, the twins are bonded in blood as they are in snacks. Best Supporting Actor goes to the jumbo jar of Skippy. Bake your favorite cookie and dunk away. —A.F.
Tampopo
On the surface, Tampopo seems like an ordinary food movie. Two Japanese drivers guide the owner of a noodle shop on her quest to cook great ramen. But by the time you finish it, you’ll be wondering, What the hell did I just watch? And why was it the most amazing thing I have ever seen? Director Juzo Itami’s masterpiece plays as a satire of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti Westerns, but at its core it is a thrilling exploration of the joys of nourishment. The film is intertwined with various vignettes about the relationship between love and food. In my favorite scene—perhaps one of the most erotic food moments ever filmed—a gastronome gangster and his mistress pass a raw yolk from his mouth to hers, back and forth, until, finally, it bursts. In the spirit of that scene, turn any packet of instant ramen into a meal with a jammy soft-boiled egg. —E.E.
Pieces of April
Whether or not you consider this 2003 film a feel-good holiday movie probably says a lot about who you are. (I think it is). The central conflict revolves around April preparing Thanksgiving dinner (it’s her first time cooking...ever?) in the Lower East Side walk-up she shares with her boyfriend, Bobby. Driving into the city for the event is her estranged family. April is the black sheep. The mother, Joy, has terminal cancer. The comedy is very dry. As one thing after another goes wrong, April enlists neighbors she’s never met for help while Bobby meets with unexpected delays during a last-minute holiday errand. The movie introduces themes of giving people the space they need to change, how letting your guard down can improve your point of view, and why chosen family can be just as important as the one you’re born into. Watch it with these Stock-Braised Turkey Legs (just in case the oven goes out, you can cook it on the stovetop) and homemade (“No one likes it from the can”) cranberry sauce. —Joe Sevier, editor, cooking and SEO
Ratatouille
This list simply cannot not mention the Pixar classic, Ratatouille. It’s a film that displays the passion and art of cooking through the lens of Remy, a misunderstood rat who dreams of someday becoming a chef. Seeing him blissfully dance in the kitchen, all while secretly working in a Parisian fine dining restaurant, just fills me with joy. Despite this being an animated feature, the adaptation of hyperrealistic food—pheasant consommé, filet mignon, elaborate cake, and, most notably, ratatouille—is what really makes this movie. Pixar does an impeccable job of immersing the viewer in a romantic culinary universe that tugs at their heartstrings for such unexpected characters and gently prompts them to follow their own dreams. Eat it with, duh, Ratatouille. —J.A.D.
The Lunchbox
In its essence, The Lunchbox is a love story told through letters slipped into tiffin dabbas between hand-made parathas. The film feels like rhythmic poetry, guided by the steady click-clack of train tracks that mark daily life and punctuated by purple aubergines, vibrant sabzis, and the small moments of life and love when food plays the narrator.
The 2013 movie follows Ila, a married housewife, and Saajan, a widower who’s about to retire from his government accounting job. Their meet-cute starts with an unlikely mistake of the dabbawalas, which was a lunch delivery system studied by Harvard for its accuracy. In this case, the lunch Ila packed for her husband accidentally goes to Saajan. The tiffin Ila lovingly made for her husband, with the hopes of wooing him through his stomach, comes back empty, and Ila realizes that someone else got the lunch she packed. This starts an exchange of letters between the two.
There are so many good scenes in this movie, but one of my favorites is in the opening, as we follow the insulated green-striped tiffin container from Ila’s house to the train with the singing dabbawalas, on carts through the streets of Mumbai, weaving through bustling traffic, to the fluorescent-lit office. Unlike a lot of what we stereotypically see in Bollywood and Hindi pictures, this film celebrates simplicity, and I love it for that. It’s also one of those movies you can watch again and again and still find new moments of beauty because, as Saajan’s mom used to say, “Sometimes you can get on the wrong train and can get to the right station.” In this case, it’s the wrong tiffin for a new chance at love. If you’re one to eat while you watch, I’d pair it with these lamb keema tacos, an ode to Ila’s favorite kheema pao. —Urmila Ramakarishnan, associate director, social media
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is as much a story about food as it is a poignant series of missed connections. Neighbors played by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung both frequent the same noodle stall, but their relationship deepens as they discover that their spouses are having an affair. The scene in which Tony dollops a bit of spicy mustard next to Maggie’s steak—just the way his wife likes it—makes me crave a New York strip from a smoky diner. —M.C.F.