My initial instinct was to make this a joke and put on movies like Layer Cake, Duck Soup and Milk which just have foods in their titles, but that wouldn’t have been fun after one of them, so you get a real list.

Of course, the food is only metaphorical in many of these cases…

Much of this is about our complicated relationship with food. Food is sustenance. We need it, yet, for most of the people who might potentially read this, food is also something that has become so easy to get that we don’t really need to work for it anymore. There was a time, most of human history, when that was exceedingly rare.

Yet, right now, our relationship with food is suddenly very unhealthy because of the excess of it.

First, while there is excess of it, somehow it doesn’t reach everyone. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but there isn’t enough political will to do it. So, depending on who you ask, 40%-50% of all food just goes to waste. Considering how big of an environmental burden that is, that’s even more fucked up. We are letting people die, because feeding them wouldn’t make enough money for certain people.

Second, we tend to overeat. Because our brains were built for a situation where food was scarce, we were wired to look for certain things all the time. Since we try to identify those things through our sense of taste, we respond most strongly to sugars, fats and salts – all important parts of our diet, but in moderation. However, our brains don’t know the limits, because the limits weren’t important when our brains evolved. So, here we are, eating pizza and candy, because they satisfy that craving for at least a second.

Third, because someone needs to be making money out of food, we are constantly being sold more expensive options as “healthy”. Sure, meet is healthy, but it should be eaten in, again, moderation. In much more moderation then we do now. But the big producers can’t make as much money out of carrots or onions, so we are being sold the idea of eating meat instead. And of course, that’s just the beginning.

Fourth, cooking is an art, but while music and movies and paintings can be sustenance for the proverbial soul, cooking ascends that, because it is sustenance for the body as well. If you never cook or only cook for yourself, cooking can feel very casual, but there is joy in cooking for others. It’s just a beautiful thing. If you have an opportunity, you should do it. If it feels overwhelming or scary, here are some hints: know your audience (if they are looking for fats and salts, give them that), don’t overdo it (something simple is fine), but also make it special (something you don’t see everyday, like wrapping dates in bacon or adding berries to your salsa). You’ll seem like you actually know what you’re doing.

Fifth, since eating and food is such a big part of our lives, many people do have a lot of childhood memories of food. Like someone close making great food or even if it was just fat, salt and sugar, at least we believed it was great. That is a big part of many of these movies.

Minor spoilers.

The list, in no particular order:

The Menu (2022)

Margot is going on a date in a very expensive restaurant. It’s all about being an experience, not only food. The whole thing has a cost in four figures. However, even from the beginning, there’s something off in the situation. The dishes feel like weird parodies of high-ticket items rather than something real.

There are a lot of themes here, but to me it’s about losing your relationship to food, but there’s also themes of unhealthy relationship to food. Some of the clients are just not taking in the experience because they are just critiquing the food instead, while others are taking the weird foods too seriously. On the other hand, the kitchen staff are a cult. Literally, which works nicely as a metaphor.

The Lunchbox (2013)

The complicated meal distribution system of Mumbai makes one of those rare mistakes (it’s actually remarkable how few mistakes there are considering how it’s basically all done by hand – ) and a lonely young wife’s lunch to her husband accidentally gets delivered to a lonely soon-to-be retired old man. The two of them start to send each other messages.

This is just a cute little drama. Two unlikely people becoming friends under unlikely circumstances. And all of this, because one of them enjoys cooking and is good at it.

Tampopo (1985)

A man attempts to forcefully buy the ramen shop owned by Tampopo. When a visitor confronts him about this harassment, he gets beaten up. However, when he finally wakes up, he and Tampopo agree to work together to make the ramen, which “lacks character”, the best around. Together they do exactly that. Meanwhile, we get short skits of people and food.

Somehow this small ramen shop has become so important to everyone that they fight over it. That’s what food does. In the end everyone agrees that it’s more important to work together to make the place as great as it can be, because food brings people together.

Pig (2021)

Rob lives a life of a recluse in the forest, where he uses his pig to find truffles. One morning, the pig is gone, so Rob has to return to the city and it’s weird food industry underground to find it.

It’s hard to say if this is supposed to be a dark comedy. It is generally listed as drama, but you could argue that it’s going for very dry black comedy. Some things are quite absurd. Rob has an ability to be very forthright with everyone and that way he can actually influence them. In the climax of the movie, he just makes a great meal.

Ratatouille

You’ve seen it.

If not, it’s about a rat who isn’t into the same diet all his family eats. So, he starts to help a young kitchen wannabe chef with his cooking by controlling him from under his hat.

It’s a Pixar movie. You know what it’s like.

The Trip (2010)

I guess this is a stand-in for all of those movies and the TV series. There was the original The Trip which takes place in northern England, then Italy, then Spain, then Greece. Another one has been announced and that will be The Trip to the Northern Lights. They’ve been going for 15 years now.

The idea is pretty basic: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play versions of themselves. The conceit is that Coogan has been contracted to write an article about these restaurants and he can bring someone along, so he brings his old friend, Brydon. They just eat and discuss things old friends would.

Delicatessen (1991)

A very different movie from the rest.

Louison finds work with a butcher. However, the butcher was hiring just because he had been using his previous assistants for food. But since Louison is very good at his job, the butcher is unwilling to get rid of him so fast. When Louison falls in love with the butcher’s daughter, things get even more complicated.

Just a dark comedy. There was a time when I was a pretty big fan of Jeunet (the director), but his newer movies just haven’t really been that interesting. Still, this is from his early career (first feature, to be more precise), so this is still good, if a little weird (not that those are in any way exclusive).

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972)

A group of rich folk are trying to have dinner, but they are interrupted over and over again by absurd events.

Bunuel made some great weird movies. Along with Guy Maddin, he has the most movies in the 366 Weird Movies Canonical List with a total of eight movies, including this little gem. He really knew how to do that and so many of his movies are weird in so very distinct ways. I mean, his first movie was co-directed by Dali.

Sedmikrásky (Daisies, 1966)

Marie and Marie go on dates with rich men to get them to pay for their meals. They crash each other’s dates so that they can both eat.

That might seem simple and repetitive, but this is actually number 28 on the Sight & Sound Critics’ Poll of 2022 and was banned (kind of) in it’s native Czechoslovakia upon release. And it is a funny movie. Sadly, the director had to move to making commercials under her husband’s name for a while, because she wasn’t getting financing. Sadly.

Flux Gourmet (2023)

A performance collective is awarded a stint in an art institute that specializes in food-related arts. However, their stay is anything but harmonious.

This feels like a self-aware faux art movie. Peter Strickland (the director) has shown in the past his ability to understand genres on a very deep level, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was exactly his goal. And it works. Well, for me. Based on the 5.8 rating on IMDb, there isn’t that many of us.