THE BEST FOOD MOVIES OF ALL TIME
- Nick Digilio
- 18 minutes ago
- 8 min read
I love food. I love TV shows about food. And I love movies about food. Basically, I just love food. I cook quite a bit—I'm a pretty good chef if I do say so myself—and it's one of my absolute favorite hobbies. It's fulfilling, it's creative, and it just makes me happy.
I love eating food, I love talking about food, and when I was doing my radio show, food was a regular topic. We had chefs on as guests, we cooked live on the air, we did tastings—it was always a blast.
I still do a lot of that now, both on my podcast and here on the website, whether it’s food reviews, restaurant discussions, or taste test videos. Food is a huge part of my life.
And one of the greatest joys I have is cooking with my girlfriend Julie, who, by the way, is a much better cook than I am. We have an incredible time together in the kitchen, bonding, laughing, creating, and—best of all—eating. Food brings people together. Always has, always will.
I'm also absolutely obsessed with Top Chef. In my opinion, Top Chef is the greatest reality show ever made. Not just the best cooking competition—the best reality competition show, period. It’s not about fake drama, ridiculous housemate fights, or manufactured conflict like most other garbage reality TV.
Top Chef is about passion, talent, creativity, and a deep respect for food and the art of cooking. It's a beautifully produced show about skilled chefs who genuinely care about their craft.
And these chefs go on to major success. It's inspiring. I own all the Top Chef cookbooks. I’ve been motivated to try new techniques, new cuisines, and it continues to fuel my love of food.
And just recently, Top Chef aired one of its most legendary episodes: Restaurant Wars. Every season, when the competition narrows down, the remaining chef-testants split into teams and actually open and run a restaurant for a night—designing the space, creating a full menu, running the kitchen, running the front of house—it’s insane and exhilarating to watch.
Restaurant Wars is a celebration of what makes the food world so fascinating: creativity, pressure, teamwork, and a pure love for feeding people. That episode inspired me to finally sit down and put together something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: a list of my favorite movies about food.
These are movies that make you hungry. Movies that celebrate food in all its mouth-watering, sensual, beautiful glory. Some of the movies have food at the center of the plot, about chefs, restaurants, cooking, and food culture.
Others might not be "food movies" per se, but feature scenes where food plays such a vivid and important role that you can almost smell it through the screen. It’s about movies that understand food isn’t just something you eat—it's love, it's comfort, it's community, it’s passion.
So, in honor of food, in honor of Top Chef, and in honor of anyone who has ever gotten hungry while watching a great movie, here is my list of my 10 favorite food movies of all time.
They’re ranked in order of preference, with commentary about why I love them so much. So grab a snack, maybe pour yourself a glass of wine, and let's dig in.
TOP 10 BEST FOOD MOVIES OF ALL TIME:
In my opinion, Big Night is the best food movie ever made. Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott's lovely film about two immigrant brothers running a restaurant in New Jersey is a hilarious, warm, and beautifully acted comedy loaded with terrific characters and a compelling story.
The fate of their struggling restaurant hinges on a visit from the legendary bandleader Louis Prima, and the preparation for that visit is something magical to watch. The movie also has one of the best final shots in film history — no dialogue, just a moment of pure, perfect cinema...and, oh my God, the food.
The special meal prepared for Prima is absolutely mouthwatering — an astonishing visual feast, captured in incredible detail. You can practically smell the herbs and sauces coming off the screen. No surprise, considering Tucci would go on to massive fame as a food/travel author and TV host.
Back in the late '90s, you could actually go to "Brew and View" at The Vic Theater in Chicago, watch Big Night, and then cross the street to an Italian restaurant offering the exact meal from the movie. Yeah, I did that a few times. Heaven.
Sure, it’s the best mob movie ever made, and yes, it’s about heists, drugs, hits, prison, and the mafia — but honestly? Goodfellas is a food movie, too. It's about how food is woven into the fabric of Italian-American mob life: from the famous walk through the kitchen at the Copacabana, to the endless dinner celebrations, to sneaking food while hiding bodies, to stirring the marinara while running a major drug deal. In Goodfellas, food isn’t just background detail — it’s life.
I will never forget seeing this movie for the first time at a press screening with my buddy Scott OKen. We were starving when the movie started, and by the time it was over — nearly three hours later — we were ready to eat the screen. Scorsese’s loving closeups of garlic sliced razor-thin, of pasta, of lavish dinners — it's enough to drive any food lover insane.
An early gem from director Ang Lee, Eat Drink Man Woman is a gorgeous, funny, and heartbreaking comedy-drama about a master banquet chef and his three daughters. The food scenes in this movie are stunning — intricate, detailed, and impossibly appetizing. Watching the chef prepare elaborate feasts becomes almost hypnotic.
There’s a major plot twist that flips the entire movie on its head and makes you think deeply about what it would mean if you couldn’t enjoy food anymore. It's a sweet, funny, very human story that centers food as love, tradition, and connection. You will absolutely leave this movie hungry.
The best movie ever made about noodles. This wildly inventive Japanese satire is about two truck drivers trying to help a ramen shop owner perfect her craft. It’s funny, totally original, and deeply weird — and I mean that in the best possible way. There are bizarre sex scenes involving an egg yolk, gangsters discussing food mid-kidnap, and oddball characters obsessing over the "proper" way to eat ramen.
But beyond all the weirdness, Tampopo is a love letter to food — the sensuality, the artistry, the comfort. If you love noodles (and who doesn’t?), you’ll love this movie. But seriously: prepare for some very, very strange detours along the way.
A lot of people were split on The Menu, but I absolutely loved it. Dark, mean, hilarious, and sharply satirical, it's about a group of privileged strangers lured to a remote island to experience a once-in-a-lifetime meal from a celebrated (and possibly insane) chef. What they don’t know is that they're about to get more than just dinner — they're about to be picked apart, both literally and metaphorically.
Ralph Fiennes is spectacular as the terrifying chef, and Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, John Leguizamo, and others are all fantastic. The film’s brutal takedown of foodie pretension is hilarious, and the food presentation is stunning. Plus, The Menu might just have the best hamburger scene in the history of movies. Period.
Set in a strict religious village in 19th century Denmark, Babette’s Feast is about a French refugee who repays the kindness of two sisters by cooking a lavish French meal for the entire community. The meal itself — the titular feast — is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and beautifully filmed.
Beyond the mouthwatering food, this is a deeply moving story about sacrifice, tradition, and joy. Watching the characters slowly let their guard down over the course of the meal is powerful and emotional. It’s a movie that will make you hungry — and it’ll also make you cry.
A lush, sensual story set in a Mexican village, Like Water for Chocolate is about forbidden love, tradition, and — most importantly — food. Tita, a young woman forbidden to marry the man she loves, channels her passion into her cooking, creating dishes so infused with emotion that they literally affect the people who eat them.
It’s a stunning film, gorgeously shot, and the food sequences are incredible. Like Babette’s Feast, it uses food as a metaphor for deep emotional truths. And yes, it’s a deeply sexy movie too — the connection between food and passion has rarely been more beautifully explored.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, basically playing exaggerated versions of themselves, travel across the UK visiting fancy restaurants — and along the way, they trade hilarious impressions, jokes, and brutally honest reflections on life, fame, and friendship.
The Trip is absolutely hilarious (Coogan’s Michael Caine impression alone is worth the price of admission), but it’s also filled with stunning food sequences. Watching them try course after course of elaborate gourmet dishes will make you want to book a flight and eat your way across England immediately. It’s a comedy, a road movie, and a food movie all wrapped into one delicious package.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s exquisite period drama about a brilliant but difficult dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) is not, on the surface, a "food movie." But oh, the food scenes! Every bite, every plate, every omelet is filmed with such loving detail that it becomes almost as important as the couture.
The relationship at the heart of the movie — between Reynolds Woodcock and his muse Alma — is complicated, twisted, and oddly romantic. The mushroom omelet scene is unforgettable: food as both seduction and weapon. Phantom Thread is eerie, mesmerizing, and quietly terrifying, and it’ll make you crave buttery, decadent omelets like nothing else.
Yeah, it’s a stoner comedy. But it’s also, hands down, one of the best food movies ever made. John Cho and Kal Penn play two buddies whose simple quest to get sliders from White Castle becomes an epic, ridiculous, hilarious journey. And when they finally sit down at White Castle at the end of the movie? Magic.
You can practically smell the fries and those little burgers right through the screen. Every single person I know who saw this movie immediately made a run to White Castle afterward. I mean it: no movie has ever made fast food look more mouthwatering than this one. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is an essential food movie — sliders and all.
And there you have it — my Top 10 Favorite Food Movies of All Time.
All of these films either made me incredibly hungry, made me want to immediately jump into the kitchen and start cooking, or just completely reminded me why food, meals, and the culture surrounding them are some of the most important and joyful parts of our lives.
Whether it's fine dining at a five-star restaurant, a lovingly prepared home-cooked meal, or just a late-night run for some greasy, perfect sliders, food brings people together. And movies — at their best — capture that magic in a way that nothing else can.
Like I said before, I love food. I love talking about food. I love cooking food. And I definitely love watching great food movies. Whether they're serious dramas, hilarious comedies, indie gems, or even completely insane horror satires — if they celebrate food and make me crave something delicious, I'm in.
So now, if you'll excuse me, I'm starving. I might have to make an omelet, whip up some pasta, or maybe — if I'm feeling lazy — just hit up a White Castle. Either way, thanks for reading...and let’s eat!
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