Feast your eyes on a buffet of some of cinema’s most sumptuous banquets, a smorgasbord of lip-smacking delicacies that delight in the sensual pleasures and social rituals of eating. Start with a bowl of lusciously slurpable ramen in the freewheeling Japanese satire TAMPOPO, then tuck into couscous so fragrant it practically wafts off the screen in the richly textured Franco-Arab family portrait THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN. Next up: a decadent seven-course spread of French haute cuisine as served up in the senses-ravishing Oscar winner BABETTE’S FEAST. And if you’ve still got room for more, there is gastronomic debauchery galore courtesy of Věra Chytilová and Luis Buñuel, offbeat odes to garlic and Cajun cuisine from Les Blank, a most memorable dinner with Andre, and more. Bon appétit!
Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1962 • Mexico
Starring Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, José Baviera
A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and find themselves inexplicably unable to leave, in Luis Buñuel’s daring masterpiece THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (EL ÁNGEL EXTERMINADOR)...
Directed by Tony Richardson • 1963 • United Kingdom
In the early 1960s, at the height of the British New Wave, director Tony Richardson and playwright John Osborne set out for more fanciful territory than the gritty realism of the movement they’d helped establish. TOM JONES brings a theatrical...
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1966 • Czechoslovakia
Maybe the New Wave's most anarchic entry, Vera Chytilovà's absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be "spoiled," they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing, food, clothes, men, war, is...
Directed by Les Blank • 1980 • United States
In this love letter to “the stinking rose,” documentarian Les Blank interviews garlic fanatics of all stripes, from cooks to members of garlic appreciation societies.
Directed by Louis Malle • 1981 • United States
Starring Wallace Shawn, André Gregory
In this captivating and philosophical film directed by Louis Malle, actor and playwright Wallace Shawn sits down with his friend the theater director André Gregory at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, ...
Directed by Juzo Itami • 1985 • Japan
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous "ramen western" by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft...
Directed by Gabriel Axel • 1987 • Denmark
Starring Stéphane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer
At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning BABETTE’S FEAST is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema. Dire...
Directed by Les Blank • 1990 • United States
Exploration of cajun cooking and culture.
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche • 2007 • France
Starring Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Faridah Benkhetache
The winner of four César awards, including best picture and director, Abdellatif Kechiche’s THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN is a stirring drama about the daily joys and struggles of a bustling Fren...
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda • 2008 • Japan
Starring Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You
The lyrical, profoundly moving STILL WALKING (ARUITEMO ARUITEMO) is contemporary Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda's most personal work to date. Created as a tribute to his late mother, the film depicts one day...
