The Weinstein Company
Some things are elemental to the human experience, none more so than eating. We celebrate food, we fear what’s inside it, and we linger on the emotions it can unleash inside us through smell and flavor. Being central to our existence, it’s no surprise that food’s been a part of movies from the very beginning, on screen and off, to the point where most of us associate the smell of popcorn and the fizz of a soda with hitting the theaters.
To celebrate that connection, we’ve dug out the 15 best food movies on Netflix right now. Whether they’re B-movies to watch with friends, dramas to make you think about how food connects us, or comedies about what we eat fighting back, here are the best food flicks for you to feast on.
Like Water For Chocolate
Miramax
This magical realist melodrama has Tita (Lumi Cavazos) learning — thanks to her beloved marrying her sister since her mother refuses to let her marry — that her emotions translate into her food. Which is a problem when you’re mourning losing the one you love forever and are serving a massive feast.
This tale of forbidden love and sexy food was one of the early indie darlings, and twenty-five years after it came to US theaters, it holds up.
Okja
Netflix
This potent satire of animal rights, the food system, and corporate farming follows a young girl (Ahn Seo-hyun) as she rescues the titular Okja, a “super pig,” in a movie that threads the needle between thriller, serious political polemic, and the enduring story of “kid and her animal buddy” we all know and love. It’s sometimes an odd mix, and the storybook touches, like Tilda Swinton playing twins, can sometimes fit oddly next to the adventures of a kid and her giant cuddly pig, but it adds up to a superb food movie.
The Trip To Italy
IFC Films
You’d be forgiven for thinking Michael Winterbottom’s movie is a documentary about two “friends” eating and making fun of each other, but in fact, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are playing exceptionally exaggerated versions of themselves, spun off from the movie A Cock And Bull Story. This hilariously dry comedy touches on food, love, friendship, and how stardom doesn’t make you happy.
Maacher Jhol
Netflix
A distinguished chef (Ritwick Chakraborty) goes home to West Bengal and finds himself faced with what should be child’s play: Make a great bowl of fish curry, one of West Bengal’s signature dishes. That mission turns into an odyssey exploring how food travels and how we make food is a deeply personal thing that’ll connect with anybody who makes a dish to feel like they’re home again.
Consumed
MarVista Entertainment
A woman investigating her son’s allergies stumbles over a shadow war between a band of farmers and a cult-like GMO-shilling corporation called Clonestra. Okay, so it’s not a terribly subtle movie (guess where it winds up on the issue of GMOs,) but with a rock-solid cast of pros including Victor Garber and Danny Glover, this is a hoot of a B-movie.
Waffle Street
MatVista Entertainment
Based on a true story, a former hedge fund manager (James Lafferty), distraught over the 2008 financial crisis that he was involved in and needing a job, starts working at a local breakfast joint. This dramedy will probably echo most with anybody who’s worked in food service, as it’s not shy about showing just how hard that job really is.
Beerfest
Warner Bros.
Broken Lizard, the team behind Super Troopers, turn their comedic minds to drinking as they create a Beer Olympics and try to stick it to a bunch of smug chug-a-lugging Germans.
Heavy
Miramax
If you want to see the movie that launched the careers of both Liv Tyler and Logan director James Mangold, this 1995 drama, about an overweight line cook weighed down by his lack of self-esteem and his terrible family life, is a fascinating character study, not to mention a preview of what so much of the people involved would go on to do.
The Founder
The Weinstein Company
Americans house thousands of McDonald’s meals every single day, but how did the hamburger stand come to define fast food? Michael Keaton plays the ruthless Ray Kroc in an underrated, no-holds-barred biopic about the man who made McDonald’s.
The Perfect Host
Magnolia Pictures
The best in the very niche Netflix subgenre of “things going horribly wrong at dinner parties” (see also: The Dinner, The Invitation) Clayne Crawford plays John, a bank robber who bursts in on what he thinks is the preparation for a dinner party, hosted by David Hyde Pierce’s Warwick. But, as this is a Hollywood thriller, John has stumbled into something far more sinister than a heated argument over Beaujolais, and Warwick is decidedly not what he seems.
Sweet Bean
Kino Lorber
This quiet tearjerker follows Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase), a man who seemingly hates his job selling dorayaki cakes to the locals. But when Toku (Kirin Kiki) comes to his shop, he learns to love his job, even as secrets about them both come spilling out. This touches on a string of issues in Japan, but it’s got an emotional heft you might not expect from a movie about desserts.
Raw
Focus World
Justine (Garance Marillier) goes through a hazing ritual at a veterinary school that her family has attended for years, only to discover the school has a deep, dark secret. Everyone who attends, it turns out, has to go through the same ritual, and it winds up with the same results: A deepening hunger for meat, any way they can get it. You can probably guess where this goes from there, but underneath the grossout is a critique of our food system and how we mistreat people who don’t eat the way we do.
Think of this movie as the revenge fantasy of every vegetarian who has a coworker trying to feed them bacon.
The Adventures Of Food Boy
Cold Spark
For every superhero with amazing powers, there’s three or four who kind of stink, and Food Boy falls into the latter category, as he comes of age and discovers he can spontaneously generate bread. This so-bad-it’s-good coming of age tale is undeniably one of the weirdest movies you’ll find in Netflix’s deep, deep catalog of strangeness, but the premise is so bizarre you almost have to keep watching.
Burnt
The Weinstein Company
Bradley Cooper plays Adam Jones, a chef whose toxic combo of drugs and perfectionism destroyed his restaurant, friendships, and a number of careers. After a few years in the culinary wilderness, Jones comes back to make amends, and snag that third Michelin star.
The real selling point here is Cooper, who tackles the darker side of working in a kitchen with aplomb.
Sausage Party
Sony
This gleeful gross-out comedy seems innocent enough for the first two acts, full of borscht-belt comedy and crude humor. But then, Seth Rogen and his friends take the movie’s premise, about sentient food products who discover they’re in for a grisly death, to its natural conclusion in an ending that takes the shtick and gives it a very, very dark edge. You’ll never look at anthropomorphic food advertising in quite the same way.
Got a favorite food movie? Let us know in the comments!
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