We Asked Chefs For Their Favorite Movies About Food

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A night at the movie theater is usually never complete without a bucket of popcorn, a classic box of candy, and a tall fountain soda in hand. While food and drink are the perfect accompaniments to watch movies with, they are also key components that have been featured in movies too. Characters need to eat too, right? The history of cinema is littered with excellent movies that revolve around a grand banquet, a sweaty kitchen, a family’s colorful dining room table, or even a quick break for a nosh. While we all have our own personal favorite movies about food, ever wonder which ones speak to or perhaps even have inspired chefs? We did, and at the 2025 New York City Wine & Food Festival, posed this very question to many of the world’s best chefs and food influencers.

This list of movies we compiled from their recommendations run the gamut from beloved Disney cartoons, arty Academy Award-winning fare, to hilarious comedies that are still cooking things up year later. Grab some popcorn and have a full handful as we unleash this delicious little film festival of movies about food that chefs love.

Ratatouille

Nobody wants to see a rat anywhere, and that’s especially true of a kitchen. However, Pixar turned that notion on its head when it borrowed the name of the infamous French stew and released a hit 2007 movie called “Ratatouille.” The titular rat is Remy, voiced with gusto by Patton Oswalt, who is a Parisian rodent with exquisite culinary skills, and helps a budding chef learn his way around the kitchen. This Brad Bird directed film garnered five Academy Award nominations, and walked away with an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, spawned its own amusement ride at EPCOT Center in Orlando, and has earned a permanent place in many chefs’ hearts.

In our interviews, no movie had as many repeat viewings and praise as “Ratatouille” did. Social media star Ahmad Alzahabi, aka The Golden Balance, found the movie to have great balance of its own. Eric Huang has sharpened knives in some of the most illustrious kitchens like Eleven Madison Park, and now with his Pecking House, and for him, the king of food movies is this Disney classic. While one might think Maneet Chauhan may be biased, owning the Indian-inspired eet outpost at Disney Springs, she insisted it was not, and gushed that the film “is so beautifully done, and it really gets kids involved into cooking and food, and I think that’s amazing.” 

When Chef Emily Yuen isn’t busy grilling corn with the husks on, she’s at home enjoying downtime with family, including making “my four-year-old watch Ratatouille religiously.” It’s also a family affair for Fox & the Knife enoteca chef Karen Akunowicz. Her dad got a better sense of what she does for a living from the movie, and her young daughter is already a fan, asking to repeatedly turn it on by saying, “Want to watch mouses, mouses cooking.”

Soul Food

In 1997, Fox 2000 released a movie whose trailer tag-lined itself as “A story about the people who make us strong, and the recipe that makes us a family.” The pun was certainly intended for writer/director George Tillman Jr.’s “Soul Food,” a warm family dramedy, filled with a lot of delicious looking food. The story centers around three sisters, played by Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox, and Nia Long, and their ups and downs in life and love. Whatever problems arise get set aside each Sunday when they, friends, and neighbors, and sometimes even strangers gather at mama’s house for a bountiful feast of the titular grub.

Chef Abdul-Hadi is making square pies hip in Philadelphia with his Down North Pizza parlor, and also using his restaurant as a way to help give back. Down North exclusively hires formerly incarcerated individuals, as well as serving an underserved community. He sees a parallel between the message in “Soul Food” and the mission his restaurant is on, saying “it was centered around community — and that’s what we’re about.”

Chef Shenarri Greens admits that many feel like the movie has lost some of its luster over time, and hasn’t been fully embraced by modern generations, but she’s still singing its praises. The vegan and veggie expert finds “Soul Food” to be a very relevant film to this day. She said, “I still love the concept of family and everyone getting together at a table, bringing people together. I try to do that with my cooking and my meals.”

Big Night

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Well before Stanley Tucci was blazing flavorful trails “Searching for Italy,” and Tony Shalhoub was “Breaking Bread” across the globe, the two cooked up a mess of laughter and love in the 1996 film “Big Night.” The award-winning film was co-written by Tucci, who also co-handled directing duties alongside Campbell Scott.

In the 1950s set film, Tucci and Shalhoub played Italian immigrant brothers trying everything within their power to keep their New Jersey restaurant Paradise afloat. With the news of famous singer Louis Prima coming by for a meal, the brothers prepare a feast to end all feasts. The film culminates in quite the food party spelled out in the film’s title, with diners including Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini, Allison Janney, and Marc Anthony eating it all up.

“Big Night” has big admirers in both chefs Maneet Chauhan and Melvin Boots. Johnson loved the energy Tucci and Shalhoub brought to their roles, and relished watching them whip up “this one beautiful dish that everyone was just crazy for, in this big pot” — a timpano, which is essentially a pasta cake.

Babette’s Feast

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For those looking to dine out on the titular smorgasbord in 1987’s “Babette’s Feast,” you’ll have to be patient as the table isn’t set well into the film’s third act. This Gabriel Axel work, based on the 1958 story by Isak Dinesen, finds two religious Danish old maiders (Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel) that mind a small village’s congregation, and whose lives are enriched with the arrival of a widowed Frenchwoman named Babette. Babette (Stéphane Audran) becomes their unpaid maid, and after winning a lottery, decides to put on a true French dinner as a sign of her appreciation to the sister, and a way to dust off and show off her skill and true passions.

The film struck a chord with audiences at the time and became the first Danish film to win the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Even after over three decades in the can, many consider the feast within “Feast” to be one of cinema’s finest displays of food. Two foodies who would love to pull up a chair at Babette’s table are Chopped judge and chef Maneet Chauhan, and Preppy Kitchen purveyor John Kanell, who recalls enjoying viewings of it with his mother.

Chef

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In Hollywood, Jon Favreau has established himself as quite the writer-director-actor, helming the Christmas classic “Elf,” doing marvelous work welding “Iron Man,” and rescuing the “Star Wars” franchise with the hit “Mandalorian” series. While he’s adept at big budget wizardry, he also knows how to work emotional magic on a smaller scale, first with “Swingers,” and again with 2014’s “Chef.”

In the movie, Favreau plays a chef who becomes disillusioned with the fancy pants restaurant he works for, and finds culinary freedom and a renewed sense of family when he takes his show on the road in a food truck. The funny, yet touching film features plenty of fabulous food being served up, with scenery and dishes being chewed up with co-stars Sofía Vergara, John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver Platt, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris,Dustin Hoffman, and even Robert Downey Jr. for good measure.

Besides “Ratitouille,” chef Emily Yuen also enjoys “Chef” for its humor and sense of realism. Colombian Caribbean chef, artist, and food storyteller Stephanie Boninn couldn’t settle on just one movie either, although both choices were perhaps enhanced by a soft spot for John Leguizamo, who she once had the opportunity to cook for. She singled out “Chef” for doing a good job of displaying the passion that chefs have, the pull between ego and being humble, and putting into perspective “why we do what we do.”

The Menu

One of this generation’s finest actors is Ralph Fiennes, who always brings a sense of seriousness and gravitas to any role he takes on. While he may be best known as for his work in the Harry Potter films, “Schindler’s List,” and “Conclave,” one of his showier, more recent roles is that of Chef Slowik in Mark Mylod’s 2022 black comedy-thriller “The Menu.” Fiennes runs an overly pretentious restaurant on a remote island called the Hawthorn, and the film centers on a lavish dinner put on for a bunch of wealthy and self-absorbed eaters, played by the likes of Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Janet McTeer, Judith Light and John Leguizamo.

 
The film drew praise from Nowon chef Jae Lee, and La TropiKitchen chef Stephanie Bonnin. Chef Bonnin cannot deny the joy of John Leguizamo food-filled films. She commended the film’s spot on take on her industry, working as an analogy and social metaphor that especially rings true for chefs. Chef Boninn explained, “I can see it from the perspective of the chef, the people that are working in a kitchen, for the people that come to a kitchen and how our industry has been so mainstream that we are forgetting the real important thing, why we cook and what we eat and instead nurturing.”

The Trip

One of the most hilarious movies about food, and movies in general is “The Trip.” “The Trip” is actually a British TV series by Michael Winterbottom, following actors and comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as they hop into a car and crisscross a European country, stopping here and there for culinary delights, while doling out some of the best impressions you’ve ever heard. Be sure to watch their dueling Michael Caines. Each series has had its episodes condensed into a feature length film, with the first “Trip”s Journey or Great Britain hitting the big screen in 2010, with follow-up series and films “The Trip to Italy,” “The Trip to Spain,” and “The Trip to Greece” dropping over the following decade.

Ayo Balogun is a worldly chef, melding his Nigerian roots into American-inspired dishes at Dept of Culture and Radio Kwara, but also enjoys a good laugh. For Chef Balogun, he’s a huge fan of the series, but loves the first “Trip” above all. He said, “There’s something about The Trip — it’s about food, but it touches food in a way you can relate to.” While he’s never visited any of the restaurants depicted in the film like The Inn at Whitehall or L’Enclume, he hopes to take time away from the kitchen in 2026 to correct this omission.

Tampopo

Author-filmmaker-chef George Motz knows a thing or three about hamburgers. He traveled the United States eating them up, which begat a book, documentary, and even a must visit New York restaurant all called “Hamburger America.” While one would think his favorite food movie would be something like “The Founder,” “Super Size Me,” or even “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” his pick hails from points way further east — 1985’s “Tampopo.”

The Japanese culinary cinema classic directed by Juzo Itami bills itself as a “ramen western,” which is a play on the term “spaghetti western.” It centers around a lone cowboy-trucker named Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) in search of the perfect noodle, who eventually crosses upon the film’s namesake widowed-chef (director Itami’s actual wife, Nobuko Miyamoto), and helps her to accomplish this Herculean task. While that’s the gist of the story, it is so much more than just that. Famed film critic Roger Ebert summed up “Tampopo” perfectly as “a bemused meditation on human nature in which one humorous situation flows into another offhandedly, as if life were a series of smiles.”

Motz found the film to be simply fantastic. One of his favorite scenes is the one “that actually describes how you’re supposed to treat ramen before you eat it. It’s a real scene. It’s an old guy teaching a young guy to appreciate the bowl of ramen before he eats it.”

Nonnas

Staten Island is home to many proud Italian-Americans, and a bevy of restaurants that honor their old world traditions and dishes just like grandma used to make. One actual restaurant, just steps from the Staten Island Ferry, lets those grandmothers do the cooking, Enoteca Maria — Nonnas of the World. This restaurant opened by Joe Scaravella in 2007, has not only become a worthy destination in the outer boroughs, but a tale also worthy of being turned into a 2025 Netflix film. In this movie, “Nonnas,” Scaravella is embodied by Vince Vaughn, and is just joined by an amazing cast of wisecracking and egg-cracking nonnas played by Susan Sarandon, Talia Shire, Lorriane Bracco, and Brenda Vaccaro.

This relatively new movie remained fresh on the mind of Chef Melvin Boots Johnson. That makes perfect sense, as Chef Johnson was raised on his grandmother’s cooking and carries on her homestyle traditions into his own dishes to this day. Chef Johnson told us, “It’s such a beautiful, comforting movie, of people just enjoying real food.” He saw something of himself in “Nonnas,” adding, “My food’s not intimidating, my food’s very comforting. It’s not pretentious, it’s just straight up Grandma.”