The Food Films Every Restaurant Lover Needs To Watch
The gritty inner workings of kitchen and hospitality life aren’t for the faint of heart. It’s laborious, long hours, intense heat, and orders being barked at you left and right, but paired with all of this stress is a thrill and love of the game that keeps you going. If you’re missing The Bear a bit and you’re looking for more things to watch that’ll bring the heat of the kitchen to life, we’ve rounded up the best films about food that are guaranteed to make your stomach grumble.
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
Roadrunner is less a documentary about food and more a portrait of restless curiosity, told through the life of Anthony Bourdain. Moving through his rise from chef to global storyteller, the film explores travel, addiction, loneliness and the complicated weight of becoming an icon. Food is the thread running through it all, but what lingers most is Bourdain’s belief that meals, cultures and conversations could bring people closer together. Essential — and in all transparency devastating — viewing for anyone and everyone, whether you’re a food person or not.
The Ramen Girl
The Ramen Girl starring Brittany Murphy is one of the quieter entries in the food-film canon, but also one of the most heartfelt. Following an American woman navigating heartbreak and loneliness while learning the discipline of ramen-making in Tokyo, the film treats cooking as emotional education. The bowls of ramen become symbols of patience, care and personal growth, making this a genuinely comforting watch for anyone who believes food carries feeling.
Eat Pray Love
Few films have contributed more to the romanticisation of food than Eat Pray Love. The Italy sequences in particular became culturally defining, turning bowls of pasta, pizza margherita and afternoon gelato into symbols of pleasure, freedom and self-discovery. Beyond the food itself, the film taps into something people still desperately crave: slowing down, eating properly and allowing joy to exist without guilt.
The Menu
The Menu takes fine dining obsession and stretches it to horrifying extremes, satirising tasting-menu culture, culinary pretension and the performative nature of modern restaurants with razor-sharp precision. Set almost entirely within an impossibly exclusive restaurant, the film manages to be funny, tense and deeply uncomfortable all at once. Anyone who has ever sat through an over-explained small plate or rolled their eyes at edible foam will find something painfully familiar here.
The Founder
While technically a film about business, The Founder is equally a film about food culture and the industrialisation of eating. Watching Ray Kroc transform McDonald’s from a humble burger stand into a global empire is fascinating, unsettling and strangely addictive. The film captures the seductive efficiency of fast food so well that, despite understanding the moral decline unfolding on screen, you will almost certainly crave fries by the end.
Like Water for Chocolate
Like Water for Chocolate remains one of the most sensual and visually rich food films ever made. Set during the Mexican Revolution, it blends romance, family tension and magical realism through dishes so emotionally charged they literally affect those who eat them. Food here is not simply nourishment, but desire, grief, rebellion and love all expressed through cooking. It’s beautiful, strange and completely transportive. The book is also a 10/10.
The Taste Of Things
Trần Anh Hùng’s French historical foodie romance is the type of film that’ll spark a light in your stomach and leave it growling for more after every scene. This 19th-century narrative is centred around Eugenie, a chef and her boss, Dodin.
Starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, the film may focus on their dynamic romantic chemistry, but the real star of it all is the grandiloquent feasts prepared and presented in the midst of it all.
Tampopo
If you don’t mind craving a bowl of steaming ramen for two hours straight, Tampopo is well worth the viewing. Directed by the late Juzo Itami, this Japanese film became a foodie favourite with the critics when it was released in 1985, and it’s since grown in popularity.
Centred around a roadside independent noodle shop, it follows a truck driver who goes out of his way to help this struggling establishment and help transport it into a local number one bestselling ramen restaurant. A series of strange and wittingly fun circumstances arise throughout and you’ll quickly be rooting for Tampopo and her ramen.
Julie & Julia
Any film with Meryl Streep in it has a seal of approval from us. Amid the rising popularity of food blogs, New Yorker Julie Powell, played by Amy Adams, embarks on a mission to recreate every single recipe from Julia Child’s renowned cooking book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
The story alternates between Julie’s present day and Julia Child’s era, offering us a glimpse into how she immersed herself in French cuisine with an abundance of butter and bread thrown in for good measure.
Chef
Working in the hospitality industry is a challenging endeavour. The demands of roles such as chef, server and mixologist require one to dedicate themselves entirely to the job, even at the expense of their happiness. One chef who had had enough of this was Carl Casper, who quit his job at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant following a disagreement with a food critic.
Written and directed by Jon Favreau, Chef gives us an unfiltered look into the reality of this industry. The gruelling hours, rough kitchen culture and difficulties that come with it all are portrayed authentically. Carl decides he’s had enough of following the rules and sets up a food truck serving the dishes he is passionate about -Cuban-style sandwiches and yuca fries – to hungry travellers, tourists and locals across the country.
Chocolat
Set in a rural French village, Chocolat sees Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) set up a chocolate shop just days before Lent. Despite receiving backlash and frowning thoughts from the locals, it’s not long before the talented chocolatier wins them all over with her tasty treats and wisdom. This chocolate-fuelled tale additionally stars Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Lena Olin and Alfred Molina.
Purchase on Amazon Prime Video
Eat Drink Man Woman
While this one isn’t easily available to stream in the UK, if you can get your hands on a copy of the Blu-Ray, it’s worth it. Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman follows Master Chef Chu and his three unmarried daughters. All three still live at home and, in between their busy day-to-day lives and dating dramas, come together every Sunday to create family-sharing-style feasts. These lasting moments on screen allow us to see the ups and downs of daily life.
Currently not available in the UK
Big Night
Opening a restaurant is no mean feat, but staying afloat and open is a testament to time. Capturing the good, the bad and the ugly restaurant scenarios, Big Night follows two immigrant brothers, Chef Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci), as they set up a small Italian restaurant in New Jersey. Determined not to close up shop for good, they set out to impress a famous Italian-American bandleader who just so happens to be dining at their restaurant in an attempt to stay open.
Purchase on Amazon Prime Video
The Hundred-Foot Journey
With France seen as the epicentre of culinary life, The Hundred-Foot Journey is another film that’s focused on restaurant life in this gastronomic country.
Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) and his family move to a small French village to open up an Indian restaurant. The celebrated chef is well on his way to forging a successful culinary path until Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) decides otherwise. Owning the only other restaurant in the village with an impressive Michelin star, she’s frustrated by his attempts until she decides to bring his skills into her restaurant.
Purchase on Amazon Prime Video
Ratatouille
Disney Pixar’s Ratatouille follows a foodie chef journey we all know and love so well, but juxtaposes it by putting a rat as the central character.
Brad Bird’s 2007 animated classic follows Remy the Rat as he attempts to reach an impossible goal for any rat: becoming a chef. Follow along as you root for this loveable protagonist as he cooks up his dreams and helps make them a reality with a little help from Alfredo Linguini.
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi
If you’re looking to get your documentary hit, traipse down the Jiro Dreams Of Sushi rabbit hole. Jiro Ono, the then-85-year-old, is a legendary Japanese chef specialising in sushi. At the time, the restaurant boasted three Michelin stars, with easy-to-get reservations few and far between. In this heartwarming documentary, David Gelb takes you on a journey through Jiro’s passion for sushi.
Babette’s Feast
The first Danish film to receive an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this 1987 movie is one to watch. Directed by Gabriel Axel, Babette’s Feast follows a young Parisian chef (Stéphane Audran) as she obtains a job cooking for a Danish family. Once a celebrated chef, Babette’s role sees her not only cook up immaculate dishes for the family but also create a lasting bond with the sisters and family she is working for.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video via Curzon
The Farewell
At first glance, you might not consider this comedy-drama a particularly food-focused narrative. If you look a little closer, every heartfelt moment, disagreement or family occasion is often cushioned alongside a family-style feast.
Starring Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians, Quiz Lady), it follows her family as they journey back to China after discovering her grandmother is unwell. Slotted amidst a last-minute wedding, this is a love letter to family, food and bittersweet farewells.
Purchase on Amazon Prime Video
Boiling Point
If you’re missing the heat of The Bear, you’ll want to buckle in for more fiery kitchen antics in Philip Barantini’s Boiling Point. Starring Stephen Graham as London head chef Andy Jones, the film sees him set the record straight and transform his restaurant that’s recently gone from a high-flying five-star restaurant to a dwindling three-star. If you love this, you’ll want to catch up with the BBC’s follow-up series that came out in 2023.
