The Taste of Things and other movies where food has never looked better
Part of the magic of cinema is how, in spite of only engaging two of our senses, it can evoke all of them. Food makes this abundantly clear: Cinematic stories about cooking and eating can bring about sensory bliss, bringing us home with a few shots and sounds of a beloved dish, or somewhere entirely new with the same.
The Taste of Things, the French historical romance from director Trân Anh Hùng, is one of the latest films to conjure up the magic of food on screen. A love story between a chef and gourmet, it’s out to inspire more than hunger in viewers, but you’ll be hard-pressed to not hit a restaurant on your way home. It’s a good a time as any to celebrate some of our favorite cinematic feasts, a small menu of films that we love in part for how hungry they left us as the credits rolled.
Where to watch: In theaters
The Taste of Things opens with its central found family of cooks and gourmets preparing a feast for — well, it’s not clear for whom at first. With these cooks, the point — as words give way to the clinking of cookery — is the process. Vegetables freshly plucked from the garden and perfectly carved fish filets get lowered into basins and covered in oil, herbs, and creams. Midday sunlight flickers across the rural French estate’s kitchen (romantically set-dressed for the cusp of the 20th century), basting a sizzling slab of beef.
As one dish prep gives way to another, and the scene extends so far that you wonder if this is the whole movie, it feels — magically! — as if there might be no guests for this meal. That the spread isn’t being made to be savored by some refined aristocrat that will enter stage right, but to be devoured by the eyes of us stuck gobbling stale popcorn in the cold, dark theater. —Christopher Plante
Where to watch: Max, Criterion Channel, or for digital rental/purchase on Apple TV
There are many movies with great food in them, but few weave it into their narrative quite like Tampopo.
A pair of truck drivers (including a very young
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