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Editorโs Note: We first shared this collection of what we heard from readers to be the best food scenes in movies years ago. But we find them just as heartening and, at times, hilarious as we did then. Maybe more so these days.
The Oscars tend to make us sorta nostalgic. Not just for any moving pictures, though. For those food scenes in movies that you just canโt get out of your mind. Like the last scene in Big Night. The opener to Eat Drink Man Woman. Countless moments in Chocolat. Every single scene with Meryl Streepโand Stanley Tucci, tooโin Julie & Julia. That one scene in, well, you get the idea. Weโre talking touching, witty, outrageous, or otherwise unforgettable food-minded moments. In the spirit of Oscars week, we tapped into your collective movie memories, requesting the most memorable moments in film that pertain to food. You didnโt let us down. In fact, we gotta say, your responses astounded us. Not just in terms of their numbers and diversity, but in what they revealed about you. As it turns out, youโre romantics. Youโre gourmands. Youโre closet trash talkers. Youโre kind. Youโre kooky. And, at times, youโre even kinky. More than anything, though, youโre the sort of souls who, like us, appreciate the countless everyday ways in which food intersects life. Without further ado, here are all the most memorable food scenes in movies we could muster. (Mind you, we said โmemorable,โ not โaward-winning,โ though some of them are that, too.) No need to ever again wonder what next to put in your Netflix queue. All thatโs left is to pour yourself some bubbly, settle down, and raise a glass with us. Hereโs to these moments of brilliance.โRenee Schettler
I love the scene in Babetteโs Feast when her food transforms all the grumpy locals.
โBeth Price
Babetteโs Feast when she relaxes with wine between courses.
โMaggie Perkins
Babetteโs Feastโthe feast!
โDavid Leite
Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush doing the dinner-roll dance. [Editorโs Note: Letโs not forget the remake of this food scene in Benny and Joon. (With thanks to Leah Schultz for the reminder!)]
โElsa Jacobson
Fave of mineโthe opening of Eat Drink Man Woman.
โMichael Ruhlman
Eat Drink Man Woman. The love of a parent poured into the meticulousness of prepping a delicious Chinese meal.
โWay-Ting Chen Hill
The most memorable scene for me is the opening sequence in Eat Drink Man Woman. It reminds me of Taiwan and how much I miss the food there. No other movie food scene has evoked as much emotion for me.
โIrvin Lin
Kevin Kline eating Michael Palinโs fish in A Fish Called Wanda.
โMary Elizabeth Weil
Cool Hand Luke. The eggs.
โRhonda Hesser Thomson
The opening of Big Night, naturally.
โTrevor Kensey
Big Night. The entire movie.
โJon Pine
The completely silent last scene in Big Night and the making of humble eggs.
โDoug Goudie
The food fight in Animal House!
โRobbie Doores
Animal House, when John Belushi says, โGuess what I am!โ and puts mashed potatoes in his mouth and then blasts them out by smacking his hands against both sides of his face. โIโm a zitโฆget it?โ
โDan Kraan
The chocolate tasting scene in Romantics Anonymous. [Editorโs Note: Weโd not heard of this French flick but we just swoonedโseriously, we swoonedโto its trailer. What can we say? Weโre romantics.]
โMark Harvey Levine
La Grande Bouffe. All of it. The Silence of the Lambs, the scene in which he says heโll have the guyโs liver with a nice chianti. The scene in Like Water for Chocolate when everyone starts falling in loveโoh, and the scene with the farts.
โSofia Reino
The diner scene in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray stuffs a large slice of cake in his mouth, looks at Andie MacDowell, and says, โWhat?โ
โCarlos Rodriquez
A Christmas Story and the Chinese Christmas dinner.
โJyll Richburg
The scene from A Christmas Story when Ralphieโs little brother eats his mashed potatoes like a little piggy.
โMany, many, many of you [Editorโs Note: Me included.]
The turkey disaster scene in A Christmas Story. Meryl Streep chopping all those onions as Julia in Julie and Julia.
โJoan Osborne
Edward Scissorhands when he tries to eat peas with his hands. Must Love Dogs and arguing with the butcher over ordering a single chicken breast. In Waitress, the making of all the different pies with fantastic names like โBad Baby Pie.โ Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the massive bowls of cereal he eats throughout the film when heโs alone. Baking a solo cupcake and the total destruction of the massive heart cookie at the bridal shower in Bridesmaids. The butter scene in The Women, when Meg Ryan dips an entire stick of butter into sugar and eats it just like that. The movie is meh, but that scene is great. And I feel like Marie Antoinette should be in here somewhere for all those decadent pastries, but I can only really remember seeing them, not an actual scene.
โKate Knapp
The restaurant scene with Mr. Creosote from Monty Pythonโs The Meaning of Life. BOOM!
โBrian Davis
Young Frankenstein. โYou havenโt even touched your food.โ (Touches food.) โThere. Now Iโve touched it. Happy?โ
โIlda Carreiro King
Isnโt it in Felliniโs Roma where the young man walks through the piazza and there is a huge terrace restaurant where everyone is eating spaghetti? And The Big Chill with the mayo on Wonder bread.
โJamie Schler
I like the scene in Kramer vs. Kramer where the newbie single dad with a full-time job makes breakfast with his son. He could have given his son cereal, but no, he made French toast. I thought it showed how comfortable he was with taking care of his boy (earlier in the film he burns whatever heโs trying to make and loses his temper) and how hard he was trying to be a good dad. Itโs so wonderful that they cook together. A whole lot of love in that French toast.
โChiyo Ueyama
Audrey eating and drinking outside Tiffanyโs in Breakfast at Tiffanyโs.
โDiane Pallini
I love the blue birthday soup from Bridget Jonesโs Diary. It reminds me that every new cook has a mishap at some time or anotherโsome edible, others tossable, maybe memorable.
โKaren Lynch
Oscar offering his poker buddies a choice of brown sandwiches or green sandwiches in The Odd Couple.
โMyles McDonnell
The Apartment, when Jack Lemmon makes spaghetti and meatballs and uses a tennis racket as a colander. When Steve Martin and Meryl Streep make croissants in Itโs Complicated. [Editorโs Note: Werenโt they stonedโฆ?] Soul Food, and how Big Mama never follows a recipe, just her instincts. The raisin scene in Benny & Joon. โTheyโre just humiliated grapes.โ The whole grits scene in My Cousin Vinny. โNo self-respectinโ Southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits.โ 9 1/2 Weeks, when Mickey Rourke blindfolds Kim Basinger and feeds her items from the fridge and she has to identify them by taste and texture.
โKim Venglar
Definitely the fridge scene in 9 1/2 Weeks.
โEmily Blinder
9 1/2 Weeks. Refrigerator scene. So erotic.
โLaura McLaughlin OโBrien
9 1/2 Weeks. Gahhh!
โMaggie Perkins
9 1/2 Weeks.
โDawne Elaine
Mostly Martha, a German film thatโs a love story about a female chef, food, and the hard work of raising a kid. Oldboy, the Korean original, which is a rough, violent film but has at least two memorable food scenes, one involving an octopus.
โElie Nassar
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, when they drink pop and float to the fan in the top of the building.
โFrances Benton Holden Tutt
Did anyone mention Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory? The part that always got me was when Wonka drinks out of a tiny tea cup and then eats the cup. Why doesnโt this exist yet?! And RatatouilleโI love the scene where Ego takes a bite of food and is transported back in time to his motherโs kitchen. It always chokes me up.
โAdriana Pecunia
All of Ratatouille. John Goodman enjoying his coffee in The Big Lebowski. James Cagney and the grapefruit scene in The Public Enemy. The soup sequence in The Birdcage when he forgot the โshrimps.โ
โNancy Floyd
The diner scene in Five Easy Pieces when Jack Nicholsonโs character tries to order toast.
โJackie Gorman
Watching whatsherface make all of the gorgeous confections in Chocolat.
โCyndi Martin
I like when everybody gets all giddy in Chocolat.
โSarah Ognie Page
The scene in Chocolat when the guy who is always asleep eats chocolate and suddenly wants to be with his wife. And this is a weird one, but in the movie Panโs Labyrinth, that freaky monster is sitting at the table with that huge feast in front of him. (Itโs actually a scary sceneโthe girl is told not to eat any food from the tableโbut itโs very enticing.)
โKelly Mescher Collins
Without a doubt, the dinner scene in Alien. Pretty unforgettable.
โKylie Johnston
Clemenza teaching Michael to make meatballs with spaghetti sauce in The Godfather.
โKarel ter Kuile
The scene in The Help with the famous chocolate pie with that โlittle something extra.โ Also, the scene where Minny shows Celia how to fry chicken while explaining all the uses for Crisco. Crocodile Dundee when he roasts the iguana over the open fire, then he gives it to the reporter and eats a can of yams himself.
โJulie Fortier Houser
The restaurant scene in the 1986 French film Betty Blue. Cigarette ashes and trash on the pizza. Waitress stabs customer in the breast.
โSimรณn de Swaan
The food fight in Fried Green Tomatoes.
โHeather Gulino
The Royale with Cheese conversation in Pulp Fiction.
โRobert Wise
The Lady and the Tramp. I love the part when they eat the spaghetti!
โTina Marques
Lady and the Tramp sharing a strand of spaghetti.
โFaleen Fedol
Every time I watch Lady and the Tramp, I think
โSHEโS HAVING SOME OF YOUR PASTA!โ
โQUICK! EAT IT ALL! EAT IT ALL NOW!!!โ
โGROWL! BARE YOUR TEETH! DO SOMETHING!โ
โOH, DONโT GIVE HER THE MEATBALL! THEREโS MEAT IN IT!โ
โIDIOT!โ
But then again Iโm not the romantic type
โFrancesco Marciuliano in I Could Chew on This and Other Poems By Dogs
When a drunk Tom Hanks falls face down in a bowl of bar snacks and lifts his head up with pretzels stuck all over. I think the movie was Splash.
โKaren Pepper Resciniti
I once saw this Asian movie where this man and woman were passing a raw egg, out of the shell, back and forth with their mouths. I guess it was supposed to be erotic, but it seemed a little disgusting to me. Still, your question was โmost memorable,โ and this was pretty memorable. I was impressed that the yolk didnโt break, and wondered how many takes it took before they could get that.
โMartin A. Goldberg
Pretty much every scene from the movie Tampopoโฆthe scene where the noodle master teaches his apprentice to really look at the meat and give thanks for the animalโs sacrificeโฆ the scene where the mother gets up from her deathbed to cook a last meal for her familyโฆthe scene where Tampopo falls asleep at her counter and has a nightmare about her broth boiling over and being ruined (I can so relate)โฆthe gangster remembering his favorite meal as heโs dyingโฆ
โMicaela Torregrosa-Mahoney
Tampopo has so manyโฆthe ramen-eating lessonโฆthe oysterโฆthe spaghettiโฆand, of course, the egg.
โNathaniel O.
Tampopo egg scene.
โLaura Hartman
Tampopo!
โGypsy Lovett, Liz Whyte, and many, many others
In Terms of Endearment, when Flap eats Auroraโs salmon spread at the brunch while sheโs still putting the finishing touches on it.
โAnne Hill
When Harry Met Sally!
โBrandy King
When Harry Met Sally. Diner scene.
โJym Brittain
Sallyโs ordering style in When Harry Met Sally.
โAdita Corrales
When Harry Met Sally. All the food scenes, from Sallyโs insistence to everything on the side to the miserable double date to Sallyโs unforgettable โdisplayโ in the deli.
โAlice D. Abbatte
The wedding cake in Bad Grandpa.
โBrenda Cushman
In Fatso, when Dom DeLuiseโs support buddies come over and they end up sitting around discussing all kinds of food and eventually rip the doors off the locked cabinets and go nuts making and ordering food. I was very young the first time I saw this, but I can totally relate now as an adult who has battled the call of food in the cabinets while trying to be โgoodโ to maintain my weight loss.
โJennifer McIntyre Schulz
Brad Pitt tasting peanut butter for the first time in Meet Joe Black.
โVivienne Clรฉgnac
The Breakfast Club lunch scene with a Rice Krispies-and-sugar sandwich on white bread.
โFrances Benton Holden Tutt
The deflated turkey dinner scene in National Lampoonโs Christmas Vacation.
โKaren Daubmann
Tom Jones and his lady eating dinner.
โRebecca Evers
The coupleโs feast scene in Tom Jones. I saw it when I was very young and suddenly food was somehow connected to sex as well as being connected to hunger and the pleasures of eating.
โRobin Carpenter
Tom Jones!
โGere Schwert and many, many others
August: Osage County and the scene where Julia Roberts wants her mother, played by Meryl Streep, to eat fish at the dining room table.
โMarlene Smith
The scene in Radio Days when Danny Aielloโs mom feeds Mia Farrow while searching for bullets so that he can kill her. Their discussion of where to dump her body while plying her with food is hysterical and a great snapshot of Italian-American foods and, indeed, hospitality.
โJames D. McDonald
When E.T. eats Reeseโs Pieces!
โDave Rueckl
Paul Sorvino cutting the garlic with a razor blade in Goodfellas. The eat-that-damn-steak scene in Mommy Dearest. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs has a ton of scenes. The gruel scene from Oliver! The campfire beans scene in Blazing Saddles. Katharine Hepburn trying to make breakfast in Woman of the Year. When Scarlett OโHara digs up the potato.
โDebbie Koenig
Brad Pitt in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the kitchen scene after the gunfight when he licks his lips. (And no, I donโt remember what he was eating.)
โMaria Ines Ramos Suchojad
The Great Pie Fight in The Great Race.
โDiana Mencel
In Matilda, when the kid eats the giant cake. Soylent Green and โItโs people! Soylent Green is made out of people!โ [Editorโs Note: Ew.]
โKinsey Justa
Uncle Buckโs mega stack of pancakes and sausage.
โLisa Mescher-Schlueter
The pie-eating contest in Stand By Me. The after-credits scene from The Avengers when theyโre all sitting around eating shawarma. Oh, the mashed potatoes in Close Encounters!
โCarol Anne Grady
The five-dollar milkshake scene in Pulp Fiction.
โMichael Shoup
The opening sequence in Goonies, when Chunk squishes his pizza and milkshake against the window of the store as the outlaw Fratellis lead the police chase through town. Chunk gets a face full of strawberry shake and, in his frustration, uses a naughty word. The opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever, with Tony (John Travolta) strutting down 86th Street. He stops into Lennyโs Pizzeria for a slice. (Lennyโs was our neighborhood pizzeria growing up, and it was delicious.)
โJo Ann Brown
Eat Pray Loveโamazing food scenes all over the place. Whatโs Love Got to Do with It and that scene where Ike says, โEat the cake Anna Mae!โ In Last Holiday, where she thought she was dying so she traveled to this exclusive resort and one evening ordered the entire menu from this froufrou French restaurant. That armadillo groomโs cake in Steel Magnolias!
โAyanna Fews
All the pie-making scenes in Waitress.
โMaria Averion
I love the scene in Enchanted April when the English ladies are trying to eat pasta in their rented Italian castle and they have absolutely no idea how to do it. Also, thereโs the great scene in Heartburn when Meryl Streepโs character has learned that her husband, played by Jack Nicholson, has been cheating on her. Her pain and anger well up during a dinner party until, just as sheโs about to serve dessert, she instead hits him in the face with the pie sheโs about to slice and plate.
โCarol Penn-Romine
The breakfast scene in Moonstruck. โDo you love him, Loretta?โ โYeah Ma, I love him awful.โ โThatโs too bad.โ
โMaureen Abood
The โsecret cupcake eating sceneโ in This is 40. Alice in Wonderland and the โEat Meโ cake. The Thanksgiving foibles in Pieces of April. Mrs. Doubtfire and the whipped cream face mask. And then thereโs the scene from Into The Wild where he tries to smoke the bear and it goes horribly wrongโheart crushing.
โKristel Poole
The raw eggs in Rocky. Boiling the lobsters in Annie Hall. And, my personal favorite, Inglourious Basterds and the strudel with cream close-up.
โLinda Pacchiano
Okay, if no one is going to say it, I will. The warm apple pie scene in American Pie. [Editorโs Note: I was going to say it if you didnโtโฆ]
โDavid Leite
Harry Potter and the Sorcererโs Stone. When the kids arrive at Hogwarts. Dumbledore says, โLet the feast begin,โ and all the tables are covered with all kinds of foods.
โAllison Wilson Magee
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doomโฆmonkey brainsโฆ.still gives me shivers.
โKeith Fjellman
One word. Foodfight!
โTom Rainey
In Easter Parade, when Jules Munshin, playing the waiter, describes the making of a Caesar Salad to Judy Garland and Peter Lawford. There was no food in sight, but itโs a great scene.
โJill Raison
The imaginary dinner in Hook. [Editorโs Note: Letโs not forget the imaginary food fight in Hook.]
โLisa Zlody
In How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and Marilyn Monroe, the final scene, where theyโre in the diner with their husbands having a wedding dinner of hamburgers and beer. It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, and the scene where sheโs hungry and they have no money so he gets carrots from a garden and sheโs appalled that heโd eat them raw. When Winnie the Pooh eats all of Rabbitโs honey and gets stuck in Rabbitโs hole. But my favorite is when I asked my husband his favorite movie food scene, he thought for a moment and then replied, โIโve always liked the hot dogs at the drive-in theater.โ
โHelen Doberstein
We had a lot of other entries from a lot of other film fans. Hereโs a glimpse at those movies and food scenes which also deserve honorable mention, including
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Dinner Rush
The Worldโs Greatest Sandwich scene in Spanglish. [Editorโs Note: If you have a thing for late-night sandwiches, you gotta check out this food scene with Thomas Keller and Adam Sandler making The Worldโs Greatest Sandwich.]
Pretty Woman (so many scenes!)
Castaway on the Moon
Big (Tom Hanks eating the baby corn)
The Family Stone (the strata disaster)
Two Weeks Notice (the discussion about tofu cheesecake with the dad)
Just about any James Bond flick (and the ordering of a martini)
Leaving Las Vegas (oof!)
The Blues Brothers and the scene where they order dry white toast, four fried chickens, and a Coke
Thereโs also the swell spaghetti-eating scene from Un Americano a Roma, or An American in Rome
And, not surprisingly, we also heard many, many mentions of Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory, which is technically a television show, though we love it, too.
Got more memorable scenes that we missed? Kindly let us know in a comment below! Originally published February 26, 2014.
Does anyone remember the name of an old Chinese or Korean movie where a boy and a girl steal a cake when they buy a donut and eat it with their hands in the park later.
Wow, Maha! I donโt recall that but I would certainly like to see that. Anyone?
I canโt tell you how satisfying it is to find this thread, and to know that there is at least one other person out there who appreciates the final โhumble eggโ scene in Big Night. I saw it many times before I realized Marc Anthony was the waiter. What understatement. I love a lot of the scenes mentioned, and will be watching the ones I havenโt seen. The spaghetti scene in Defending Your Life is a great one, not to mention the giant plates of โall you can eatโ food served in other scenes in the movie.
Paula, you are definitely not alone in your appreciation of that scene. Many kind thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts as well as remind us of that scene in Defending Your Life.
Fatsoโฆthe entire movie!!! โGet the honey, Junior!โ the dipping of fresh Italian bread in the simmering sauceโฆโYou ate the (Anth) Ony!โโฆthe woman in their store licking her fingertip and pressing it into the cookie crumbsโฆ
Love it. Many thanks, Grace!