Certain movies are feasts for a foodie’s eyes, like Chocolat, Julie & Julia and Ratatouille. But in many other films, food is a smaller movie morsel, a tidbit to a bigger story, flavoring that adds texture to plot and character. Here are 15 movies that tempt our cinematic taste buds without overstuffing our movie belly.
Francis Ford Coppola’s mafifia epic gives us a nearly perfect mantra about the importance of good food relative to other things, even in the dirty work of a mob capo: “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
Jack Nicholson inventively fifigures out how to place a side order of toast with a grumpy waitress trying to hold him strictly to the menu.
Paul Newman’s blue eyes gave everyone the sweaty swoons, and when he boasted he could eat 50 eggs, he really could!
A walk-and-eat staple gets a cameo in the opening scene as Tony Manero ( John Travolta) struts in Brooklyn to the tune of “Stayin’ Alive” while scarfifing down some iconic Italian street food: pizza!
There’s a boy, a bully, a Red Ryder BB gun and a sexy leg lamp—and also a dad (Darren McGavin) whose quest for tasty Christmas turkey becomes a recurring theme.
The diner “date” of gangster Vince Vega (John Travolta) with a mob wife (Uma Thurman) includes their memorably mundane discussion of overpriced milkshakes.
Disney’s animated classic—a canine love story about two dogs from difffferent sides of town—features an unforgettably romantic spaghetti-sharing scene at an Italian restaurant.
Rolling up their sleeves and making croissants from scratch in a restaurant kitchen helps bring together Steve Martin and Meryl Streep in this Nancy Meyers romcom.
It has an eye-watering cast of actors, including Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain and Sissy Spacek. But one of its most memorable scenes stars a slice of chocolate pie… with a very special ingredient.
Getting to-go from a California fast-food institution—the In-And-Out Burger on Camrose—makes a bad night easier to swallow in the Coen Brothers’ cult favorite about a slacker dude, bowling, a fake kidnapping and nihilists.
Don’t you wish every deli sandwich came with a side of Meg Ryan’s faked orgasm?
In the comedy Christmas favorite Elf (2003), we learn part of the foundation of a North Pole sugar-rush diet is syrup… and lots of it!
A box of chocolates—and how life is like it—provides one of the most oftft-quoted movie lines in history, as Tom Hanks’ character explains his mama’s sage advice.
Charlie Chaplin’s penniless “Little Tramp” makes dinner rolls “dance” in a silent-movie scene that’s become part of cinematic history—and even copied by Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon.
Milk never looked so pure and white—and sinister—as in Quentin Tarantino’s bloody rewrite of Nazi history, when an offifficious SS commandant (Christoph Waltz) relishes a glass just before murdering a farmhouse family of Jews.
