Top Ten Best Food Movies

In honour of Julie and Julia, I decided to compile my own top-ten list of favourite food movies, or at least favourite food moments in film, more or less in order.

1. Woman on Top (2000): Brazilian sea goddess Yemanja grants supernatural cooking ability to Penélope Cruz, but the gift comes with strings attached. Foodporn payoff: New uses for malagueta peppers = extraordinarily hot. (Note: image above is not a malagueta; they're sexier!)
2. Babette's Feast (1987). In a remote Danish village, Stéphane Audran teaches two kindly and pious elderly ladies that indulgence can be as much a spiritual act as self-denial. Foodporn payoff: The quails en sarcophage.
3. Bella Martha (2001, English title: Mostly Martha). A rigid chef recovers from crushing grief and learns new appreciation of food, life, love when she takes in her dead sister’s orphaned child. Foodporn payoff: Martha’s meticulous mise-en-place and plate primping. Reheated in 2007 as No Reservations (2007) with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight) and Abigail Breslin.
4. Ratatouille (2007). An unlikely chef cooks up fame and fortune in a Paris bistro. Foodporn payoffs: The animated interpretation of a great food experience, and the ripped-off-from-Proust’s-madeleines moment.
5. Chocolat (2000). Juliette Binoche has a magical knack for chocolates, which polarizes residents of a formerly tranquil French village. Foodporn payoffs: Fleeting shots of chocolate being tempered with an offset spatula on a marble slab, Binoche finger-feeding truffles to Johnny Depp.
6. Como agua para chocolate (1992. English title: Like Water for Chocolate). Lumi Cavazos is a jilted sister whose emotions get cooked right into her food. Foodporn payoff: I really like that stone grinder.

7. Sideways (2004): Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church take a pre-nuptial road trip through the Napa Valley. Food porn payoff: The pinot noir speech.
8. The Mistress of Spices (2005) Aishwarya Rai is bound to help others with her magic spices, but when she meets Dylan McDermott, she develops an appetite to live her own life. Foodporn payoff: The shop itself: so many spices! (By the way: don't try this hot-pepper bed thing at home, folks.)

9. Goodfellas (1990). Ray Liotta grows up in the underworld. Foodporn payoff: The imprisoned kingpin slicing that garlic soooo thin.
10. The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996): Janeane Garofalo’s smart and Uma Thurman’s pretty; when they meet, they both grow a little. Foodporn payoff: When starved model Uma finally eats some of those creamy cakes.

Honourable mentions:

• The bakery in Moonstruck
• The feasts in the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies
• Oprah baking biscuits in Beloved
• The Baudelaire orphans' pasta puttanesca in Lemony Snicket
• The cakes in Marie Antoinette
• And finally: absolutely any depiction of an Italian-style plein-air family meal involving a trestle table with a white tablecloth