25 Most Loved Food Films & Shows

Magical stories have been woven across media platforms around food, chefs, eaters, lovers, and yes, French rats. Broadcast TV, streaming, YouTube and TikTok, have moved food story-telling into the mass public consciousness. We've picked 25 of the most popular films and shows for you.

1    Big Night: Tony Shaloub, purist chef unites with Stanley Tucci, maître d’, to prepare a fab meal for a singer, whose thumbs-up may give them success.

2    Tampopo: This one's about two gangsters, who decide to help Tampopo up her game in her ramen shop. The movie is famous for the most erotic foreplay involving an egg yolk.

3    Like Water for Chocolate: An arousing melange of food love, and food porn. Tita, desolate with longing for her lost love Pedro, makes food that sets everyone’s passions on fire.

4.   Eat Drink Man Woman: A Confucian quote that honours the primal desires, of food, drink and sex, this film is centred around a chef-father and his daughters.

5    Julie & Julia: Meryl Streep as Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci as her diplomat husband, conquered French cooking with a groundbreaking book. The film also pays tribute to one of the world’s greatest love stories.

6    Ratatouille: Who hasn't watched it! A rat called Remy wants to be a chef and so, mentors a garbage boy with talent called Alfredo Linguini, by hiding under his toque and pulling his hair. Fun!!

7    Chef: Features Director Jon Favreau as a chef who gets fired after fighting with a critic; sets up a food truck, struggles, bonds with his son, and yes, triumphs.

8    The Hundred-Foot Journey: A Konkani Muslim family flees a riot, and finds refuge in France. Om Puri and Helen Mirren face off – Abbu starts Maison Mumbai, and 100 feet across is Madame Mallory’s Michelin star restaurant. The rest is quite a journey... 

9    Babette’s Feast: Babette is a refugee from France, who shows her very religious Danish saviours, that there’s more to life than austerity, cooking haute cuisine French for the village. Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

10  Burnt: Heavily influenced by famous chefs such as Gordon Ramsey, Marco Pierre White, and the like, Burnt is the narrative of the fictional, reckless, destructive Chef Adam Jones played by the devilishly handsome Bradley Cooper. 

11  Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals: A perky, chirpy woman with a high girl next door quotient. She brought the terms EVOO, yummo, and GB (garbage bag) into the vocab.

12  Ina Garten – Barefoot Contessa: She owned a store by that name, then published cookbooks, and finally hosted a show on the Food Network. A brilliant happy chef, with food that is accessible, and easy to make.

13  Iron Chef: One of the early food reality TV shows. A cast of bold-faced names came together to cook competitively. Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Morimoto, Cat Cora, Alex Guarnaschelli...entertaining!

14  MasterChef: This one took the reality genre into the realm of home chefs. It started and languished in the UK. Gordon Ramsey, boss of the US show, plays his rude persona to the hilt. The Indian MasterChef has Vikas Khanna, its share of rona dhona, and many spinoffs including MasterChef Junior – adorable.

15  Chef’s Table: Each episode features one Culinary Genius who has reinvented gourmet food. It started with Massimo Bottura, and has run the entire gamut over six seasons. 7 is coming soon!

16  Top Chef: It was helmed by Padma Lakshmi for 19 seasons. A star cast of judges, and young professional chefs competing to make it to the big time.

17  Anthony Bourdain: Enfant terrible of the NY cooking scene, the late Anthony wrote Kitchen Confidential and almost killed Monday dining in the city. He became a global figure with his Parts Unknown TV series – ran for 12 seasons. 

18  Nigella Lawson: She's the veritable creator of food porn. All her shows are worth watching, because she is so engaging, with her come hither look. Her zone is comfort food, her joy lies in feeding her children, and hosting intimate parties.

19  David Chang: The guy who invented instant noodles and his culinary brand, Momofuku. A serial opener of restaurants; a serial host of TV shows – The Mind of a Chef, Breakfast Lunch and Dinner, The Next Thing You Eat, and most recently Dinner Time Live with David Chang.

20  Samin Nosrat: She wrote the award-winning cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat, and converted it into a Netflix series!

21  Stanley Tucci of The Devil Wears Prada, and Julie & Julia, wrote a cookbook early on, and later created two seasons of a loving, insightful show called Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.

22 The Bear: One of the hottest new shows streaming its way to awards and ratings, with a hot Michelin star chef (Jeremy Allen White) comes home to Chicago to revive his family’s sandwich shop.

23  Midnight Diner – Tokyo Stories: Set in a small diner in Tokyo that opens at midnight and shuts when the food runs out. Emotional baggage, comfort food and gentle wisdom are packed into this.

24. Street Food Asia/USA/Latin America is exactly as advertised. It does a deep dive into 21 cities, shows the impact of local street food. 

25. Chocolat: One piece of that dark, rich chocolate is just not enough! Johnny Depp had more than his fill in this sensuous film – adapted from the book – which features Juliette Binoche, a chocolatier who opens a chocolate shop in a conservative French village.