The Five Best Food Movies

Most romances start with a delectable dinner and end with love- according to Hollywood. But there are stories that have food as a main ingredient to life. It's the gourmet life experience that hooks us all in these food movies.

The Big Night (1996)

Primo and Secondo are brothers that immigrate from Italy to open a successful restaurant in America.

Primo is a gifted chef whose culinary delights are wasted on the general public as he tries to be unique and different. Determined not to keep making the same old Italian dishes everyone looks to buy Primo brings the restaurant to the brink of bankruptcy.

Secondo is the financial brains whose frustration with his brother runs high as they face financial disaster. But the whole future of the restaurant rest with a dinner that Primo prepares for a local food critic.

A very good story keeping you right on the edge of your seat.

Chocolat (2000)

This is the story of Vianne Rocher and her daughter who settle into a rural town in France. They are looked upon as outsiders.

Vianne opens a chocolate shop and begins to wave her romantic and captivating delights on a town that begins slowly to open itself up to these new residents.

A great story about the power of food. Food as a catalyst has special effects on different relationships and Vianne shows the town its power of acceptance to those they don't know.

No Reservations (2007)

A predictable love-story in the kitchen of one of New York's most trendy restaurant. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a master chef with a bad temper and a flare for details. Taking her frustrations out on customers who know nothing about the art of food, she comes precipitously close to being fired.

She inherits her sisters 10 year-old daughter after her untimely death and a sous chef who works hard but wins the hearts of the kitchen staff, by playing down the stress of corporate cooking, while showing a zest and love for life that even his boss played by Ms. Zeta-Jones can't resist.

Interesting movie but more on the romantic comedy side of cooking, nonetheless once again shows the power food holds over us.

Last Holiday (2006)

A re-make of the 1950 original movie starring Alex Guinness gets a face-lift with the talented Queen Latifah playing Georgia Byrd.

Georgia is your average middle-aged woman who takes time to make gourmet dishes at home for a teenage boy in the neighborhood. One day she runs into a cabinet and is knocked out only to awake in a doctors office, who tells her she has a terminal illness.

After hearing these somber remarks she decides to take her life savings and treat herself to a holiday. A lavish European holiday where she samples the best foods prepared by master chefs and takes on exhilarating adventures.

Another romantic comedy that is made great by a truly gifted actress, Last Holiday is a culinary delight.

Julie & Julia (2009)

A remarkable film, with a performance worthy of an Academy Award given by Meryl Streep as Julia Childs, the remarkable and zany master chef.

Also there is a wonderful story line about a young secretary that decides to take on Julia Childs famous French Cooking book and make every recipe in a year while she blogs about her frustrations and successes with cooking. The movie shows how intertwined Julie & Julia's cooking life's are as they trace the steps the two ladies take to master French cooking.

Fantastic memoir of both women in different times as they tame some of the same struggles. My favorite food-movie, although I loved them all.

I hope you will go straight to the video store and rent these remarkable DVD's. As they show the magical qualities offered by the world's best chefs in the 5 Best Food Movies.