Film

The Menu

Name: The Menu
Genre: Comedy, Horror
Released: 2022
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, Janet McTeer, Paul Adelstein

The Menu serves fine dining as a horror set piece: a couple travel to a private island for a chef's once-in-a-lifetime tasting menu, and each course arrives with escalating menace. It's satire with teeth, skewering culinary pretension, wealth, and the cult of the artist-chef, funny until it very much isn't. Sharp, controlled, and gleefully cruel, it's for anyone who enjoys watching rich people get exactly what's coming to them.

TMDb rating

7.2

If you liked this

Ready or Not2019

Same wicked engine: a lavish, ritualised evening turns into a hunt, with a bride fighting for her life against a family that treats murder like etiquette. Same gleeful cruelty and control.

But It leans more slasher than satire, so if you liked The Menu's slow simmer, this moves faster and bloodier.

Knives Out2019

Rian Johnson's whodunit skewers a wealthy, awful family with the same delight in watching entitlement implode, wrapped in a gorgeous, twisty mystery.

But It's a puzzle-box mystery rather than horror, so the dread and menace of The Menu just isn't here.

Triangle of Sadness2022

Another eat-the-rich satire, this one aboard a luxury yacht where the class hierarchy capsizes spectacularly, literally. Same target, cruder and funnier weapon.

But It's baggier and more absurdist, three distinct acts instead of one tight evening, with broader, grosser humor.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover1989

Both use an haute-cuisine setting to stage class rage and turn a meal into an instrument of revenge; Greenaway just does it with none of the restraint.

Peter Greenaway's grotesque, operatic revenge film uses a restaurant as a stage for class warfare and cruelty, food as weapon and punishment, decades before The Menu tried the same trick.

But It's far more explicit, arty, and disturbing, confrontational arthouse rather than a polished studio thriller, and it will test your stomach.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover poster

Parasite2019

The definitive class-satire-turns-thriller, with the same slow tightening of dread as wealth and service collide, and a masterclass in tonal control.

But It's less overtly comic and more devastating; if you wanted jokes with your dread, this tips harder toward tragedy.

Get Out2017

Jordan Peele's horror-satire hides its target in plain sight the same way The Menu does, letting hospitality curdle into something monstrous course by course.

But The social commentary here is race, not class or art, so the satire cuts in a completely different direction.

Fresh2022

A modern dating horror-comedy with the same nasty streak and stylish reveal, and food, in the most literal and awful sense, right at its center.

But It's pulpier and grislier, with less of The Menu's control and more outright body horror.

Saltburn2023

Wealth, envy, and hospitality turn sinister again, this time inside an English country estate rather than a restaurant. Gorgeous, uncomfortable, and cruel in its own way.

But It's slower and stranger, more psychosexual drama than horror-comedy, and the satire is murkier.

The Hunt2020

Elite hosts stage an elaborate, deadly game for their guests, sharing the same dark comic relish for watching the powerful toy with the powerless.

But It's broader satire, more action movie than slow-burn, and its politics are louder and less subtle.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi2011

It's the sincere, non-satirical mirror of Slowik's obsession, showing what that same relentless perfectionism looks like when it isn't curdled into contempt.

Watch the real thing: an 85-year-old sushi master's obsessive, monastic devotion to craft, the same artist-chef intensity Slowik has, minus the murder.

But It's slow and meditative and utterly without irony, no satire, no menace, just quiet reverence for discipline.

Big Night1996

It's food-as-identity and culinary perfectionism played completely straight and generous rather than as a weapon, the tender opposite of what happens on Slowik's island.

Two immigrant brothers stake everything on one perfect dinner service in this warm, funny drama, treating cooking with the same reverence as art or love.

But There's no horror or satire here at all, it's a gentle character drama, tender where The Menu is savage.