The Taste of Things
IFC Films | Release Date: December 13, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinKaren GordonFeb 16, 2024
The Taste of Things is rare, with a depth and maturity we don’t often see on screens anymore. It charts the connection of two mature adults who are at peace with themselves and each other. There’s a calm restraint to their relationship, and that adds to the film’s sensuality. Read full review
100
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsFeb 15, 2024
The film doesn’t strain for meaning or metaphor, instead just showing us the events over a certain period and allowing us to sample and chew over them as we would heaving plate of delicious food. Just a wonderful film. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonFeb 14, 2024
One of 2023′s best films, “The Taste of Things” is achingly romantic and devastatingly sad. You’ll spend the first two-thirds of this movie salivating, and the last third of it sobbing. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldFeb 14, 2024
We’re reminded, in this warmhearted film’s moving final act, that food can bring not only joy but, in the darkest of days, hope. Read full review
100
Screen RantAlex HarrisonFeb 9, 2024
Thankfully for us, though, a film is not a meal. We can watch The Taste of Things as many times as we'd like. Read full review
100
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonFeb 8, 2024
In a phenomenological way, The Taste of Things captures the joy of variety injected into mere existence: savory and sweet, hot and sour, juice and cream and astringency are not required for pure subsistence, but the rich range of taste we have created in our daily meals says something about human longings not easily put into words. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesDec 15, 2023
The Taste of Things is at once a delight for all five senses and an affecting drama of a relationship, as idiosyncratic as all loving ones are. Lingering on the tongue like a sip of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the film leaves one feeling a little drunk, desperately hungry and entirely alive. Read full review
100
The PlaylistElena LazicMay 25, 2023
The couple’s pursuit of true, deep, sincere beauty in all things — in body and mind — despite these obstacles is infinitely touching. Read full review
100
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 25, 2023
Food is a gift of love here – and romance courses through this delightful film. Read full review
91
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerFeb 9, 2024
It’s a movie that deserves our attention, if only for the elegiac peace of its narrative, and its reminder to appreciate the small things in life. Because they sometimes matter most. Read full review
90
ColliderChase HutchinsonFeb 13, 2024
Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things is a beautiful film that finds splendor in both its characters and their culinary creations. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzFeb 13, 2024
If you can appreciate the simple concept of nourishment – of the stomach, and of the soul – then you will walk away delightfully stuffed. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriFeb 9, 2024
Perhaps most importantly, The Taste of Things offers a perfect match between Hung’s artistic impulses and his subject matter. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 9, 2024
It’s simply blissfully restorative, a movie that gives you back something you didn’t realize you’d lost, one that might even make you forget what year you’re living in. Its pleasures run quiet and deep. Read full review
90
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 8, 2024
The film periodically risks turning into a swoony fantasy. But it is a fantasy we can favor because it’s one we all can share. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 8, 2024
A sumptuous period-piece celebration of sensory delights—both culinary and otherwise—infused with all manner of complex, intoxicating flavors. Read full review
90
Film ThreatBradley GibsonDec 26, 2023
Neither the meals depicted nor the viewing experience should be rushed. Time is needed for the ingredients of the film to achieve a simmered state of perfection. Your patience will be rewarded. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangDec 16, 2023
Despite its generally frictionless flow from meal to meal, its showstopping delicacies and subtly comical asides, The Taste of Things is haunted, from the start, by an awareness of the passage of time. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 25, 2023
Food is the subject, the objective and the driving motor of this scantly plotted but utterly captivating love story. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 8, 2024
Trần’s script (very loosely adapted from Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet) isn’t simply an ode to the idea of food being the food of love. Instead, it’s an utterly charming and touching description of a tender relationship between two people in middle age. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 15, 2024
There’s life, lived with serenity and purpose and, yes, plenty of money and property, in the lives depicted in Hung’s film. Binoche and Magimel see to it in every scene, with or without utensils. Read full review
88
ABC NewsPeter TraversFeb 9, 2024
Food porn has never been yummier on film than it is in this indecently delicious French romance starring on-and-off screen lovers Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel as dueling foodies who craft mouth-watering dishes as a way of finding each other’s hearts. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedFeb 5, 2024
Do not see The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. It’s a French film about gourmet French cuisine, magnificently photographed and meticulously prepared for both the camera and the palate, and raised to the status of art as only the French can. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJan 10, 2024
With that camerawork (the cinematography is by Jonathan Ricquebourg) and the elaborate, patiently detailed scenes of meal preparation, The Taste of Things easily deserves mention alongside the great food movies (Babette’s Feast, Big Night), while also being intensely erotic. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyDec 13, 2023
In "The Taste of Things," no distinction is made between cooking for someone and loving them. It's "all one." Read full review
85
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerOct 2, 2023
The Taste of Things is, in basic terms, a very nice and sweet movie, although Dodin’s grief as the paramours suffer tragedy in their autumn years is emotionally punishing. But there’s not necessarily anything wrong with a movie being “very nice and sweet,” especially one as lovingly crafted as this. Read full review
83
IndieWireSophie Monks KaufmanMay 25, 2023
Tran Anh Hung’s core skill is that of a top saucier, he knows how to add a glut of ingredients and reduce them to a rich flavor that moves the palate in ways that defy what seems like a simple dish. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 18, 2024
The Taste of Things defies expectations. There is something refreshingly unconventional about its depiction of the tender, well-worn love between Eugénie and Dodin. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonFeb 16, 2024
Dramatically, this may seem slight. But bounteous pleasures lie in the intimacy of the acting and in the exquisite cinematic and culinary craftmanship on display. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicAmanda LubertoFeb 14, 2024
The Taste of Things is marinated in warm sunlight, bottles of red wine, sweat from a hard day's work and a touching comfort between lovers. It reminds you of the indulgences of rich meals and genuine connections, going beyond finding someone who remembers date night to someone who knows how to list the ingredients of a bordelaise by taste. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 13, 2024
As with other movies that capture the joys of cooking and the carnal thrill of eating, this French romantic drama is as much an ode to regional bonne bouches as it is an epic tale of two epicures. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 25, 2023
Tràn Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu (La Passion du Dodin-Bouffant) is a movie that captures its mouthwatering dishes like edible tableaux, combining culinary marvels with a moving tale of middle-age love. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 25, 2023
In Tran Anh Hung’s seventh feature, a passion for food becomes a conduit to exploring an appreciation for the beauty and mystery of existence — as well as telling a delicate, complicated love story. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 25, 2023
Tran, a practised sensualist, is superb at depicting food as a vehicle for pleasure. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 14, 2024
Binoche is so gifted, she no longer seems to act anymore: She just is, in all her serene confidence and physical charisma, and “The Taste of Things” provides the ideal showcase for those ineffable gifts. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrFeb 7, 2024
In our world of gross TikTok hacks for one pot meals, it’s a balm to see things slowed down and with many, many beautifully rustic copper pots and cast-iron pans. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 4, 2024
For all the appetizers, the endless array of main courses and diabetic coma desserts we see dished-up here, Anh Hung Tran gives us a meal that is more overwhelming in its scope than wholly satisfying in its consumption. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiDec 4, 2023
The film views the love of food and romance as all one singular desire for everything beautiful and fleeting in life. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneFeb 5, 2024
So what kind of movie is this? A conservative one, I would say, not in politics (a topic that never arises at the table) but in its devotion to long-ripened skills and to the sheer hard work that goes into the giving of pleasure. Read full review
63
The Film VerdictDeborah YoungJul 10, 2023
The pièce de résistance of unabashed culinary cinema, Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot au Feu serves up a French country idyll in romantic 19th century sauce for audiences whose tastes run to the fine wines and 12-course meals. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyFeb 14, 2024
A perennially sun-dappled kitchen. Cast-iron pans. Belle-époque bustles. Gastroporn doesn’t come more XXX-rated than this insanely pretty, airily vacant livre de recettes. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 25, 2023
There is charm and delicacy here and Magimel and Binoche perform impeccably, though I wasn’t entirely sure they go together as the ingredients of a love story. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 14, 2024
If you have to watch someone cooking or eating, Juliette Binoche is as good a choice as any, but even she can’t make scintillating entertainment out of chewing, stirring a pot and putting on oven mitts. Read full review
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