The act of eating food (in real life and on screen) is often humble and satisfying. But sometimes, the unexpected happens and eating turns to chaos and suddenly, within seconds, food is flying across the room, hitting unsuspecting victims and decorating walls, windows, and ceilings in mashed potatoes and baked delicacies.
Where else but on the big screen do we get to witness pure joy break out and ordinary dishes transform into perfect ammunition? Food fights are so irrational yet so irresistible. They throw all logic out the window and take us back to childhood where we tried tossing food across the table for the first time and were either met with raised brows or with… food. Though food waste is never a good idea, the movies that feature some of the most iconic scenes are filled with such freedom and silliness that you cannot help but laugh.
The mayhem starts small but what makes food fight scenes in movies so hilarious is not just the silliness but also the innocence. As we watch characters of all ages slipping, sliding and stumbling through the colorful clutter, we are reminded that life is just meant to be lived in the moment, rules be damned.
10 Milkshake Mishap – Whip It (2009)
Set in Bordeen, Texas, Whip It follows a small-town, indie-rock-loving mother who has never felt like she belongs in the place. Until she discovers roller derby and forms a roller derby team with a group of fellow misfit women after sending her 17-year-old daughter to prepare for and win major league events. The sport is already too competitive for the women to not get physical. So when one of the teammates makes an unwelcome remark, Smashley Simpson responds by flinging her milkshake right into the girl’s smug face, triggering an epic diner-wide milkshake free-for-all. The silly scenes feature women of all ages coating each other in sticky shakes, with Drew Barrymore shining through with her battle call. Plus the original soundtrack adds to the mood of the joyous mayhem.
9 Snowball / Ice Cream Fight – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Bringing Judi Barrett’s classic illustrated children’s book to life as an animated adventure, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller tell a story that follows Bill Hader’s Flint Lockwood, an inventor living on an island where the weather and food are created by his machines. One day, Flint accidentally turns his machine up too high, resulting in the town getting buried under food like spaghetti tornadoes and jellybean hail. Being an inventor, Flint has ice cream figured down to the T, but when he’s faced with the challenge of snowball fighting on Ice Cream Snowball Day, things go madly out of hand. Fantastical food creations like rainbow snowballs and flavorful ice creams go flying around as people join in the sweet chaos, giving audiences a hysterical visual feast and winning Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a sequel as well.
8 Zombies Alert! – Dawn of the Dead (1978)
George A. Romero has made many classics that are considered gold even today, and Dawn of the Dead is just one zombie horror in his vast database. The 1978 movie follows a group of people led by a radio-station employee named Stephen hiding from zombies at a secluded shopping mall. While hunkered down, the characters eventually find themselves in the mall’s restaurant-like area. Naturally, things take a wild turn when the zombies evade the mall space, prompting one of the characters to use whatever they can get their hands on to stop them. In this case? Pies. The scenario leads to an over-the-top spectacle of characters lobbying pies at zombies, slowing them down, muddling their actions. The scene delivers both the creeps and laughs.
7 Chaos in the Canteen – It Takes Two (1995)
It Takes Two is a wonderful romantic comedy that follows two teenagers, Alyssa and Amanda, who were separated at birth and switched at a young age. Years later, looking radically different, they discover the mix up and decide to work together to fool their families and bring their respective guardians up with each other. The ‘90s kids had devoured a healthy dose of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movies and it was only natural that this would delight a particular audience too. In one scene, Alyssa attempts to create a diversion and deliberately drops her lunch tray and trips a server, causing food from the tray to fly into the face of a classmate. And after Kristie Alley yells “Food Fight!” the scene escalates into an epic reaction of students flinging food from tray to tray. After all, sibling mischief knows no bounds.
6 Hurling Pies at Bullies – Matilda (1996)
Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book got its first movie treatment back in 1996. Matilda tells the story of a girl with special powers who uses her abilities against the adults oppressing her. From Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood at home to Miss Trunchbull at school, the film shows a range of bullies always coming at the kids for no apparent reason. In one funny scene, we watch as this particular tyrant forces Bruce Bogtrotter to gobble down an entire chocolate cake. But karma tracks her down because later, she boots out of the school premises when more than a dozen angry children with pies in their hands run after her, hurling the sweet wonder at Miss Trunchbull to punish her for her crimes. Even Bogtrotter gets his moment in this slapstick smackdown as the bully gets a taste of her own medicine.
5 Bluto’s “Food Fight!” – National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Animal House is a classic comedy directed by John Landis. It revolves around freshmen Larry and Kent desperately trying to get into a frat house but ending up into another. However, being misfits, they cause absolute mayhem on their stodgy campus. During a tense scene, John Belushi is seen hogging his plate with food, and the camera zooms in. back at his table, he fills his mouth with mashed potatoes and slaps his cheeks, with the food coming out of his mouth and on his tablemates. “I’m a zit, get it?” he exclaims. From there, it is utter chaos as students stuff iceberg lettuce down shirts, slater mashed potatoes in hair, and launch entire plates across the dining hall. In fact, everything about the scene except for Belushi’s cry of “Foot Fight!” was shot in one take.
4 The Pie Fight – Blazing Saddles (1974)
Mel Brooks’ uproarious Western spoof became an Oscar-nominated classic for many reasons. First, the premise. The movie centers around a black sheriff who is appointed to a largely racist town so that a corrupt politician in the Wild West can clear the space for a new rail road. Second, the remarkable performances by Mel Brooks himself and Cleavon Little. And third, the subversive and satirical take on basic cowboy stories. But let’s not forget that Blazing Saddles also had one of the most iconic food fights scenes ever put to screen. In a surprisingly successful attempt at breaking the fourth wall, the movie features the people of Rock Ridge throwing pies and tuna and soup at the tourists in the Warner Bros. cafeteria as well as the studio delegates, resulting in pure devilish fun.
3 Flinging Cakes – The Great Race (1965)
The Great Race is a phenomenal technicolor comedy starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood. The plot of the film is as follows: two early 20th century daredevil racers, The Great Leslie and Professor Fate, compete in an around-the-world automobile race from New York to Paris. Halfway through the journey, when the crew takes a halt at the kingdom of Potsdorf, one racer intentionally causes a commotion that devolves into an all-out birthday cake frenzy involving the entire bakery. It began with a chase that led to a fall and a cake wasn’t far behind with pure chaos following suit. Fun fact: it took the team five days and a total of 4,000 custard-filled pies to shoot that scene and bless us with a memorable feature of that huge tiered cake.
2 Food War Declaration – Hook (1991)
With an all-star cast including Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts, and Charlie Korsmo, this adventure fantasy by Steven Spielberg tells the story of an adult Peter Pan who has forgotten his childhood and must rediscover his imagination to save his children from the evil and formidable Captain Hook. At one point during the movie, Peter’s children sit down to dine with Peter, feeding him the food and offering him drinks when one of the kids calls his name. And as soon as Peter looks up, a pie comes floating in the air, landing right on his face. What follows is an entire dining table of kids just hurling colorful pies at each other and Tinker Bell getting a laugh out of the mad chaos. The scene ends with one of the older kids throwing a coconut at Peter, which he slices into half with a sword. Though light on substance, Hook perfectly captures the playful spirit of James Matthew Barrie’s iconic play.
1 Whipped Cream Shots – Bugsy Malone (1976)
This directorial debut from writer Alan Parker broke ground as the first movie to feature an entirely child cast to portray gangsters in Prohibition-era New York. Despite being deeply unsettling, the musical comedy created history for its premise and shows how a world of harmless anarchy can work just well. Being a gangster movie, the whole thing seemed incomplete with an all-out gunfight, until the very dramatic finale where the gang raids another gang’s speakeasy, and they both pull out their guns. But when the shots are fired, we see whipped cream being splattered on the tables, walls, and faces, and nobody lets out a smile. Alan Parker’s vision of replacing butlers with whipped cream was whimsy and charming, much like Bugsy Malone itself.