Metrograph

Japanese milk-truck drivers (Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ken Watanabe) team up with the owner of a run-down roadside food stall (Nobuko Miyamoto, in the title role) to help her kick up her noodle-making game a notch in Itami’s brash, bawdy, knee-slapping “ramen Western,” a paean to the simple pleasures to be found at the kitchen table and in the boudoir.

“Probably the best food movie ever. My mother and my father introduced me to this movie at a family movie night at home. We watched it dubbed in German. Years later, I bought the original DVD and let me tell you, in Japanese, it’s even better.” —Phillip Westermair