Documentary
The cooking show is as old as television itself. But why do we like watching the making of a meal that most of us will never cook, let alone eat? Dirty Furniture’s jam-packed video essay is a rollercoaster ride through the history of the genre, at once a staple of television viewing and a hotpot of shifting perspectives and sociocultural values.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
To Stay Alive: A Method
How to Cook Your Life
Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait
Visions of Europe
All This Can Happen
Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
Marcella
Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner
The Green Fog
Filmfarsi
Julia
The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking
Parallel Lives
The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography
The March on Rome
F for Fake
Four Shorts on Architecture
The Making of Michel Petite
Ôrí
Locations: Looking for Rusty James
SIMILAR MOVIES
To Stay Alive: A Method
IMDB 5.4 | Nov , 2016
Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.How to Cook Your Life
IMDB 5.6 | May , 2007
A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait
IMDB 8.2 | Aug , 2011
In this one-hour special, Gordon investigates the history, culture and controversy surrounding the shark fishing industry. Each year, nearly 100 million sharks worldwide are killed for use of their fins in the traditional Chinese delicacy, driving a third of the world's shark species towards extinction. Gordon also goes diving in an attempt to gain a full understanding of the majestic animal.Visions of Europe
IMDB 5.2 | May , 2004
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.All This Can Happen
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2013
A flickering dance of intriguing imagery brings to light the possibilities of ordinary movements from the everyday which appear, evolve and freeze before your eyes. Made entirely from archive photographs and footage from the earliest days of moving image, All This Can Happen (2012) follows the footsteps of the protagonist from the short story 'The Walk' by Robert Walser. Juxtapositions, different speeds and split frame techniques convey the walker's state of mind as he encounters a world of hilarity, despair and ceaseless variety.Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
IMDB 8 | Dec , 2000
A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.Marcella
IMDB 0 | May , 2025
Marcella Hazan didn’t just teach Italian cooking—she changed the way America eats. Fearless, passionate, and exacting, she introduced authentic recipes to millions. Julia Child called Marcella “my mentor in all things Italian.” Featuring Jacques Pépin, Danny Meyer, April Bloomfield, and Lidia Bastianich, this intimate portrait reveals the bold woman who forever shaped home kitchens.Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner
IMDB 7 | Jul , 2023
Lies can kill. Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner is an exploration of propaganda, lies, and the overwhelming urge to end it all.The Green Fog
IMDB 5.9 | Jan , 2018
A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…Filmfarsi
IMDB 2 | Jul , 2019
A found-footage essay, Filmfarsi salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution.Julia
IMDB 6.2 | Nov , 2021
Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking
IMDB 0 | May , 2022
In the year Queen Elizabeth marks her 70th on the throne, Fortnum & Mason has challenged home bakers to create a tart, cake, or pudding to honor her legacy. Seven judges headed by Dame Mary Berry invite the final five bakers to London where over one extraordinary day they bake their cakes, tarts, and trifles – hoping it will be the winning recipe.Parallel Lives
IMDB 0 | Apr , 2021
Born June 8, 1964, Frank Matter films four "twins", born the same day as him, but in other latitudes. Interweaving their life stories with rich archival material, the filmmaker links these Parallel Lives with elements from his own biography, to compose a fascinating fresco where intimate trajectories are part of the advent of the global village.The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography
IMDB 6.5 | Jan , 1998
Every image in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography comes from gay erotic videos produced in Eastern Europe since the introduction of capitalism. The video provides a glimpse of young men responding to the pressures of an unfamiliar world, one in which money, power and sex are now connected.The March on Rome
IMDB 6.5 | Oct , 2022
The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.F for Fake
IMDB 7.4 | Sep , 1973
Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.Four Shorts on Architecture
IMDB 9 | Oct , 1975
A visual essay on contemporary Kiwi architecture.The Making of Michel Petite
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2025
The film begins as a documentary about an author known for autofiction. By incorporating multiple making-of layers, it blends the process of making the documentary with the author’s narrative technique.Ôrí
IMDB 8.6 | May , 1989
A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.Locations: Looking for Rusty James
IMDB 3 | Aug , 2013
A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.