Since the days of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, cannibalism has often served as a metaphor for bigger overarching themes that explore society and the human psyche. It's true: there's something fascinating about cannibals, serial killers, and other folks of highly taboo practices. That's why there are so goddamn many true crime podcasts and why shows like Dexter, Criminal Minds, and Hannibal are so popular. Killers are one thing, though, and cannibals are another. The genre of "Cannibal Film" is unsurprisingly plagued with controversy, with many of the films about this subject matter being condemned-or outright banned-for their brutality and their scandalous subject matter. It's not always somber-toned blood and guts, however, since some films have dodged the usual expectations that one would understandingly have about cannibal movies, and Luca Guadagnino's latest film, the Timothée Chalamet-starring Bones & All, is looking to be yet another of a long line of unique explorations of the subject. If you're looking to dive into films about the most ravenous of appetites, then cozy in, grab some fava beans and a nice chianti, and get ready for 11 of the most interesting films on cannibalism. Believe it or not, there's something here for everybody.
"Soylent Green is made of people! They're making our food out of people!" One of the only films about cannibals that don't realize they're cannibals, Soylent Green looks forward into a not-too-distant future in which all of the earth's resources are depleted by greenhouse gasses and overpopulation (sound familiar?). In the year 2022 (oof), the disproportion between economic classes is catastrophic (double oof), with the upper class living in safe, fortified homes, while the poor are left to die in squalor. Set against this not-so-cheerful backdrop is a detective yarn following a NYPD detective (Charlton Heston) who investigates the death of a rich aristocrat (Joseph Cotten). The film's once-shocking twist may have since become widely known, but its power remains nevertheless. It's a disturbing science-fiction dystopia that perhaps hits way too close to reality.
No list of cannibal films would be complete without the impossibly grotesque Cannibal Holocaust. Easily the most controversial (and frequently banned) picture on this list, the 1980 horror flick is absolutely not for the faint of heart. Basically, if you can think of something you wouldn't want to see in a film, Cannibal Holocaust has it. The film operates on two separate halves, one following an American anthropologist heading into the Amazon in search of a missing documentary crew, and the other featuring the endless carnage of the discovered footage left by the mutilated crew. Gore and unflinching violence aside, it's actually quite an innovative work that not only pioneers the "found footage" genre that would be popularized decades later, but pushes the limits of what can reasonably be considered acceptable in a commercial film. If you're looking to go big-and leave yourself absolutely shocked to your core-go to Cannibal Holocaust.
Will there ever be a cannibal as iconic as Hannibal Lecter? In Silence of the Lambs, Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is a psychopathic mastermind consulted by FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in order to catch the twisted serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Hopkins, who never missteps, gives the performance of a lifetime as Lecter. He oozes well-spoken menace that only rivals the scare-factor of the film's core killer, but far surpasses it. Lecter boasts about his meals as if they were Michelin-star dishes, taunting Clarice with the fact that sometimes in order to catch a killer, you need the mind of a killer. Hopkins would reprise his role in a gory sequel, Hannibal, but here is the undeniably superior film. Jonathan Demme's horror masterpiece is not only one of the greatest films of serial killers (or cannibals) ever made, but it's also the only horror film to ever win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It's a movie whose chilling last words will reinvent what it means to "have an old friend for dinner."
Julia Ducournau, who won the Palme d'or for her body horror reinvention Titane, first crafted a thematically-hefty coming-of-age flick with Raw. The movie centers around a vegetarian (Garance Marillier), whose first semester at veterinary skill sets her off on a path of appeasing increasingly insatiable cravings. It's gory (of course it is, it's about cannibalism!), but also highly intelligent and empathetic. Through the moments of legitimately disturbing violence, Ducournau doesn't rely on shock for shock's sake. Sure, the flick frequently indulges in seeing how gross it can make the scenes, but also keeps itself grounded enough to thoroughly explore its central themes. At once a film about sisterly love, peer pressure, and the fluidity of the human appetite, Raw is a certified masterpiece, and a truly unforgettable work of horror and art.
In a romance gone wrong, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) meets the charming Steve (Sebastian Stan), who quickly disarms her with his good looks and natural charisma. The two meet in a grocery store (clever, huh?), and before long, Steve's appetites prove to be far more ravenous than expected. Even though Fresh fully acknowledges the inherent nastiness of the film's premise, it works to throw comedy into the mix, toeing the line between humor and horror in the process. It's also a fresh reinvention of the cannibal film that steps away from the typical and problematic portrayal of indigenous tribes. This time, the cannibals are just rich folk, to whom none of life's delicacies cannot be obtained. Sebastian Stan is deliciously diabolical as a handsome butcher and Daisy Edgar-Jones is an empathetic movie heroine worth rooting for.
The Bad Batch is like a glitzy Mad Max without the exquisite action sequences. Suki Waterhouse plays Arlen, a young woman who's exiled to a barren Texas desert where a sadistic group of cannibals pluck newcomers up from the sand for a quick meal. After literally spending an arm and a leg (yes, the film makes a pun about it later), Arlen escapes and sets back into the wasteland to find her place. It's a dreamlike landscape of savages, misfits, and prophets, with some wonderfully bizarre appearances by Jason Momoa, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, and others. Writer and director Ana Lily Amirpour strips nearly all dialogue from the film, with some characters, like the kindhearted Hermit (Jim Carrey), never speaking a single line. Instead of following a fleshed-out plot, Amirpour creates an experience of following larger-than-life characters across a dangerous landscape where anything and everything is fair game. At its core is a truly tender love story about the possibilities of kindness and humanity in an increasingly cruel world.
The dry-as-hell Eating Raoul is the type of film that doesn't elicit uproarious laughter, which isn't to say that it isn't funny. It is, but it also utilizes a very flat delivery of its humor. Writer/director/star Paul Bartel plays Paul, a wine connoisseur who hopes to realize his dreams of opening a restaurant after killing and robbing a number of swingers (or "rich perverts", as Paul calls them). As the corpses pile up, Paul soon devises a different use for the bodies much more aligned with his culinary daydreams. A breezy, lightweight dark comedy, Eating Raoul is a biting satire of heedless self-indulgence in an increasingly disconnected world.
Horror filmmaker Eli Roth crafts a sadistic love letter to the Italian cannibal films of the '70s and '80s with The Green Inferno. At the end of the day, The Green Inferno is essentially Hostel set in the jungle, but hey, props to Roth for resurrecting one of the most notoriously controversial sub-genres of horror movies out there. There's also some interesting food for thought here, though, as the movie skewers the concept of youthful slacktivists that take to social media to protest world issues beyond their understanding. Indulgent in many of the same horrendous whims as the classics of the genre, The Green Inferno is a conflicted-but-passionate homage to a category of films that, at the very least, never fail to make an impression.
Few films about cannibalism are as defiantly light-hearted as Cannibal! The Musical. Before South Park and The Book of Mormon, Trey Parker and Matt Stone sharpened their dark senses of humor on a musical comedy based on the true story of the Colorado Cannibal, Alferd Packer, a late 19th Century prospector who resorted to killing and eating members of his exploration crew. Yep, a musical comedy about cannibalism-and a pretty hilarious one at that! Parker and Stone both star in the picture and lend their recognizable voices (you've heard them do twenty-plus South Park characters apiece) to their infectiously cheerful and upbeat musical numbers. Imagine if a Rogers & Hammerstein musical were written about murder and cannibalism by two teenage boys, and you've pretty much got it. It's the type of uproarious comedy that'll leave you having a truly Shpadoinkle day.
RELATED: Every 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Movie, Ranked
Who will survive and what will be left of them? Such is the tagline posted on the poster for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and there could hardly be a more fitting question raised throughout the film's unceasingly brutal plot. From the disconcerting beginning to the blood-drenched ending, here's a movie that absolutely demands your attention. It's a simple premise that's often been mimicked but never outdone: a group of friends becomes stranded far out in the countryside and get picked off one-by-one by Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his psychotic family of cannibals. Through its seemingly endless cruelty, there lies plenty of textual meaning: is it a portrait of the death and disintegration of the American life, a pro-vegetarian metaphor, a commentary on misogynistic violence? Whatever it means to you, it's undeniably scary-Stephen King famously called it a "cataclysmic terror." Almost fifty years later, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains one of the most powerful and influential horror films ever made, one that's hard to watch but even harder to look away from.
Bone Tomahawk follows a plot that's essentially The Searchers filtered through an Italian Cannibal horror lens. Set at the end of the 1800s, the movie centers around a group of men who set out to rescue a doctor (Lili Simmons) from a primitive group of inbred cannibals. While the largest part of the movie is spent on the arduous journey across the countryside, all quickly descends into nightmarish flashes of limb-tearing violence that beg to be ingrained into your brain. There's plenty of talent in front of the camera, with Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, and Richard Jenkins all landing significant roles in the movie. The result is a genre-defying picture that executes some of the most impactful tropes of the western and cannibal genres considerably well.