Best movies like Midnight Diner 2

Similar in 82%

The Secret of the Grain (2007)

Plot Summary:

At the port of Sète, Mr. Slimani, a tired 60-year-old, drags himself toward a shipyard job that has become more and more difficult to cope with as the years go by. He is a divorced father who forces himself to stay close to his family despite the schisms and tensions that are easily sparked off and that financial difficulties make even more intense. He is going through a delicate period in his life and, recently, everything seems to make him feel useless: a failure. He wants to escape from it all and set up his own restaurant. However, it appears to be an unreachable dream given his meager, irregular salary that is not anywhere near enough to supply what he needs to realize his ambition. But he can still dream and talk about it with his family in particular. A family that gradually gives its support to this project, which comes to symbolize the means to a better life. Thanks to its ingeniousness and hard work, this dream soon becomes a reality...or almost.

Similar in 83%

A Touch of Spice (2003)

Plot Summary:

"A Touch of Spice" is a story about Fanis, a young Greek boy growing up in Istanbul, whose grandfather, a culinary philosopher and mentor, teaches him that both food and life require a little salt to give them flavor. They both require... A Touch of Spice. Fanis grows up to become an excellent cook and uses his cooking skills to spice up the lives of those around him. 35 years later he leaves Athens and travels back to his birthplace of Istanbul to reunite with his grandfather and his first love. He travels back only to realize that he forgot to put a little bit of spice in his own life.

Similar in 75%

Strawberry Shortcakes (2006)

Plot Summary:

Based on the eponymous josei manga by cartoonist Kiriko Nananan, the pic follows the ups and downs of four female friends in Tokyo looking for love and trying to cope with the responsibilities in their lives. The main characters, impeccably played by four powerful actresses, are modern, self-sufficient women and their stories are told with mild irony and a dash of melancholy. The result is a movie that is lighthearted at times, a little sad at others, crazy and sometimes serious, but always special, that investigates the psychology of its characters and offers an accurate depiction of urban Japan, thanks to its director’s know-how. While many overly ambitious directors struggle to tell even one fairly comprehensible story, Yazaki skillfully weaves a powerful depiction of not one, but four women, creating an indissoluble and moving whole that doesn’t succumb to sentimentalism.

Similar in 83%

The Lady Improper (2019)

Plot Summary:

A woman with a seemingly ideal life, Siu Man is abandoned by her husband partly due to her fear of intimacy. After several life crises, she decides to reboot her life by taking over her father’s restaurant. Siu Man eventually finds herself attracted to her new chef, a free spirit who treats cooking as serious philosophy. Tired of the shackles she placed on herself, Siu Man embarks on a journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation.

Similar in 89%

Rhapsody in August (1991)

Plot Summary:

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.

Similar in 80%

Le Grand Chef (2007)

Plot Summary:

A young, incredibly talented chef quits the profession after a contest to head a world-class restaurant ends in tragedy. Retiring to a small rural town with his grandfather, he finds a new and more peaceful existence, working as a farmer and selling vegetables at the local market. Even though content in his new life, when a nationwide cooking competition offers him the chance to take on his long-time rival, Seong-Chan embarks on a journey that will forever change his view of the world and lead him to the most startling revelations.

Similar in 87%

Bread of Happiness (2012)

Plot Summary:

A couple decide to relocate from Tokyo to the northern island of Hokkaido where they settle and establish a bakery and café called Mani. One cooks. The other bakes. Everyone walks out happy.

Similar in 86%

Midnight Diner (2014)

Plot Summary:

Every night, Master (Kaoru Kobayashi) is busy with customers at the restaurant he runs. He has a worried face, looking at the funerary urn which someone left at his restaurant. His customers also talk about the funerary urn.

Similar in 80%

Kamome Diner (2006)

Plot Summary:

Where are we welcome? On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her, and meets Masako, a formal and ethereal middle-aged woman whose luggage has gone missing. The three women work in the diner, interact, and serve customers. A somewhat brusque man teaches Sachie to make delicious coffee, then he returns under other circumstances. Three neighborhood women inspect the empty diner every day; will anything bring them inside? The number of customers gradually increases, but the diner seems to attract only those with problems. Conversation with Sachie and the tasty food seem to resolve people's woes. We learn why Sachie serves rice balls; but why Finland?.