All at once nightmarish cannibal horror and romantic comedy, good-natured fairytale, and hyper-stylised allegory of French wartime collaboration and resistance, this collective debut from Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet is dizzyingly difficult to pin down

| Oct 18, 2023

With its molelike inhabitants, its sprawling war between flesh-eaters and lentil-men, its achingly sweet love story and surrealist blend of dusty antiquities and 21st-century gizmos, Delicatessen is indescribably wild.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 21, 2013

All of this is handled in a breezy, off-handed, nutsy manner, as the superb cast combines to help bring it off.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 21, 2013

Delicatessen is a fearsomely intense movie that mixes moods with formidable assurance.

| Nov 21, 2013

With their detached, sardonic and decidedly sick slant, Jeunet and Caro have served up a burnt-to-a-crisp feast.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2007

There are no characters to care about or remember afterward -- just a lot of flashy technique involving decor, some glib allegorical flourishes, and the obligatory studied film-school weirdness.

| Jun 5, 2007

A zany little film that's a startling and clever debut for co-helmers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.

| Jun 5, 2007

Eventually, Delicatessen descends into raw grotesquerie and excess. But first, it serves as an ample experimental field and proving ground for a wild talent that's thankfully become more disciplined with time.

| May 27, 2006

Delicatessen uses its aggressive stylization and capricious visual contraptions as a form of imprisonment.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 21, 2006

Increasingly inventive as it progresses, Jeunet and Caro's fast, funny feature debut entertains from sinister start to frantic finish.

| Jan 26, 2006

Its last half-hour is devoted chiefly to letting the characters wreck the sets, and quite literally becomes a washout when the bathtub overflows.

| May 20, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 14, 2002

A hugely enjoyable film, Delicatessen welds comedy and magic into a bizarre, grotesque fantasy of an oddball dystopian future.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 17, 2001

A fair bet for cultdom, a lot more likeable than its subject matter suggests, and simply essential viewing for vegetarians.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000

This lunatic's take on the future of man is so delightfully warped that it's impossible to shake it out of your head and go get a decent night's sleep.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000

Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film leaves you overwhelmed and breathless.

| Jan 1, 2000

A laboriously self-conscious attempt at being avant-garde.

| Jan 1, 2000