The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Peter Greenaway's crime drama The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) is available to watch online on iFILM. The story barely leaves the walls of an opulent London restaurant, where the same table holds court every single night.

The man at that table is gangster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon), a boor and a tyrant who degrades everyone around him between endless monologues about food. His wife Georgina (Helen Mirren) finds escape in a quiet regular named Michael (Alan Howard), and their affair unfolds right there among the tables, hidden away in the kitchen by a cook willing to look the other way. When Spica discovers the betrayal, he sets in motion a revenge that turns the stomach. Tim Roth turns up among the thug's henchmen.

Greenaway stages it like a painting: each room bathed in its own colour, the camera gliding like a theatre curtain, the costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. It is harsh, provocative cinema about power, lust and violence, not for the squeamish but a magnet for anyone who loves bold art-house work. Stream The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) online on iFILM.