Delicatessen

Delicatessen (1991) is the pitch-black comedy by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro you can watch online on iFILM. It unfolds in a crumbling apartment block after some unnamed collapse, where meat is currency and money has gone worthless.

The ground floor holds a butcher shop. Its owner (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) is also the landlord, feeding his tenants cuts of a very particular kind — new lodgers tend to vanish into the menu. Then Louison (Dominique Pinon), a former circus clown, arrives to do odd jobs and, per the butcher's plan, become the next delivery. Trouble is, the butcher's near-sighted daughter (Marie-Laure Dougnac) falls for him. Appetite loses to love, and beneath the floorboards a band of vegetarian rebels starts to stir.

This was Jeunet's feature debut, eight years before Amélie, shot in a sickly amber glow to the squeal of bedsprings and the scrape of knives. It won four César Awards, including Best First Film and Best Writing, and remains a touchstone of oddball French cinema. Stream Delicatessen (1991) online on iFILM.