La Grande Bouffe

Marco Ferreri's provocative and controversial satire about four friends who retreat to a country mansion with the intention of eating themselves to death.

Praised and reviled upon its debut at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, Marco Ferreri’s outrageous satire takes aim at the consumerism and decadence of the bourgeoisie. Four rich, middle-aged friends gather in a luxurious mansion for a weekend of gluttony and lust, in which they plan to literally eat themselves to death. Scandalously entertaining with gleeful, mischievous performances from such stars of European cinema as Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita) and Michel Piccoli (Le Mèpris).

The film was notoriously divisive on release: it won the FIPRESCI prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, but Mastroianni’s lover at the time Catherine Deneuve refused to speak to him for a week after seeing it.