In film, food is hardly just a prop. It’s a plot device, bringing characters together, tearing them apart and moving their stories forward — much like in real life. That is evident even among the handful of movies nominated this year at the Academy Awards, which airs on Sunday: Think, the unnerving spaghetti and meatballs scene in “Bugonia,” or the “few small beers” in “One Battle After Another.”

When it comes to the most memorable, most evocative food scenes in any film, in any year, though, there is no shortage of opinions across Food and Film critics, reporters and editors at The New York Times. Below are 20 of our favorites, including two Oscar nominees from this year. Spoilers are very much on the menu.

“Moonstruck” (1987)

Six Oscar nominations; won Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay

Nearly every scene in this perfectly peculiar rom-com is anchored by food: the dessert cart that precipitates Johnny’s (Danny Aiello) thoughtless proposal to Loretta (Cher), a resigned widow caring for her parents and grandfather; the sugar cubes she drops into Champagne when she breaks the news to her unsupportive father, Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia); the cannoli her father’s mistress enjoys as he lavishes her with a bracelet and plumbing advice; the fresh loaves that stand like sentries around the forlorn Ronny, (Nicolas Cage) Johnny’s estranged brother, protecting him from the cruel world outside his bakery.

But a steak Loretta serves Ronny might be the most consequential piece of meat in cinema, if not in love. Who on earth would waltz into the kitchen of a man she met minutes ago, don an apron, and fry up a New York strip for him? A cursed woman with nothing to lose. Despite his request, she serves it bloody, and her dissection of his resentments over the meal is similarly raw — each gesture, in kind, moving him to flip the table, and their lives, upside down. TANYA SICHYNSKY

“Phantom Thread” (2017)

Six Oscar nominations; won Best Costume Design