Which 1989 film by Peter Greenaway is titled The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover?

The 1989 film by Peter Greenaway is titled The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. The movie is a stylized British-French drama known for its theatrical sets, changing color schemes, and elaborate food imagery.

The film stars Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Alan Howard, and Richard Bohringer. Much of the action takes place around a restaurant controlled by Albert Spica, whose violent behavior dominates the story. Greenaway uses the restaurant, kitchen, dining room, and food as visual and symbolic structures rather than presenting a conventional realistic drama.

The film is sometimes loosely associated with “Pandora’s box” because of its themes of appetite, transgression, and punishment, but its title is not Pandora’s Box and it is not a direct adaptation of Hesiod’s myth. Its distinctive punctuation and ampersand are part of the recognized title, making the complete film name the canonical answer.