Boiling Point

Philip Barantini's Boiling Point opened in 2021 and was nominated for four BAFTAs in 2022 including Best British Film and Best Actor (Stephen Graham). The film was shot in a single unbroken 90-minute take across a working London restaurant kitchen on a single night — a technique Barantini, himself a former chef, would later expand to multi-episode use in the 2025 Netflix limited series Adolescence.

Andy (Graham, in a career-peak performance) is the head chef of a fashionable London restaurant on what is supposed to be its busiest night of the year. He is simultaneously mid-divorce, behind on tax payments, recently diagnosed with a small but serious health problem, and being undermined by a former mentor (Jason Flemyng) who has just published a celebrity-chef cookbook and arrived for dinner with a critic in tow. Vinette Robinson, as the sous chef Carly, anchors the kitchen brigade beneath him.

The single-take conceit — a Steadicam choreography that runs uninterrupted from front-of-house through pass to washing-up area and back — was rehearsed for weeks; the take used in the film was the third successful complete attempt. Graham's commitment to the realism of professional kitchen work, including operationally accurate cookery, made the film a genuine reference point within the British hospitality industry. Boiling Point later became a four-part BBC One series in 2023, with Graham reprising the role.