| Director | Gabriel Axel |
|---|---|
| Box office | $4.4 million |
The elderly and pious Protestant sisters Martine and Filippa live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark. Their late father was a pastor who founded his own Pietistic conventicle. Lacking new converts, the aging sisters preside over a dwindling, elderly congregation.
Forty-nine years before, the sisters had many suitors, but their father rejected them, to retain the women’s assistance with his pastoral mission. Martine was courted by a young Swedish cavalry officer, Lorens Löwenhielm, who was visiting Jutland. Filippa was courted by the famous baritone Achille Papin, on hiatus from the Paris Opera. Both sisters spurned their suitors and stayed with their father.
Thirty-five years later, Babette Hersant appears at their door. She carries a letter from Papin which explains that she is a refugee from counter-revolutionary bloodshed in Paris and recommends her as a housekeeper. The sisters cannot afford to employ Babette, but she begs to work for free. Babette serves as their cook for the next fourteen years, producing improved versions of the bland meals typical of the abstemious nature of the congregation and gaining their respect, and that of the other locals. As the years go by, the sisters are deeply distressed by the increasing number of disputes between the congregants. Babette is also troubled, and at one point, interrupts the arguments with a stern rebuke.
Babette's only link to her former life is a lottery ticket. A Parisian friend annually renews the ticket. One day, she wins the lottery and receives 10,000 francs. After her win she decides to prepare a dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor's hundredth birthday. More than just a feast, the meal is an outpouring of Babette's appreciation, an act of self-sacrifice.
The sisters accept both Babette's meal and her offer to pay for the creation of a "real French dinner." Babette arranges for her nephew to go to Paris and gather the supplies for the feast. The ingredients are plentiful, sumptuous and exotic, and their arrival causes much consternation and discussion among the villagers. As the various never-before-seen ingredients arrive and preparations commence, the sisters begin to worry that the meal will become a sin of sensual luxury, if not some form of devilry. In a hasty conference, the sisters and the congregation agree to eat the meal, but to forgo speaking of any pleasure in it and to make no mention of the food during the dinner.
Martine's former suitor, Lorens, now a famous general married to a member of the entourage of Queen Louise, comes as the guest of his aunt, the local lady of the manor and a member of the old pastor's congregation. He is unaware of the other guests' austere plans and as a man of the world and former attaché in Paris, he is the only person at the table qualified to comment on the meal. He regales the guests with abundant information about the extraordinary food and drink, comparing it to a meal he enjoyed years earlier at the famous Café Anglais in Paris. Although the other celebrants refuse to comment on the earthly pleasures of their meal, Babette's gifts break down their distrust and superstitions, elevating them physically and spiritually. Old wrongs are forgiven, ancient loves are rekindled and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table.
Bereft, the sisters assume that Babette will return to Paris. However, when she says that all of her money is gone and that she is not going anywhere, the sisters are aghast. Babette then reveals that she was formerly the head chef of the Café Anglais, where a dinner for twelve cost 10,000 francs. Martine tearfully says, "Now you will be poor the rest of your life", to which Babette replies, "An artist is never poor." Filippa then says: "But this is not the end, Babette. In paradise you will be the great artist God meant you to be" and then embraces her with tears in her eyes saying: "Oh, how you will enchant the angels!"