Lobsters appear in movies and TV beyond mere kitchen scenes, serving as comic relief, central characters, or monsters. Their distinctive shells, claws, and aquatic nature, plus associations with luxury, maritime life, and alienness, make them surprisingly versatile across horror, comedy, drama, and satire.
Filmmakers exploit the lobster’s visual uniqueness and symbolic flexibility, proving these crustaceans to be unexpectedly effective cinematic elements that adapt seamlessly to different genres and narrative needs.
Are you planning to dine in and stay home this weekend after a hard week’s work? How about a lobster dinner and a movie? Perhaps you can find an old film that features the king of crustaceans and treat yourself to a delicious meal at the same time. Or maybe a newer release, such as the movie The Lobster (2015)?
Lobsters in the Movies: A Symbol of Luxury, Comedy, and the Unexpected
Lobsters have appeared in some of cinema’s most memorable scenes, from elegant dinner disasters in Annie Hall to philosophical moments in The Favourite. These crustaceans often represent luxury and fine dining, but filmmakers use them for much more—slapstick comedy, social commentary, and unexpected metaphors about class and identity. Whether escaping from restaurant tanks or sitting on fancy dinner plates, lobsters consistently steal scenes despite their small roles. In movies, even the most unlikely creatures can become powerful symbols.
What are your favorite lobster movie moments?
The Lobster Man from Mars
The Lobster Man from Mars (1989), starring Patrick McNee, is a film about a young film student trying to sell his monster movie to a producer who goes bankrupt, and as a result, the student takes the producer’s place. The monster in the film is a giant lobster with claws – very slimy and ugly. See and hear the movie trailer above: “Meet the crabby crustacean from a far-away world who has clawed his way to the top of Tinsel Town.”
But is this movie still so dated when we pay to see recent blockbuster movies like Cowboys & Aliens (2011) today?
Starship Troopers
In the film Starship Troopers (1997), monsters resembling giant lobsters readily attack the military personnel. This Sci-fi movie depicts a future war against alien “Bugs”. The filmmakers strategically chose this design to exploit lobsters’ naturally alien qualities—their hard exoskeletons, multiple limbs, and formidable claws. To better understand lobster anatomy and terminology, these features become even more fascinating when transformed into a terrifying extraterrestrial threat. This design choice taps into primal fears of insectoid predators while creating a biologically plausible alien adversary.
One Crazy Summer (1986)
In this 1986 film, Nantucket is comically overrun by lobsters, which become targets for neighborhood shooting practice. The scenario subverts the typical image of lobsters as valuable seafood, instead portraying them as pests in an absurd, hyperbolic situation designed for comedic effect.
Leonard
In Leonard, Part 6 (1987), Bill Cosby, who plays a secret agent, is attacked by lobsters, exemplifying the film’s farcical tone. This unexpected choice of antagonist—lobsters as a threat to a secret agent—subverts typical action movie conventions and emphasizes the film’s embrace of ridiculous, slapstick humor.
Flash Dance
Jennifer Beals eats lobster suggestively in a scene from Flashdance (1983). This romantic drama follows a young woman as she pursues her dream of becoming a professional dancer. In one notable scene, Jennifer Beals’ character suggestively eats lobster, using the crustacean as a symbol of luxury and sensuality. The moment serves to enhance the film’s romantic atmosphere and portray the character’s embrace of life’s finer pleasures.
The Naked Gun 2½
The Naked Gun 2½ (1992) features a memorable slapstick dinner scene where Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley eat lobster. The scene exploits the inherently messy and formal nature of eating lobster—with its shell-cracking, specialized tools, and potential for food mishaps—to create classic physical comedy typical of Nielsen’s style, turning the lobster into an effective comedic prop.
Summer Rental (1985)
Then there is Summer Rental (1985) with John Candy; despite his character’s love of food, he cannot afford lobster, which was considered a “real luxury” at the time. Lobster serves as a symbol of unattainable luxury. This detail reinforces themes of class and economic struggle, using the expensive seafood as visual shorthand for the character’s financial limitations and aspirations for a better standard of living.
Splash
Do you remember Darryl Hannah in Splash (1984), who is a mermaid, but eats lobster at the dinner table with Tom Hanks?
Splash, directed by Ron Howard, is a fantasy romantic comedy that follows Allen Bauer (Tom Hanks), who falls in love with Madison (Daryl Hannah), a mermaid. The story centers on Allen’s choice between life on land and underwater with her.
A memorable scene shows Madison eating lobster—shell and all—at dinner, highlighting her alien nature and disconnect from human customs. Her unrefined consumption serves as visual shorthand for her “otherness,” contrasting her primal oceanic instincts with civilized dining etiquette. The lobster becomes both sustenance and symbol of her true aquatic identity, emphasizing that despite her human appearance, she remains fundamentally a creature of the deep.
Annie Hall
We may be dating ourselves, but who can forget Diane Keaton and Woody Allen’s reaction in Annie Hall (1977) when the actors attempt to boil a live lobster and Annie waves it at her boyfriend before it is dropped in the pot. Boiling lobster makes some people squeamish, and there are all those tales about lobsters screaming as they are cooked. The lobster scene in Annie Hall (1977) illustrates how these crustaceans can reflect cultural anxieties—from urban food preparation fears to religious dietary restrictions (shellfish being non-kosher). Rather than mere props, lobsters serve as cultural barometers revealing societal norms, class distinctions, and food-related traditions.
Julie & Julia
In the 2009 movie Julie & Julia, blogger Julie Powell attempts a lobster recipe as part of her challenge to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, within 365 days.
Julie & Julia contrasts chef Julia Child’s confident culinary mastery in 1950s Paris with Julie Powell’s amateur cooking challenge in 2002 New York, where she attempts to prepare all 524 recipes from Child’s cookbook in a year. The film’s lobster preparation scenes exemplify this contrast: Julie nervously drops live lobsters into boiling water while Julia expertly cuts them with a knife, symbolizing the difference between inexperienced determination and professional expertise.
Brooklyn Lobster
Has anyone seen Brooklyn Lobster (2005), starring Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin? It is a story about a man who owns a lobster business and goes bankrupt. The lobster business and associated shop are the star actor’s identity. Frank Giorgio takes out a loan to open a restaurant, further expanding his lobster business. His son returns home with his girlfriend to help his father run the business and capture lobsters. When the business fails, Frank loses his house, and his wife separates from him. It is a touching story about a lobster farm and how the loss of the business affects the family’s finances and relationships.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
On a lighter note, a psychic in the movie “Dinner for Schmucks” connects with the spirit of a lobster. Released July 30, 2010, Dinner for Schmucks stars Paul Rudd as Tim, an executive invited to his boss’s monthly “Dinner for Extraordinary People” where guests bring eccentric characters. Tim reluctantly chooses Barry (Steve Carell), a bumbling man who creates dioramas with stuffed mice. Barry’s well-intentioned but disastrous help sends Tim’s life spiraling out of control.
The film is an American remake of the 1998 French black comedy Le Dîner de Cons. A memorable scene features a psychic character who “connects with the spirit of a lobster” after dinner, exemplifying the movie’s absurd humor by transforming an ordinary meal into a bizarre spiritual experience. This perfectly captures the film’s satirical premise of transforming mundane situations into outlandish comedy through its cast of “extraordinary” misfits.
Easy ‘A’
In this 2010 teen flick, Easy A, Olive (Emma Stone) dons a lobster bib on her date at the fictitious Lobster Shack restaurant. In Easy A (2010), Emma Stone’s character Olive enthusiastically enjoys lobster at a casual themed restaurant, wearing a lobster bib and declaring “Yummmm!” when offered “Maine lobster and crab with seafood stuff.” This scene represents a cultural shift in cinema’s portrayal of lobster—from the exclusive luxury or source of anxiety seen in earlier films, such as Annie Hall, to a more accessible, kitschy dining experience that emphasizes the character’s uninhibited, unpretentious personality.
The Lighthouse (2019)
The Lighthouse (2019) follows two lighthouse keepers—Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson)—isolated on a 1890s New England island. As a storm traps them, they descend into madness fueled by alcohol and psychological torment.
The film’s most iconic scene features Wake’s relentless demand that Winslow admit “Yer Fond of Me Lobster,” turning the phrase into psychological torture that establishes dominance between the men. This is reinforced by Winslow’s disturbing hallucination of seeing the previous lighthouse keeper’s severed head in a lobster trap.
The lobster becomes a potent symbol representing obsession, control, and deteriorating sanity—transforming from ordinary food into an emblem of the characters’ claustrophobic descent into madness and the cyclical horror of their isolated environment.
The LEGO Batman Movie
The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) is a hilarious movie about the lobster-loving Caped Crusader living a solitary bachelor’s life in Gotham City. No, this animated movie is not just for kids.
The LEGO Batman Movie is an animated comedy that reimagines Batman as a quirky, solitary bachelor with an unexpected love of lobster. This seemingly minor character detail serves as a brilliant subversion, transforming the traditionally dark and brooding hero into a more relatable figure. Rather than being a plot device, Batman’s lobster obsession functions as a comfort food indulgence that humanizes the character in unexpected ways. This detail exemplifies the film’s comedic deconstruction of superhero archetypes, adding domesticity and humor to an otherwise grim persona while playing against audience expectations.
The Lobster
There’s a bizarre but fantastic movie from 2015 called The Lobster – it’s a dark comedy that’s bizarre, but in the best way. Critics loved it (with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and it also picked up some awards.
The premise is wild: imagine a world where if you’re single for more than 45 days, boom – you get transformed into whatever animal you want. The main guy, David, played by Colin Farrell, figures if he can’t find love in time, he’ll become a lobster. His reasoning? Lobsters are pretty cool – they’ve got blue blood, they can keep having babies throughout their lives, and they live for over a century. Plus, David’s really into swimming and the ocean, so it kinda makes sense.
The whole thing is essentially poking fun at how society reacts when people aren’t in a romantic relationship. It’s one of those movies that makes you think while also being completely bonkers.
A Lobster Tale
A Lobster Tale follows struggling fisherman Cody Brewer, who discovers magical healing moss in his lobster trap. As the town seeks out the moss, Cody faces difficult choices between family needs and community demands. A man catching lobsters also nets a strange seaweed moss with healing powers that becomes associated with the lobster.
The lobster industry drives both plot and meaning. By situating the supernatural discovery within mundane fishing equipment, the film employs magical realism to illustrate how extraordinary forces can emerge from ordinary working-class life. The lobster becomes a symbol of nature’s disruptive power—transforming from a simple catch to a mystical gateway.
Miracle Mile (1988)
In this 1988 nuclear apocalypse film, the protagonists buy two lobsters but choose to release them instead of eating them, wishing they could free all the lobsters in the tank. Set against impending global destruction, this simple act transforms the lobsters into symbols of vulnerable life and humanity’s compassionate instincts. The scene demonstrates how seemingly small gestures of mercy can represent profound themes of freedom and the preservation of innocence in the face of ultimate catastrophe.
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
In Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, a 1966 kaiju film, the humble lobster is transformed into a colossal maritime menace. Ebirah terrorizes a tropical island with massive claws and an insatiable appetite for destruction, embodying primal fears of the ocean. As Godzilla’s crustacean adversary, Ebirah elevates the lobster from dinner plate to apex predator, its segmented armor and snapping pincers making it a formidable opponent in the pantheon of oversized terrors in vintage monster cinema.
Lobsters on the Small Screen: A Deep Dive into Crustacean Cameos and Central Roles
How about a nice cold beer with your lobster dinner? In this Budweiser Super Bowl commercial, a lobster takes a diner’s Budweiser hostage!
Bob’s Burgers – “Lobsterfest”
In “Lobsterfest (S1 E12, 2011), “The town’s lobster festival transforms the crustacean into both celebration and catastrophe. As lobsters flood the episode’s setting, they become unwitting agents of chaos—triggering allergic reactions, escaping their handlers, and turning what should be a culinary celebration into a comedy of errors. The lobsters themselves drive the mayhem, their mere presence enough to send the Belcher family into panic mode.
Lobstermen (Discovery, 2009)
This reality series follows the dangerous lives of commercial lobster fishermen operating off New England’s coast, particularly around New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Point Judith, Rhode Island, as they pursue the prized Maine lobster.
Seinfeld “The Bizarro Jerry”
This scene is from (Season 8, Episode 3). Jerry dates Gillian, a beautiful woman with unusually large, masculine hands. At dinner, Jerry watches in horror as she aggressively rips apart a whole lobster with her powerful “man hands,” cracking the shell and extracting meat with brutal efficiency. The scene plays for comedy as Jerry is simultaneously repulsed and mesmerized by her forceful approach to what’s normally a delicate dining process. This becomes a running gag throughout the episode about Jerry’s obsession with her masculine hands.
Who needs lobster crackers when you have big, strong “man hands. Jerry Seinfeld’s dinner date demonstrates her cracking technique by ripping open a cooked lobster with her bare hands. See her handiwork. (Check out our instructions for how to crack open a Maine Lobster.).
Seinfeld: “The Hamptons” (1994)
In another iconic Seinfeld episode (Season 5, Episode 21, aired May 12, 1994), Kramer illegally takes lobsters from a commercial trap during a Hamptons weekend getaway. This angers their host, Michael, whose father was a commercial fisherman, and leads to Kramer’s arrest and $1,000 fine, which he works off through community service. The stolen lobsters also enable George’s revenge plot against Rachel, using non-kosher lobster scrambled eggs, which creates a cascade of comedic consequences that drive the episode’s interconnected storylines.
How I Met Your Mother: “Lobster Crawl” (2012)
In this episode (Season 8, Episode 9, aired December 3, 2012), Robin’s lobster allergy becomes a metaphor for her romantic patterns. Lily compares Robin’s deliberate consumption of lobster despite being allergic to her self-destructive pursuit of Barney, who has stated he won’t chase her anymore. The lobster symbolizes Robin’s attraction to what she cannot or should not have, illustrating her complex romantic psychology.
Friends: “The One With The Prom Video” (1996)
In this pivotal episode (Season 2, Episode 14, aired February 22, 1996), Phoebe introduces her theory that “lobsters fall in love and mate for life,” declaring Ross and Rachel each other’s “lobsters.” When a prom video reveals Ross’s selfless devotion to Rachel, it leads to their first kiss, seemingly confirming Phoebe’s theory. Though biologically inaccurate, the “lobster” metaphor became an iconic symbol for soulmates and defined the show’s central romantic relationship.
Learn the fascinating facts about lobster mating and reproduction, including the surprising truth about whether they mate for life.
Family Guy: Lobster Moments (Various Episodes)
Lobsters appear across multiple Family Guy episodes for absurdist comedic gags rather than as central plot points. In “Baby Got Black” (2014), Chris’s lobster selection at a restaurant sets up his romance with Pam. “A Lobster Tries To Kill Peter” (2020) features a revenge-seeking lobster attacking Peter. Other brief gags include Peter paying for a lobster’s city tour and Stewie “taking out” a lobster. Unlike other shows’ metaphorical uses, Family Guy employs lobsters purely for immediate shock value and surreal humor, fitting the show’s rapid-fire, irreverent comedic style.
Saturday Night Live: “Diner Lobster” (2018)
This acclaimed SNL sketch, written by John Mulaney and Colin Jost in 2010, aired on April 14, 2018, and was produced when Mulaney returned to host eight years later. Pete Davidson tries to order lobster at a Greek diner, triggering an elaborate Les Misérables parody where the diner’s patrons—including the lobster itself (Kenan Thompson as Jean Valjean)—break into song to warn him off.
Praised for its absurdist premise, ambitious production design, and musical theater knowledge, the sketch exemplifies SNL’s high-concept meta-comedy, transforming a mundane scenario into a theatrical spectacle. Its success demonstrates how niche, well-crafted humor can resonate deeply with specific audiences and achieve cult status, even years after conception.
The Simpsons
Did you know the longest-running television show is The Simpsons?
In the Season 10 episode “Lisa Gets an ‘A'” (1998), Homer buys a small lobster intending to fatten it up for dinner, but becomes emotionally attached and names it “Pinchy.” Homer accidentally kills his beloved pet while giving him a hot bath, which ends up cooking him. In a darkly comedic scene, Homer eats the entire lobster while sobbing over his loss, alternating between grief and enjoying how delicious Pinchy tastes.
From Sea to Screen: Cinema’s Unlikely Crustacean Star
From dystopian metaphor in The Lobster to comedic prop in Annie Hall, lobsters have proven remarkably versatile in cinema. Whether driving plots, symbolizing themes, or providing humor, these crustaceans consistently add unexpected depth across genres and decades. Their visual distinctiveness and rich cultural associations ensure that lobsters will continue to make surprising and impactful appearances on screen.
If you decide to opt for a lobster dinner and a movie, consider ordering online to save time and effort. LobsterAnywhere.com delivers to your door, and all you need is the movie. And, please don’t forget to send us a note about your favorite lobster movies or moments.