Written and directed by Gabriel Axel
The movie is from a short story by Isak Dinesen
Produced in 1987. Winner of Oscar for Best Foreign Film, 1987.

Cast

Babette...............Stephane Audran
Martina.............Birgitte Federspiel
Philippa............Bodil Kjer
Achille Papin...Jean-Philippe Lafont
Lorens Lowenhielm.....Gudmar Wivesson

Story

Babette, a French woman, is the cook and maid of Martina and Philippa in a small sea village in Jutland, Denmark. Babette's presence needs an explanation, we are told. This starts a long flashback.
Martina and Philippa are the daughters of a stern and somewhat feared protestant minister with a following in the village in which the action takes place. Martina's beauty attracts many suitors, but her fathers discourages them because he believes that marriage and all worldly things ought to be despised or at least renounced in order to achieve a proper relation with God. Lowenhielm, a dissolute young Hussar who has been sent to the village by his father in order to meditate on his excesses, sees her and is attracted both by her beauty and by the seemingly peaceful life she represents. He starts attending the congregational meetings and realizes the minister's power: Martina will never be his. Moreover, the minister, in spite of fondly quoting the 25th Psalm: "Mercy and truth shall meet. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss," preaches a self-denying life which makes him feel miserable and insignificant. Disappointed, after telling Martina that he has learned that in this world many things are impossible, he leaves, and after some soul searching decides to devote himself to the world. He marries a well connected woman and starts a brilliant career at court.
A year later, a famous French opera singer, Achille Papin, comes to the village to recover from depression and a sense of meaninglessness. As he sits in deep melancholy on the cliff overlooking the sea, he hears Philippa sing in the church choir. He becomes enamored of her voice and later of her. With the reluctant permission of her father he (a Papist!) trains her, ostensibly the better to praise God in the minister's church, but in reality with the goal of taking her to Paris and making her into a diva. While practicing with him, Philippa surprises herself with her emotional reaction to their romantic duet from "Don Giovanni," and does not disappoint her father: she asks that Papin stop giving her lessons. Papin leaves.
Thirty five years go by. It is now September 1871 and the minister is dead. One night Babette arrives at the sisters' house with a letter from Papin asking them to take her in because her whole family has been killed in the aftermath of the Paris Commune. In spite of some initial reluctance, the sisters agree, and Babette takes on the duties of cook and maid with skill and devotion, helping the pious sisters in the care of the poor and the sick.
The story now moves to the present. Fourteen years have passed. The minister's flock has shrunk and its members have become quarrelsome. Babette wins a large sum at the Paris lottery, and the sisters believe that she will leave them. In part because of this, they agree to let her pay, organize, and cook a French dinner for the occurrence of the centennial of the minister's birth. However, when they witness the lavish preparations, they become fearful of sinning and of turning their house into the setting for a witches sabbath. In a fit of purity, they agree with the church members to eat, but neither to enjoy nor praise, Babette's food. Babette starts setting the table and preparing the food, while the sisters remove the minister's portrait from the dining room and set it, with a garland, in the waiting room.
The day of the dinner has arrived, and Lowenhielm's aunt has managed to be invited together with her nephew, now a general. As the general dresses for the dinner, he is anguished by the thought that 'all is vanity,' and that the choice of life he made years earlier was wrong. Tonight, he will not only see Martina again, but also the choice of life she represents. "Tonight -- he tells his younger self, you must prove to me that what I did was right."
There are twelve guests at the table, while Babette is in the kitchen. At the beginning, only the general appreciates the transcendence of the seven course meal, while the others try to pretend the food is tasteless. And then the miracle occurs: spurred by Lowenhielm's praises of the food, the quarrelsome congregation are seduced by it and actually start enjoying the Blini Demidoff, the Cailles en Sarcophage, the wine and the champagne, which some mistake for lemonade. The church members seem, for the moment, reconciled with each other. During a toast, the general observes that only once before, at the Cafe' Anglais in Paris, did he ever taste anything as good. Strangely, the Cafe's cook was a woman. She could cook not only for the body, but also for the soul; her food was more than food: it was a work of art. And now, he continues, he has finally come to see that our choices are not that important and God's infinite mercy gives us not only what we have chosen, but also what we have renounced. He too quotes the 25th Psalm: "Mercy and truth shall meet. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss."
The evening is over, and as the general leaves, he tells Martina that he has been, and will always be, with her not in body, which is of no importance, but in soul. She tells him that she knows it, and the general claims to have learnt something tonight: everything is possible.
Babette, who was the chef at the Cafe Anglais, has spent all of her money to prepare the dinner. But, she notes, an artist is never poor. She will stay with the sisters for ever.
 

Analysis

The main theme of the movie is the relation between human religiosity, as it is exemplified by the minister's views and by the revelation experienced by General Lowenhielm at Babette's sumptuous dinner, and God's infinite mercy.
The minister and his sect embody a religious life characterized by three main features.
The first, is resignation. They try to get in touch with the infinite (God) by renouncing all finite goods including marriage or art. This amounts to saying that they try to fulfill their lives without relying on worldly goods at all. In a more elevated manifestation, as exemplified by Philippa and Martina, the resignation of a worldly good involves attachment, rather than indifference, to it. Martina is taken with the young Hussar and Philippa is taken with Papin and music. Of course, the highest manifestation, as Kierkegaard points out, occurs when the good which is renounced concentrates in itself all of one's desires (Abraham as he prepares to sacrifice Isaac). The movement of resignation is dramatically evidenced in the scene in which Philippa, while practicing with Papin, surprises herself with her emotional reaction to their romantic duet from "Don Giovanni." In the aria, Zerlina sings "I am afraid of my own joy;" and yet, she in effect succumbs to Don Giovanni's advances. But Philippa could never do such a thing; in fact, she couldn't even give herself to art since the resignation of the world must be total.
The second feature is suffering. It is almost impossible to renounce the world, the finite, since we are part of it. Resignation involves a constant struggle, a constant renewed decision to give up what we love, and this causes suffering.
The third feature is a type of religious guilt arising from the fact that our expression of the infinite can only be negative, that is, can only consist in renouncing the finite rather than in apprehending the infinite: we always fall short. So, although the minister fondly tells his flock that mercy and truth shall meet, and righteousness and bliss shall kiss, he has little to offer them in this life. Their eyes are set on the Heavenly Jerusalem; in this life they are neither happy nor fulfilled. As young Lowenhielm notices, their self denying life makes him feel miserable and insignificant. All he has learned is rather depressing. In this world of ours many things are impossible: one cannot resign what one loves and at the same time get it back.
The day of the dinner has arrived, and as Lowenhielm dresses up, he is anguished by the thought that 'all is vanity,' and that the choice of life he made years earlier was wrong. Tonight, he will not only see Martina again, but also the choice of life she represents. "Tonight -- he tells his younger self, you must prove to me that what I did was right." It never occurs to him that one could resign what one loves and at the same time get it back. The minister's followers are no better; they cannot accept earthly joy (they'll pretend that food has no taste!) because ultimately their faith falls short: they too cannot see that one could resign what one loves and at the same time get it back. Of course, it's hard to renounce earthly joys, and consequently they are constantly afraid of sinning.
Appropriately, as the guests are on their way, the two sisters remove the portrait of their father from the dining room (where the 'miracle' will occur) and put it in the sitting room for, of course, the minister would turn in his tomb if he knew what sort of debauchery is about to take place in his house.
Babette is the character through whom God's mercy is manifested. She feeds, both physically and spiritually, the twelve guests (the number is not fortuitous) and in so doing she gives all she has since she uses all of her money and all of her skill. Hence, she is related to the figure of Christ. In addition, like divine grace, she has appeared in the sister's life almost out of nowhere. Papin has sent her there merely because the two sisters are exemplars of ethical life: she is, one might say, a free gift from God. Through her art, God will work the 'miracle' and show the guests his infinite mercy which gives us, in ways we cannot understand, not only what we have chosen, but also what we have renounced: like Babette's seemingly never ending meal, God's mercy will fully sate us.  Only then can the general truly quote the 25th Psalm: "Mercy and truth shall meet. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss." Through God's mercy, everything is possible. Now the general, and one hopes all the other guests, have reached true faith. Like Abraham, they can give up what they love the most and at the same time get it back through God. But of course, as Kierkegaard reminds us, the leap of faith which allows such 'return to the finite' is extremely difficult and we can remain skeptical about most of the guests.