David Lynch's cinema

The news of David Lynch passing away on Jan 15, 2025 came as a shock especially since I had hoped that he was secretly working on one last feature. A final film that I hoped would have combined the creative worlds of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. But not to be.

David Lynch was a filmmaker unlike any other and his legacy will continue forever especially since his unique style labeled as Lynchian is often used to describe other films or cinematic scenarios.

He is also the rare filmmaker whose films I saw entirely in non-streaming formats. I saw his films via Theater, TV, VHS Tapes and DVD. Of course, I saw Season Three of his Twin Peaks series (The Return, 2017) via cable TV while caught up with the original Twin Peaks Series via both VHS and DVD. This also speaks to the limited output of his works over the last two decades. His last feature Inland Empire was released in 2006, while his feature debut Eraserhead came out in 1977. In total, he directed 10 Feature films, 40+ shorts, 4 TV series and many music videos, commercials and web series.

I did a spotlight on his works back in 2007 as I wanted to see all his previous features, shorts and TV series in anticipation of Inland Empire. Little did I know that after Inland Empire, no more features would be released although Twin Peaks: The Return did thankfully arrive and provided 18 incredible episodes, some of those episodes packing more punch than any feature film.

Here is a ranking of his 10 features roughly in order of preference. Unlike some others, I do not consider Twin Peaks: The Return to be a film which is why I am not including any of those 18 episodes or the entire series in this ranking.

1. Mulholland Drive (2001)

Silencio. Then fade to black. Yet, many questions linger long after this intriguing puzzle of a film ends. Mulholland Drive is a perfect encapsulation of David Lynch’s style and contains a refined version of elements, character types one has seen in his other films.

2. Eraserhead (1977)

A cinematic treasure! A true measure of a film is that it transcends time and remains fresh no matter which decade it is watched in. It is hard to believe that Eraserhead was released almost 5 decades ago. Even today, very few films can match the cinematic richness that David Lynch offered with his debut film. This black and white film is one of those works that are tailormade for film studies courses -- hours can be spent discussing the lighting, the dreamy imagery, the haunting background score and the abundant symbolism. For example, the alien baby that Henry and his girlfriend have provides enough material for dissection -- the baby represents an alien creature who imposes on the life of this couple and alienates them further. That the baby looks like an alien only reinforces the idea. This is a film that needs to be watched with all the lights off and is a work that one can easily be lost in.

3. Blue Velvet (1986)

This film and its many images, especially the severed ear, are forever etched in cinematic history. The movie starts and ends up in a happy white picket fenced town. But between those scenes, we are introduced to a strange world where evil people lurk. That strangeness is now associated with the Lynchian term and helped usher in a new cinematic language.

4. The Straight Story (1999)

This is the most straightforward (no pun intended) film that David Lynch directed. If one didn't look at the credits, then one would never know that David Lynch was behind this work as the film is devoid of his auteur signposts. At least Elephant Man includes a few dream sequences which hints at the director's familiar style but The Straight Story is a clean and emotional journey. The film also turned out to be the last work of Richard Farnsworth and this is clearly his movie from the first frame. Farnsworth plays Alvin Straight, a man who undertakes a 300+ mile journey on a lawn-mower to see his brother, Lyle. The two brothers have not talked in almost a decade after a falling out, but after Lyle has a stroke, Alvin decides he needs to make this journey on his own terms to set things right.

We get to see the wide-open road, beautiful fields and shining stars as Alvin makes his brave journey. Along the way, he encounters an interesting collection of people (a runaway teenager, competition cyclists, a deer-loving woman who is agonized by deers hitting her car on a weekly basis) and wins everyone over (except the deer loving woman who is in too much grief) with his straightforward no-nonsense approach to life.

Based on a true story, The Straight Story is well acted and leisurely paced so that we can soak up every minute of clean country air.

5. The Elephant Man (1980)

With the exception of the opening and closing scenes, the rest of the film is a linear humane story. On top of that, the locale is Victorian England, not America, which sets this apart from other Lynch films. However, this Black and White feature is an appropriate follow-up to Eraserhead. Both The Elephant Man and Eraserhead start with images of birth -- in Eraserhead, we see an alien life form taking shape whereas in The Elephant Man, we see how a woman's child will be disfigured and take on the title of Elephant Man. The performances of Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt are top-notch and the screenplay is highly touching. Even though the story is inspired by a real tale, the movie has shades of the The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

6. Inland Empire (2006)

Worm holes, time travel, multiple characters, dreams, imagination, Lynch’s subconscious mind and Laura Dern’s magnificent face which stretches to whatever emotion is required of her. Inland Empire feels like the essence of Mulholland Drive drugged with the time travel element from Lost Highway with a tiny dash of bizarre from Twin Peaks. It is complicated, inaccessible but never dull or boring. This film makes Mulholland Drive look like an easily decipherable film. In Mulholland Drive, one can clearly draw a line between the dream and reality. But in Inland Empire we are dealing with multiple versions of dreams and reality which are further complicated by Laura Dern’s characters existing in both dream and real state in multiple space-time fields (L.A, Poland).

One way to describe this film is that it is akin to hyperlinks on the internet – we jump from one link to another and so on. Eventually, near the end of the movie, we are simply hitting the ‘back’ arrow on the browser and are returned to our starting page. Along the way, we find related links and stories but they are all different. Another description is that the movie is reels projected across David Lynch’s mind acted out by Laura Dern whose face is a guide to what we should be looking for.

7. Lost Highway (1997)

The start of Lost Highway is echoed by Haneke’s Caché (2005). In both films, a couple gets videotapes where someone has recorded their home from the outside. In the Lost Highway the spy physically enters the couple's home and tapes them sleeping. However, in Caché, the spy does not physically enter the couple's home but penetrates the main character's psyche. That is where the differences between the two films end.

The dreamy version of L.A life that David Lynch has explored in his later films (Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire) are first found in Lost Highway. This film also contains building blocks used in Mulholland Drive as both films contain puzzles and mysteries which need to be unlocked. Lost Highway plays with the concept of time and space much more than Mulholland Drive although its plot isn’t as tightly bound as that of Mulholland Drive. Lost Highway has plenty of scenarios that don’t fit with the overall film structure whereas everything in Mulholland Drive is connected and wrapped up in one mysterious blue box!

8. Dune (1984)

It is fascinating to see how Frank Herbert’s book has led to two completely cinematic treatments. Denis Villeneuve’s two Dune films have gotten far more love than David Lynch’s 1984 version did. Yet, it is incredible to believe what Lynch accomplished back in 1984 as Dune was just his third feature. Back in the 1980s, the concept of multipart films didn’t exist so Lynch had to pack the contents of the entire Dune novel in just one film. That difficult task is something that Villeneuve was able to learn from and he took his time in telling the Dune story in two parts totaling over five hours in length, more than double the running time of Lynch’s version. In addition, Lynch didn’t have full creative control over the film. That aspect was much more common back in the day when studios exerted much more control over the final cut of the film.

The experience of working on Dune and its aftermath ensured that David Lynch followed a completely different path. After Dune, Lynch set out to create his own cinematic world rooted in Earth but still transcending space-time boundaries.

9. Twin Peaks:Fire Walk with me (1992)

The 1992 Twin Peaks film serves as a prequel to the 1990 TV series and gave Lynch a chance to revisit Twin Peaks. Lynch expanded on the dream realm world in this film and incorporated elements that came to define his future works. For example, the green ring and the dreams have the same mystery appeal as the blue box in Mulholland Drive.

10. Wild at Heart (1990)

My least favourite David Lynch film happens to the one that won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes 1990. The acting performances are indeed prizeworthy but not the story and treatment. Of course, over the last three decades, far more awful films have gone on to win the Palme d’Or so at least Lynch got a Palme d’Or, one that he surely deserved for Mulholland Drive (won best director instead).