5 days ago
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TAGGED AS: movies
(Photo by Courtesy Everett Collection)
Visionary. Surreal. Maverick. A rare set of directors may be described by one of these descriptions. Even fewer pick up all three, and only one simply embody them in total: David Lynch. His gloomy, industrial feature debut Eraserhead helped illuminate, in stark black-and-white, a pathway to American cinemas for independent oddballs of the early 1980s, whose ranks include the likes of Sam Raimi, Jim Jarmusch, and the Coen brothers.
But as startling and grotesque Eraserhead was, Lynch was a humanist champion, frequently seeking compassion in the trenches of forgotten society, as seen in his next feature, 1980’s The Elephant Man, and 1999’s The Straight Story. His films oscillated between the supremely subversive (Blue Velvet), surreal (Inland Empire, Lost Highway), and studio (Dune, which was virtually enough to steer him away from the majors), with his masterpiece Mulholland Dr. (2001) a combination of all his wild-at-heart impulses.
Lynch, of course, also elevated TV storytelling with Twin Peaks, his supernatural, open-ended treatise on the push-and-pull of good and evil. A true cult classic in every sense, fun and challenging not just journeying through its wildly divergent tones in comedy and horror, but also the way it whiplashes viewers with a legendary first season, a suspect second, and an audacious prequel film (Fire Walk With Me) before a third season (The Return) 25 years later in the midst of peak TV, which Lynch had laid for its blueprint.
Lynch passed away in 2025 but leaves with us, though his many direct video messages to his fans online and a family statement, a message of clarity and hope: “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”
#1
Adjusted Score: 100332%
Synopsis: A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) learns one day that his distant brother Lyle... [More]
#2
Adjusted Score: 103714%
Synopsis: College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear... [More]
#4
Adjusted Score: 98463%
Synopsis: Dr. Frederic Treves (Anthony Hopkins) discovers Joseph (John) Merrick (John Hurt) in a sideshow. Born with a congenital disorder, Merrick... [More]
#6
Adjusted Score: 96001%
Synopsis: Henry (John Nance) resides alone in a bleak apartment surrounded by industrial gloom. When he discovers that an earlier fling... [More]
#7
Adjusted Score: 93914%
Synopsis: A dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles... [More]
#8
Adjusted Score: 80462%
Synopsis: A detective interrogates a talking monkey that is suspected of murder.... [More]
#9
Adjusted Score: 76355%
Synopsis: Nikki (Laura Dern), an actress, takes on a role in a new film, and because her husband (Peter J. Lucas)... [More]
#10
Adjusted Score: 73609%
Synopsis: From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician (Bill Pullman), tortured... [More]
#11
Adjusted Score: 69129%
Synopsis: After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula's... [More]
#13
Adjusted Score: 70877%
Synopsis: In the folksy town of Deerfield, Wash., FBI Agent Desmond (Chris Isaak) inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who... [More]
#14
Adjusted Score: 46881%
Synopsis: The long-awaited film version of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction epic, Dune, explodes on the screen with dazzling special effects,... [More]
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