David Lynch’s most memorable movies and TV projects

There are few artists whose name became an adjective for something strange, surrealist and macabre. But if you hear something is “Lynchian”, you know exactly what it means.

David Lynch died this week at 78 after he revealed in August that he was housebound due to health risks associated with emphysema.

He leaves behind an incredible legacy, a rarely compromised vision and artistic sensibility that created some of the most ground-breaking and important images of the past five decades.

Every Lynch project is singular, so it’s impossible to judge one against the other, but these are the five most memorable.

BLUE VELVET

From the moment young Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) found that severed ear among the grass, he was opening himself to a trip down Alice’s rabbit hole. The wonderland he found heightened the sadism of the Queen of Hearts with Dennis Hopper’s gangster, Frank Booth.

It was violent and depraved, and more than a little seductive. That was the rub, wasn’t it? Lynch’s Blue Velvet isn’t about an innocent being trapped in a film noir world of crime and brutality, it’s that Jeffrey wanted parts of it. He certainly wanted Isabella Rossellini’s lounge singer, Dorothy. At points, he wanted to be Frank, even if couldn’t quite admit it.

Blue Velvet was a seminal Lynch film which cemented his penchant for exploring stories of the darkness that throbbed not far beneath of surface of an idealised America that never existed.

It’s set in a small town rampant with corruption and violence, Blue Velvet’s thematic foundation was the tension between the life people “should” aspire it to and the deviant desires they can’t repress.

You can see its influence on the likes of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers.

How to watch Blue Velvet: Digital rental

MULHOLLAND DRIVE

Voted by critics in a 2016 BBC Culture as the best film of the 21st century at that point, Mulholland Drive actually started life as a TV series but the pilot didn’t impress network executives looking for something that didn’t have a close-up shot of dog poo.

Lynch rescued the idea and turned into a feature that is part erotic dreamscape and part take-down of an industry that exploits fantasies.

Naomi Watts’ leading turn as Betty, a bubbly, idealistic aspiring actress is beguiling and stealthy alongside the enigmatic Rita, an amnesiac played by Laura Harring. There’s a mystery-of-sorts about a missing woman but the way the film unfolds leaves many questions lingering.

Mulholland Drive is a vibe piece, but one that manages to penetrate with its piercing imagery and a mystifying puzzlebox plot that’s impossible to unspool.

It’s an inedible film, and you’ll never forget the visceral, sensual experience of watching Rebekah Del Rio perform a Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying”. Betty and Rita couldn’t stop watching, and neither can we.

How to watch Mulholland Drive: Stan/Binge

ERASERHEAD

Lynch was not yet 30 when he started production on his debut feature, which took years to film because they kept running out of money. At points, cast and crew members had to donate funds to keep it going.

With its surrealist sequences, Eraserhead felt like an announcement of the heir to Spanish-Meixcan filmmaker Luis Bunuel, but Lynch would, of course, go on to be not an imitator but a pioneer.

Inspired by a daydream he had of a man’s head being carried to a pencil factory by a boy, as well as influences including Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Lynch has called Eraserhead his most spiritual film.

While full of disturbing and distinct scenes, Eraserhead is essentially a film about parental anxiety, centred on a father with a disfigured newborn.

How to watch Eraserhead: DVD/Blu-Ray available on eBay

THE ELEPHANT MAN

At one point during filming, Anthony Hopkins became so exasperated, he demanded of a producer why Lynch, at the time making only his second feature, was getting to direct this movie.

Later, Lynch recalled a moment when he and Hopkins came to blows on the set, and his anger boiled over. He admitted to screaming at the Welsh actor to a degree that he “hurt” his voice. But it set things straight.

Based on the real-life story of Joseph Merrick, a 19th century deformed Londoner who had been exhibited as a “freak”, which is how he came to the nickname of The Elephant Man.

Perhaps Lynch’s most accessible work, the 1980 film starred John Hurt as a fictionalised version of Merrick alongside Hopkins as Treves, a kindly doctor who recognises Merrick’s humanity after a near-lifetime of mistreatment.

The film earnt eight Oscar nominations including Lynch’s first for best director.

How to watch The Elephant Man: Digital rental

TWIN PEAKS

Not technically a movie but also not technically not a movie. Twin Peaks encompassed the original two-season series, the prequel film Fire Walk With Me (aha, a movie!) and the 2017 revival.

Lynch and Mark Frost made Twin Peaks at a time when TV was still largely an episodic format, so to tell a story serialised over two seasons was novel.

Starting with the iconic line, “She’s dead, wrapped in plastic”, Twin Peaks tapped into something when it asked the question, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Audiences wanted to follow the mystery beyond one episode’s 42 minutes of runtime.

Drawing on genres including horror, surrealism and even soap operas, the goings-on of the town of Twin Peaks were wildly odd, as viewers experienced initially through the character of FBI agent Dale Cooper.

Lynch was less involved with the series in season two (where one character turned into a doorknob) but he made the prequel film and the revival. The 2017 revisit was an ambitious story which picked up 25 years later with Dale still trapped in the Black Lodge and featured one episode which sought to explore the origins of the dark force known as BOB.

How to watch Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return: Paramount+

How to watch Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me: DVD/Blu-Ray available on eBay