The adage “one of a kind” is overused yet definitely fits David Lynch, a filmmaker known for constantly reinventing his own weirdly wonderful mold before smashing that thing to bits.
Iconoclastic, influential and lovably eccentric, Lynch created surrealistic landscapes onscreen and populated them with a bevy of odd characters, from a disfigured Londoner to a dogged G-man obsessed with coffee, cherry pie and solving a small-town murder. The Oscar-nominated director, who died at 78, left no genre unturned, digging into everything from sci-fi and neo-noir to period biopics, and our culture is way more interesting for it.
“Ideas that come along are like gifts, and we just got lucky to get those ideas, I guess,” Lynch said in a 2014 USA TODAY interview about his groundbreaking TV show “Twin Peaks.”
In honor of his strange and brilliant filmmaking mind, here are Lynch’s five essential works:
David Lynch dies:Legendary director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet’ was 78
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‘The Elephant Man’ (1980)
Three years after making his debut with “Eraserhead,” Lynch tackled the true story of Englishman John Merrick (played by John Hurt) – in real life, Joseph Merrick – who’s labeled a freak because of his facial and body deformities. The black-and-white drama earned eight Oscar nominations, plus prompted the creation of the best makeup category. And while it’s maybe Lynch’s most straightforward films, it’s a satisfying and sentimental exploration of humanity and how society treats its outsiders.
‘Dune’ (1984)
While Denis Villeneuve’s recent two-part sci-fi adaptation brought new eyes to author Frank Herbert’s expansive “Dune” world, Lynch was the first to bring giant sandworms to the big screen and cast frequent collaborator Kyle MacLachlan as a cosmic hero who took on space baddies to the rock sounds of Toto and Brian Eno. It’s a fun, crazypants ride that became a cult hit and, unlike some of its ilk, still remains watchable. Lynch once called this film “a total failure” – we respectfully disagree.
‘Blue Velvet’ (1986)
Lynch began to realize his signature surrealist style and made his audiences uncomfortable (in a good way!) with this mix of noir, horror, mystery and demented psychological drama. MacLachlan is a college student who returns to his North Carolina home and discovers a discarded severed ear, and it only gets more outrageous from there. Isabella Rossellini plays a lounge-singing femme fatale while Dennis Hopper had a career resurgence with one of his most memorable roles as a sadistic, gas-huffing gangster.
‘Twin Peaks’ (1990)
In April 1990, only one question was on the minds of TV fans: Who killed Laura Palmer? Lynch took the usual detective procedural and turned it into a water-cooler series – led by MacLachlan’s enjoyably earnest FBI agent Dale Cooper – full of metaphors and visual nightmares that pioneered serial storytelling on the small screen. Even after the Laura’s murder was solved, “Twin Peaks” found life in a movie prequel, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” and Lynch revisited Cooper and Co. for a new generation with the third season in 2017 labeled “The Return.”
‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001)
This noir mystery was also supposed to be a TV series yet wound up as a film – albeit a bizarre and entertainingly trippy one. Naomi Watts had her Hollywood breakthrough as an aspiring actress in LA who befriends a woman (Laura Elena Harring) suffering from amnesia after a car accident, and the two come on the radar of a smarmy film director (Justin Theroux) who’s being threatened by mobsters. Sure, it doesn’t make a ton of sense but, like much of Lynch’s oeuvre, offers various peculiarities to ponder at length.
