Elephant Man to Twin Peaks: The six essential David Lynch works

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David Lynch’s The Elephant Man was nominated for eight Academy Awards.Credit:

The Elephant Man was a critical and commercial success with eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay and best actor.

Blue Velvet, 1986

After discovering a young Kyle MacLachlan and casting him in Dune (1984), Lynch teamed up with MacLachlan for the second time in Blue Velvet. MacLachlan plays college student Jeffrey Beaumont, who finds himself drawn into a seedy underworld after discovering a severed ear in a field. Teaming up with Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the daughter of a local detective, Jeffrey attempts to solve the mystery while navigating an increasingly odd romance with Sandy.

Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan in a scene from Blue Velvet.

Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan in a scene from Blue Velvet.Credit: Alamy

Blue Velvet remains one of Lynch’s more polarising works, an absurdist musing on sexual depravity that features one of the director’s most infamous scenes. Kyle MacLachlan in a closet – nothing more needs to be said.

Wild at Heart, 1990

The combination of Nicolas Cage and David Lynch is a match made in Hollywood heaven and Wild at Heart did not disappoint. Wild at Heart was Lynch’s version of a silver-screen romance, with Cage playing Sailor Ripley, a recently released prisoner determined to reunite with his lover, Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Far from being your typical romance film, Wild at Heart is chaotic, violent and tense, challenging for audiences and critics alike.

Nicolas Cage as Sailor Ripley in Wild at Heart.

Nicolas Cage as Sailor Ripley in Wild at Heart.Credit:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film was regularly booed by audiences during early screenings despite winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Twin Peaks, 1990 (TV)

Arguably Lynch’s most famous work, Twin Peaks’ supernatural horror-core paved the way for the likes of Stranger Things, Lost, Desperate Housewives and Westworld.

Ostensibly a murder-mystery set in a small town, the original series, as well as the 1992 feature film and 2017 TV series revival, represent the culmination of Lynch’s skill set.

Characters flirt in the original Twin Peaks TV show.

Characters flirt in the original Twin Peaks TV show.Credit:

As FBI agent Dale Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan investigates a murder that quickly descends into a paranormal crisis that envelops everyone and everything in the tiny town of Twin Peaks.

Setting it against the backdrop of a dying industrial town, Lynch used the series as a vehicle to explore the crumbling ideal of Americana. Despite being more than 30 years old, the question of who killed Laura Palmer remains one of pop culture’s most haunting mysteries.

Mulholland Drive, 2001

David Lynch’s love letter to Hollywood was never going to be straightforward, but even the most ardent Lynch acolyte might’ve been surprised by Mulholland Drive.

In her breakout role, Australian actress Naomi Watts played sweet-as-pie Betty Elms, another wide-eyed actress desperate to make it in Los Angeles. A chance meeting with Rita, a young lady suffering amnesia, kicks off an unlikely friendship that soon snowballs into something more (cue one of the most intense love scenes in cinema history). A genuinely baffling film where nothing is as it seems and everything means something, Mulholland Drive represents Lynch at his brilliant best.

Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.

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