The first ever filmography deep dive + ranking I ever did was for the great DAVID LYNCH and it pre-dates the launch of this website by a good year. As such, it isn't quite as all-encompassing as I'd like it to be, though I stand by the above ~90-minute podcast for what it's worth. At some point in time I'd like to revisit the entire oeuvre yet again for a potential re-ranking via a videoessay set of features. I also don't love that I cheated and simply put "TWIN PEAKS" and all that that might entail, however vaguely, in the #1 spot, but c'est la vie.
Below, you'll find the ranking with links to individual standalone reviews as well as some written critique pulled from the narration of the RANKING episode. But to start, here is my original introduction...
David Lynch has created ten feature films in forty years, specifically between 1977 and 2017. I am going to rank all ten films right now.
I’ve broken down the Lynch filmography into four tiers.
Tier #4 consists of two films that, while they’re not necessarily horrible, I’d be OK with never re-watching again.
Tier #3 is Dune, just… Dune… (crickets)
Tier #2 also consists of two movies, two features that are close to being really great, but are ultimately flawed for very different reasons.
And then there’s the Final Tier, Tear #1, ALL-TIME CLASSICS, of which, by my count, there are five. Not bad, considering that equals, oh I don’t know… half of his filmography.
Now, let’s get to the list…
10. The Elephant Man (1980)
09. The Straight Story (1999)
08. Dune (1984)
07. Inland Empire (2006)
06. Wild at Heart (1990)
05. Eraserhead (1977)
04. Blue Velvet (1986)
03. Mulholland Drive (2001)
02. Lost Highway (1997)
01. Twin Peaks (∞)
Since – for the time being – there is no standalone entry or podcast episode for anything related to TWIN PEAKS (a damn shame!), let me post this text pulled from the RANKING narration here...
(DISCLAIMER: I’m sorry if you think it’s cheating that I am including the expanded Twin Peaks Universe as one single entry on this list. I’m sorry if you think the only thing that should count is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me because that is the only Twin Peaks thing that is actually a “feature film.” But also: SORRY NOT SORRY. TPS3 is movie lol.
This is my list and I’m putting Twin Peaks at #1, specifically: all of Season 1 of the original TV show, plus the beginning of Season 2 (until the episode where we find out who killed Laura Palmer) and the Season 2 finale. Then of course Fire Walk with Me, and the 18 hour MOVIE that is Twin Peaks: The Return, or Twin Peaks Season 3, if you will (I prefer the former as it gives the masterpiece the gravitas it deserves).
If you put a gun to my head and I ABSOLUTELY had to only include Fire Walk with Me, I would probably drop it to #4 or #5 and slide everything else on the list up a spot. End of DISCLAIMER.)
I was given the Twin Peaks Gold Box as a Christmas gift in 2007. The 10-DVD set had just come out and this was still an era when people treasured physical things like that. It was really important and meaningful to me, and I still own it despite no longer having a DVD player. Watching it for the first time was a treasure and a fond memory. The feeling I got when I heard that Badalamenti theme music start the show and everything in between…
…yes, even James in Season 2. I loved it all: the good, the bad and the ugly, the whole kitten caboodle, even though I realize how far it got off the tracks before Lynch rejoined and set the table for The Return. The original TV series is, obviously, far from flawless. As mentioned, Lynch stepped away for long stretches before going fully AWOL after it was revealed that Laura Palmer’s father, portrayed by the great Ray Wise, is in fact her killer. After that, the show took a turn (to put it lightly).
But Lynch never gave up on the world. He returned to helm the stunning Season 2/de facto series finale. So much of the mythology that Fire Walk with Me and certainly The Return is built upon is ignited in that finale, fittingly titled “Beyond Life and Death.” But really, the original series is most notable for merely existing at all. A precursor to the “golden age of television” that was right around the corner, there still hasn’t been a network series remotely this daring. There’s often much made, too much if you ask me, about the “cult of David Lynch.” Critics of this “cult” say its followers are blind: The man can do no wrong. It’s weird for weirdness’ sake. And so on, they drone. Now, I’m a fairly big David Lynch fan (no duh). But I’ve always tried to remain grounded in regards to this. He’s not perfect. But he has made near-perfect art. And I’m a fan of ART first. I see his infiltration of the masses with Twin Peaks as one of his finest achievements in the arts. How many powerful people had to be convinced that the mainstream was ready for something like this. It’s baffling. That, of course, they weren’t ready is kind of besides the point. Someone has to poke the bear.
If Lynch had closed the books on Twin Peaks with Fire Walk with Me, his sixth film released in 1992, that would have been fine. It’s a polarizing feature and was a fairly significant box office bomb, even for Lynch. Fire Walk with Me nonetheless retains an otherworldliness among the filmography. Given the subject matter––you know, just your average super-violent father-daughter incest rape thing––it’s hard to argue this isn’t his darkest tale by a wide degree. It’s perhaps not ripe for repeated viewings. In fact, I did not rewatch it for this review, the only film of the ten. Why? Well, I had given it a replay back in 2017, just before the debut of Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return. And, to be honest, I just wasn’t ready to return to this madness quite so soon.
Only David Lynch could mold one of the loftier aspects/thematic devices/main characters (?) of the long-awaited follow-up to perhaps his most beloved work on one of the most random, seemingly meaningless, toss-away lines spoken in a bad Cajun accent in a cameo role by David Bowie: “We’re not going to talk about Judy at all…” Until, that is, the time is right… Say… 25 years later?
I just recently began to rewatch The Return and I’d like to say thank you for this, David Lynch. This needs to be put into the discussion with his greatest work, if it’s not already there. I can recall after various episodes of its original run (May to September 2017), feeling a sense of awe and wonderment and confusion and joy. I say to anyone that’s curious that this is an 18-hour movie. David Lynch made an 18-hour movie when it wasn’t certain if he’d make any more movies again.
It would be dumb, if not downright foolish, to try and hash out the plot-lines or gush over Kyle MacLachlan’s performance in not two, but three distinct roles. Here, the duality of man has fractured yet again in these modern times. And when I got to that final two-hour finale, I found myself on a family vacation. So I carved out a block of time to watch it at the house we were renting on my laptop, alone, in the dark, as the rest of my family enjoyed a sunny day at the beach. I followed Kyle and Laura Dern’s Diane into one more sketchy motel and then onto El Paso, Texas, of course, just as everyone had guessed, and then back to Twin Peaks, Washington, where the series ends on a question… Special Agent Dale Cooper turns to Laura Palmer outside her childhood home and asks, “what year is this?” She screams into the abyss and the lights in the home spark off and the screen explodes into darkness. For a series that was, ultimately, about the passing of time as much as it was about the origins of evil in the universe or anything else, it was a fitting end.
UPDATE 2023: I started to review the full shorts filmography of Lynch starting with 1967's Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times).
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 174 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 176 ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 174 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 176 ⫸