David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Lynch received critical acclaim for his films, which are often distinguished by their surrealist, dreamlike qualities. In his 58-year career, he was awarded numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2019. In 2007, a panel of critics convened by The Guardian announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important filmmaker of the current era." Lynch studied painting before he began making short films in the late 1960s. His first feature-length film was the independent surrealist film Eraserhead (1977), which saw success as a midnight movie. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the biographical drama The Elephant Man (1980) and the mystery films Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001). His romantic crime drama Wild at Heart (1990) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He also directed the space opera adaptation Dune (1984), the surrealist neo-noir Lost Highway (1997), the biographical drama The Straight Story (1999), and the experimental film Inland Empire (2006). Lynch and Mark Frost created the ABC series Twin Peaks (1990–91), for which Lynch was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Lynch co-wrote and directed its film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), and its limited series revival (2017). He has also worked as an actor, including his portrayals of FBI agent Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks and director John Ford in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022), as well as guest roles in TV series such as The Cleveland Show (2010–13), Louie (2012), and Robot Chicken (2020, 2022). Lynch's other artistic endeavours included his work as a musician, encompassing the studio albums BlueBOB (2001), Crazy Clown Time (2011), and The Big Dream (2013), as well as painting and photography. He has written the books Images (1994), Catching the Big Fish (2006), and Room to Dream (2018). He has directed several music videos for artists such as Chris Isaak, X Japan, Moby, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails, and Donovan, and commercials for Calvin Klein, Dior, L'Oreal, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, and the New York City Department of Sanitation. A practitioner of Transcendental Meditation (TM), he founded the David Lynch Foundation, which seeks to fund the teaching of TM in schools and has since widened its scope to other at-risk populations, including the homeless, veterans, and refugees.
| Known for | Directing |
|---|---|
| Born | 20 Jan 1946 |
| Died | 16 Jan 2025 |
| Place of birth | Missoula, Montana, USA |
Favorite films
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And then there’s Fellini, who is a tremendous inspiration. I like La Strada and 8½ — but really all of them and, again, for the world and the characters and the mood, and for this level, which you can’t put your finger on, that comes out in each one.
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And then there’s Fellini, who is a tremendous inspiration. I like La Strada and 8½ — but really all of them and, again, for the world and the characters and the mood, and for this level, which you can’t put your finger on, that comes out in each one.
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I am a huge admirer of Billy Wilder. There are two films of his that I most love because they create such a world of their own: Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment.
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I love Hitchcock. Rear Window is a film that makes me crazy, in a good way. There’s such a coziness with James Stewart in one room, and it’s such a cool room, and the people who come into this room — Grace Kelly, for instance, and Thelma Ritter — it’s just so fantastic that they’re all in on a mystery that’s unfolding out their window. It’s magical and everybody who sees it feels that. It’s so nice to go back and visit that place.
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I am a huge admirer of Billy Wilder. There are two films of his that I most love because they create such a world of their own: Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment.
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I like of all Kubrick’s films, but my favorite may be Lolita. I just like the world. I like the characters. I love the performances. James Mason is phenomenal beyond the beyond in this film.
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There’s a certain amount of fear in the picture, as well as things to dream about. So it seems truthful in some way. It must’ve got inside me when I first saw it, like it did with a million other people.
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I think Herzog is one of the all-time greats. Really great. When I was in England once I saw Stroszek on TV. I’d missed the beginning of it so I thought it was, like, some real documentary. I was just captivated in the first two seconds. I’d never seen anything like it.
Known for
Crew: Art Direction, Director, Editor, Original Music Composer, Producer, Production Design, Screenplay, Sound Effects, Special Effects
