David Lynch

80 years old Missoula, Montana, USA

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.

Recent movies

# Name Character Rating
1 I Know Catherine, the Log Lady (2026) Self -
2 Beatles '64 (2024) Self -
3 Lynch/Oz (2023) Self (archival footage) -
4 The Fabelmans (2022) John Ford 7.3
5 Moby Doc (2021) Self 7
6 Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019) Self 8.5
7 Why Are We Creative? (2018) Self 8
8 Girlfriend's Day (2017) Narrator (voice) 5.3
9 Lucky (2017) Howard 8.3
10 A Very Lovely Dream: One Week in Twin Peaks (2017) Self -
11 The Man with the Gray Elevated Hair (2017) Self -
12 David Lynch: The Art Life (2017) Self 8
13 The Black Ghiandola (2017) Man In Black -
14 WHAT DID JACK DO? (2017) Director / Writer 6.5
15 Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) Self -
16 The Reality of Truth (2016) Self 8
17 Rammstein in Amerika (2015) Self -
18 Brand: A Second Coming (2015) Self -
19 Fire (Pożar) (2015) Director / Writer -
20 My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014) Self 5
21 Duran Duran: Unstaged (2014) Director / Writer 7
22 Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) Director / Writer 6.8
23 Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013) Self -
24 Side by Side (2012) Self 7.6
25 The 3 Rs (2011) Director / Writer 6
26 Blue Velvet: The Lost Footage (2011) Director / Writer -
27 42 One Dream Rush (2010) Director / Writer 5
28 When Lynch Met Lucas (2010) - 7
29 Great Directors (2009) Self -
30 Early Experiments (2008) Director / Writer 10
31 To Each His Own Cinema (2007) Director / Writer -
32 Lynch (one) (2007) Self -
33 A Slice of Lynch (2007) Self -
34 Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2006) Self 7
35 Inland Empire (2006) Director / Writer 6.3
36 The Making of ‘Mulholland Drive’ (2004) Self 4
37 Bug Crawls (2004) Director / Writer 4
38 Boat (2003) Director / Writer 7
39 Darkened Room (2002) Director / Writer -
40 Out Yonder — Neighbor Boy (2002) Director / Writer 7
41 BlueBob Egg (2002) Director / Writer 2
42 Rabbits (2002) Director / Writer 7
43 The Pig Walks (2002) Director / Writer 3
44 The Short Films of David Lynch (2002) Director / Writer 8
45 Pierre and Sonny Jim (2002) Director / Writer 3
46 Mulholland Drive (2001)
Oscars 2002 		Director / Writer 7.3
47 Head with Hammer (2001) Director / Writer 4
48 Factory Mask (2001) Director / Writer 3
49 PlayStation 2: The Third Place (2000) Director / Writer 8
50 The Straight Story (1999)
Oscars 2000 		Director / Writer 7.3
51 Mulholland Dr. (1999) Director / Writer 8
52 Lost Highway (1997) Director / Writer 8
53 Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995) Director / Writer 2
54 Michael Jackson: Dangerous - The Short Films (1993) Director / Writer 8.3
55 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Director / Writer 7.5
56 Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990) Director / Writer -
57 Wild at Heart (1990) Director / Writer 6.8
58 Twin Peaks (1989) Director / Writer -
59 Blue Velvet (1986) Director / Writer 7.4
60 Dune (1984) Director / Writer 7
61 The Elephant Man (1980) Director / Writer 8
62 Eraserhead (1977) Director / Writer 7.6
63 The Amputee (1974) Director / Writer 2
64 The Grandmother (1970) Director / Writer 6
65 The Alphabet (1969) Director / Writer 4.8
66 Six Men Getting Sick (1967) Director / Writer 3
67 Absurd Encounter with Fear (1967) Director / Writer 5