The best movies and TV shows from the late, great director David Lynch include a strong mix of indie and experimental movies varying from horror and sci-fi to noirs and mystery thrillers. Lynch got his start with directing by making short films in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He enjoyed his breakout movie when he directed Eraserhead and released it in 1977 when it became a cult classic and took on a role similar to that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as a film playing at midnight screenings across the United States.

Thanks to its underground success, Lynch got some financing to move on to make bigger films, and he achieved his first significant critical success when he directed the movie The Elephant Man, based on the true story of Joseph Merrick. That earned eight Oscar nominations, and Lynch suddenly found himself with the leeway to make more experimental films over his career. This resulted in Lynch only making 10 feature-length films, but also resulted in three Best Director Oscar nominations and an Honorary Award in 2019.

10 Dune (1984)

David Lynch Adapts Frank Herbert's Sci-Fi Masterpiece

After turning down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi, David Lynch turned to another sci-fi franchise when he was given the chance to direct the big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. Lynch worked on the script based on the first novel and helped design the sets they used. While he cast his future collaborator Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, Lynch hated the experience, saying he lost control of the film and didn't have the final cut, so he made too many "compromises."

The film was a box office and critical flop. Universal released an "extended cut" later with scenes re-added that were cut from the original, but it wasn't what Lynch had in mind. While the studio felt it made for a better film, Lynch had his name removed from that cut and replaced with the name "Judas Booth," which he said referenced the betrayal. Lynch refused to ever return to make a director's cut, but it has since become a cult classic for many fans.

9 Inland Empire (2006)

A Hollywood Actress Takes On The Personality Of A Character She Played

Released in 2006, Inland Empire is a movie that tells the story of a Hollywood actress who starts to take on the personality of a character she played in a "cursed" production. Laura Dern is the lead in the film, and Inland Empire proves a very strange movie from the start. This was the first time Lynch made a movie without having a finished script before he started shooting. The director then worked on developing the film on a scene-by-scene basis while shooting it using digital video with a handheld camera.

Inland Empire is most known as the final feature-length movie of Lynch's career.

The film is a hypnotic picture, with it unclear what is real and what is in Nikki's mind while shooting the movie within the movie. Lynch preferred to let viewers determine any hidden meanings in Inland Empire and allowed it to speak for itself. The film had a very limited release but received positive reviews from critics, who emphasized that it would only attract fans of Lynch's filmography. However, Inland Empire is most known as the final feature-length movie of Lynch's career.

8 Lost Highway (1997)

A Musician Is Convicted Of Murder Before A Man Replaces Him

Released in 1997, Lost Highway is a mystery noir about a musician convicted of murder only to disappear and find himself now replaced by a young mechanic named Pete Dayton in his cell. The entire situation is surreal, and the viewers are never sure what is happening throughout the movie. Fred was convicted for the murder of his wife Renee, although he had no memories of committing the murder and had been receiving strange VHS tapes filmed inside his home before the crime took place.

Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, and Balthazar Getty star in the film, and it also includes the final film performances of Richard Pryor, Jack Nance, and Robert Blake. The entire movie is a bizarre mystery with Feed and Pete switching places, different people involved in various scandals, and a story that David Lynch once again leaves up to the viewers to interpret. Lost Highway received mixed reviews, although it has become a cult classic in later years and has been studied by film scholars.

7 Eraserhead (1977)

David Lynch's Debut Horror Film

Eraserhead was the first feature-length movie that David Lynch made. It was also the film that made him a star, although that took a while since it received very strong mixed reviews early on. Some festivals refused to screen it, calling it a bad movie, while others praised it and lauded its artistic brilliance. Eraserhead is a body-horror movie about a man (Jack Nance) who is left to care for his deformed child with an inhuman face after his wife leaves him.

Eraserhead was added to the National Film Registry in 2004.

The entire film is experimental in nature, which explains the widely polarizing response to it. However, its bizarre nature, grotesque imagery, and disturbing situations allowed it to become a massive cult favorite, playing across the nation at midnight screenings, similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lynch clearly found inspiration in early surreal films like Luis Buñuel's 1929 work Un Chien Andalou, and like that film, it took time for audiences to understand its brilliance.

6 The Fabelmans (2022)

David Lynch Played John Ford

While most of the best David Lynch movies were ones he directed, he also worked as an actor occasionally. In 2022, Lynch appeared in the Steven Spielberg movie The Fabelmans. This film was a semi-autobiographical story based on Spielberg's life as a child as he hones his ion for cinema while his parents' marriage unravels. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano starred as the parents, while young Gabriel LaBelle played Sammy, their teenage son and the avatar for Spielberg.

As for Lynch, he starred as the world-renowned filmmaker John Ford. This scene came at the end of the movie when Hogan's Heroes co-creator Bernard Fein (Greg Grumberg) invited Sammy to meet four-time Oscar-winning director John Ford, who was one of his biggest influences. It is Ford's advice (as spoken by David Lynch) that convinces Sammy (a stand-in for Spielberg) to push on and make movies. The Fabelmans received seven Oscar nominations.

5 Wild At Heart (1990)

A Mother Hires Killers To Murder Her Daughter's Boyfriend

In 1990, David Lynch teamed up with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern for the romantic crime movie Wild at Heart. In this film, Cage plays Sailor Ripley, a man who loves Elvis Presley and his girlfriend Lula Fortune (Dern). However, Lula's mother Marietta is not a fan of Sailor. As a very wealthy and powerful woman, Marietta hired someone to kill Sailor, but it was Sailor who went to jail for killing his attacker. When Sailor gets out of prison, he and Lula run off together, and Marietta sends people after them again.

Diane Ladd received an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Lynch plays with the themes in this movie a lot, adding an homage to The Wizard of Oz by showing Lula's mother is the "Wicked Witch" and that Sailor and Lula have to find their own path down the road to achieve happiness. Wild at Heart was released at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews and won the Palme d'Or. However, Lynch ended up being forced to edit the film to avoid an X-rating in the United States. While it received mixed reviews, Diane Ladd received an Oscar nomination for her performance as Marietta.

4 Mulholland Drive (2001)

An Aspiring Actress Befriends An Amnesiac

David Lynch originally developed Mulholland Drive as a TV show to follow up his cult favorite Twin Peaks. However, after seeing his cut of the pilot, ABC canceled the series, and Lynch took it and found financing to turn it into a movie by adding a new ending and shooting more scenes to lead to it. The original plan was for an open-ended mystery (similar to Twin Peaks), but that changed with the movie, where he told the story of an aspiring actress who befriends an amnesiac in Los Angeles.

Mulholland Drive earned David Lynch a Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination for the same award. Like many of Lynch's movies, he refused to elaborate on the ending and allowed viewers to determine what they felt the movie was trying to say. Mulholland helped elevate Naomi Watts into a star, and it has a high 84% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, although it also received scathing reviews as well from other critics.

3 Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017)

David Lynch's Surreal Murder Mystery

In 1990, David Lynch brought his bizarre and surreal storytelling to television with the horror drama Twin Peaks. This series follows an FBI special agent named Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), who is drawn into the mysterious investigation of murdered local teenager Laura Palmer. The series uses the tropes of detective fiction but adds in surreal horror-centric imagery and very eccentric and campy melodrama to make it unlike anything else on television.

Twin Peaks won three Golden Globes and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Thanks to its strange design, it was never a ratings success, but it did pick up a very loyal fan following thanks to its cult classic-friendly format. The series also received a movie follow-up called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which was a prequel, and then a revival series in 2017, which included most of the original cast returning 27 years later. Twin Peaks won three Golden Globes and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

2 Blue Velvet (1986)

A Criminal Conspiracy Surrounding A Lounge Singer

After David Lynch finished his work on Dune disappointed with the final product, he went to work on his next movie, which was an original story called Blue Velvet. The film's basic story follows a college student who finds a human ear in a field, which then leads him to uncover a criminal conspiracy surrounding a lounge singer. Kyle MacLachlan is the college student, and Isabella Rossellini plays lounge singer Dorothy Vallens. However, the man most people connect to the movie is Dennis Hopper.

Hopper plays Frank Booth, a violent drug dealer who has a drug addiction that has him constantly huffing gas from a tank he carries around with him. He remains one of the scariest villains in movie history, ranking on the list of AFI's top 50 film villains (via AFI). Blue Velvet holds a fantastic 91% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Lynch also received a Best Director nomination at the Oscars and a Best Screenplay nomination at the Golden Globes, while Hopper also received an acting nomination.

1 The Elephant Man (1980)

The True Story Of Joseph Merrick

After his breakout movie Eraserhead, David Lynch got a chance to direct a feature-length movie with a real budget. He chose The Elephant Man, which was based on the real life of Joseph Merrick and was adapted from a pair of books about the man. Merrick was a man with severe physical deformities who was forced to act as an exhibit at carnival shows in the 1800s before he had a chance to meet a surgeon named Sir Frederick Treves. John Hurt played Merrick, while Anthony Hopkins starred as Treves.

David Lynch made some changes in the real-life story to better create his film, and it ended up a commercial and critical success, making $26 million on a $5 million budget. The film has a 92% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it received eight Academy Award nominations. While it didn't win any, it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. It did win three BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Actor.