Cannes 2025: 5 works to rediscover filmmaker David Lynch

David Lynch, trained in painting and visual arts in Boston and Philadelphia, had just made his first film, Eraserhead (1977), an experimental work shot in black and white with nightmarish visions, when director Mel Brooks, who was also a producer, called on him to direct The Elephant Man.

The film tells the story of John Merrick (John Hurt), a Victorian-era Briton suffering from a disease that deforms his body and is used as a freak show. Until a doctor, Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins), takes an interest in him and reveals his damaged humanity.

With a relatively classic narrative, the film, shot in black and white, allows the filmmaker to give free rein to his fascination with monsters and the distortion of images. A huge public success, particularly in Europe, it brought him notoriety and attracted the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would go on to produce his next two films, Dune and Blue Velvet.

After the failure of his adaptation of Dune , David Lynch wanted to make a more personal film, a thriller with teenage heroes. Thus, in 1986, Blue Velvet was born, the story of a young man who one evening discovers a severed human ear in a field.

Deciding to investigate, this character (played by Kyle MacLachlan) uncovers a criminal conspiracy and meets a mysterious young woman. Blue Velvet tells the story of a teenager's journey into adulthood.

When the film was released in American theaters, it was shunned by audiences, who considered it too confusing in its blend of eroticism and psychoanalysis. A few years after its release, the film would become a benchmark, particularly for its depiction of American suburbs.

This is the filmmaker's breakthrough film, winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. A sort of trashy, offbeat road movie, it depicts the passionate love between two young people, Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern), opposed by the latter's mother.

What follows is a run across the United States, with hitmen on their trail, during which they encounter a series of disturbing characters, including Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini) and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe). Driven by a high-energy, disconcerting in its tonal shifts, the film combines the filmmaker's taste for film noir, strange atmospheres, and the traumatic pasts of these characters. Although it received a rather cold reception in the United States, Sailor and Lula has become a cult film for a whole generation of viewers.

At At the same time as Sailor Moon and Lula , David Lynch and Mark Frost signed the first season of his ABC television series Twin Peaks . This is the work that probably best defines the "Lynchian" style. Starting with a classic detective story – an FBI agent played by Kyle MacLachlan comes to investigate the murder of a high school student, Laura Palmer, found dead in a river near the Canadian border – the filmmaker gradually draws us into a fantasy world populated by strange characters (a dancing dwarf, a woman carrying a log, etc.) carried by a hypnotic and heady soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.

We navigate between reality, fantasy, and the psyche of a hero who gradually loses his footing. This series, with its countless fans, is considered to be the one that renewed the genre in the United States. It spawned a second season in 1991 and a film in 1992, both considered less successful, then a third season in 2017.

This is undoubtedly David Lynch's masterpiece, crowned with a Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. Initially conceived as a pilot for a series similar to Twin Peaks , it became a film following ABC's refusal to produce the project. This feature film, with its very Hollywood film noir feel, takes us even further into the dreamlike and almost surreal world of David Lynch.

A newcomer to Los Angeles, Betty (Naomi Watts), meets an amnesiac woman who has just survived a car accident after being threatened by killers. The blonde and brunette embark on a search for her identity, as a series of seemingly unrelated scenes unfold.

With its fragmented narrative, ultra-polished aesthetic, captivating world, and final enigma, the film is fascinating and has given rise to multiple interpretations of its resolution. Although more accessible than the previous film, Lost Highway , these two films represent the quintessence of the cinema of a David Lynch fascinated by mind games and the unconscious.