The Films That Inspired David Lynch

At the end of last week, news of visionary filmmaker David Lynch’s passing was announced. Months before his death, Lynch, aged 78, shared that he’d been diagnosed with emphysema after smoking for decades. One of the most important filmmakers of his era, Lynch’s oeuvre—from Eraserhead and Blue Velvet to Mulholland Drive and his cult TV show, Twin Peaks—has been shaping visual culture for more than 50 years, inspiring countless contemporaries across disciplines. The auteur seamlessly merged experimentation with commercial success, earning acclaim for his profound explorations of the human psyche through dreamlike and often unsettling visuals. In the wake of the artist’s passing, Something Curated looks back at some of the cinematic works that Lynch credited as inspirations over the course of his career.

The Wizard of Oz (1939), directed by Victor Fleming

During a Q&A back in 2001, following a screening of Mulholland Drive at New York Film Festival, an audience member asked Lynch about the relationship between Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz and the film Lynch had just screened. The filmmaker responded, “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about The Wizard of Oz.” From the outset of his career, Lynch’s work has consistently reflected an ongoing dialogue with Fleming’s Technicolor musical fantasy. So much so, that in 2022, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe made a documentary titled Lynch/Oz, examining this relationship.

Un Chien Andalou (1929), directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí

A landmark collaboration between Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou introduced surrealism to cinema with an intensity that remains radical to this day. The film’s non-linear narrative skips erratically from one moment to another, embodying the dream logic that Lynch himself employs in his work. Several of the film’s most iconic images, such as the razorblade slicing through an eyeball, find echoes in Lynch’s Blue Velvet, with its disturbing scenes of severed ears and insects teeming beneath pristine lawns.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), directed by Maya Deren

Like a prolonged trance, the protagonist drifts through a dreamlike state in Ukrainian-born American experimental filmmaker Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon. The seminal work’s central figure, played by Deren, navigates a series of symbolic objects and recurring events, creating an open-ended narrative that blurs the line between reality and illusion. Deren’s intention was to convey the emotional essence of an incident rather than its factual accuracy, a philosophy that influenced Lynch.

8½ (1963), directed by Federico Fellini

In 8½, Federico Fellini transforms a filmmaker’s creative and personal crises into a cinematic masterpiece. Marcello Mastroianni portrays Guido Anselmi, a director grappling with the collapse of his latest project and his own life. In his autobiography slash self-help guide, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, published in 2006, Lynch describes 8½ as a paragon of filmmaking, praising Fellini’s ability to evoke emotions through abstract, almost magical means.

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953), directed by Jacques Tati

Another of Lynch’s favourite movies, cited by the filmmaker in Catching the Big Fish, is Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Jacques Tati’s comedy about a clumsy man causing chaos at a seaside resort is a masterclass in gentle slapstick. The film’s meticulously choreographed visual gags and its ability to extract humour from simple scenarios likely inspired Lynch’s own use of idiosyncratic characters to create moments of offbeat humour.

Rabbit’s Moon (1950/71), directed by Kenneth Anger

Rabbit’s Moon is a 1950s short film by underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger that was re-edited and finally released in 1971. The mesmerising work merges stylistic tropes of commedia dell’arte with the myth of the moon rabbit—a fabled creature in East Asian and indigenous American folklore—to forge a whimsical tale about the pursuit of the unattainable. Anger’s enchanting visuals are believed to have been an influence on Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Many film scholars also consider Rabbit’s Moon a precursor to the contemporary music video.



Feature image: Still from Rabbit’s Moon (1950/71), directed by Kenneth Anger