# What is the best David Lynch movie?

> From surrealist midnight-movie chaos to heartbreaking American beauty, the films span five decades of utterly singular filmmaking. Where does your loyalty fall?

*By YPB Team · Published June 5, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-david-lynch-movie*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Mulholland Drive** — score 1000/1000
   Lynch's 2001 neo-noir fever dream widely regarded as his masterpiece, following an aspiring actress and an amnesiac woman through a labyrinthine Hollywood mystery.
2. **Eraserhead** — score 758/1000
   Lynch's 1977 debut midnight horror classic following a man haunted by disturbing visions after his girlfriend leaves him with their severely deformed infant.
3. **Wild at Heart** — score 379/1000
   Lynch's 1990 Palme d'Or-winning violent road trip romance starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as young lovers on the run from hired killers.
4. **Blue Velvet** — score 379/1000
   Lynch's 1986 neo-noir masterpiece about a young man who discovers a severed ear in a field and uncovers a terrifying criminal underworld beneath a picturesque American town.
5. **The Straight Story** — score 228/1000
   Lynch's 1999 G-rated road movie following an elderly man who travels across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower to reconcile with his ailing brother.
6. **Lost Highway** — score 228/1000
   Lynch's 1997 neo-noir mystery thriller about a jazz musician who receives disturbing videotapes and wakes up in jail accused of his wife's murder as another man entirely.
7. **Dune** — score 1/1000
   Lynch's ambitious 1984 science fiction epic adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, following Paul Atreides as he navigates the desert planet Arrakis and its spice wars.
8. **The Elephant Man** — score 1/1000
   Lynch's 1980 black-and-white biographical drama about Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th-century London who is rescued from a brutal freak show.
9. **Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me** — score 1/1000
   Lynch's 1992 unsettling prequel to the Twin Peaks series chronicling the final days of Laura Palmer before her murder, deeper and darker than the show.
10. **Inland Empire** — score 1/1000
   Lynch's 2006 experimental three-hour digital odyssey about an actress who begins to lose herself in the role she is playing, blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

Tags: movies, classics, david lynch