MULHOLLAND DRIVE

The late, great David Lynch was an anomaly in American cinema: a true surrealist embraced by both critics and mainstream audiences. Mulholland Drive finds Lynch at the peak of his powers, crafting a sunbaked neo-noir fever dream that doesn’t simply wash over the audience—it burrows deep into the psyche, lingering long after the credits roll. On the surface, the film follows Betty (a tour-de-force performance from Naomi Watts), a wide-eyed aspiring actress newly arrived in Hollywood who becomes entangled in an increasingly strange mystery after encountering an amnesiac woman hiding in her apartment. But beneath the seductive puzzle-box surface lies Lynch’s haunting meditation on identity, desire, and innocence devoured by the machinery of Hollywood. A story as old as time, transformed into something dreamlike, terrifying, and almost mythic in scope.

One of the most audacious works of popular cinema ever made—and a film that only deepens with each viewing.

STAFF PICK: PAUL

“Lynch is one of my heroes. I’m endlessly drawn to films where reality feels like it’s unraveling, and few filmmakers explored that terrain more powerfully than David Lynch. While less feral than works like Wild at Heart or Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive may be the purest culmination of everything that made Lynch such a singular voice in American cinema. It’s a movie so bound to its own internal logic that the audience feels anchored in place even when the plot spins dangerously out of control. Like sitting in the eye of a hurricane watching everything around you blow apart.”