The two best David Lynch films, according to Rotten Tomatoes

The film world lost one of its biggest unconventional names this week David Lynch dies at the age of 78. Lynch was one of the most unique filmmakers of all time, and it’s a filmography where that “singular” description is truly apt. Lynch was a one-of-a-kind director, and his work was so unique, so surprising, yet so compelling that… He was able to create indelible image after indelible image Through stories set in the worlds of science fiction, suburbia, and everywhere in between. But what it also means is that David Lynch has been among the most divisive directors. A few people have noted that Lynch’s last notable work was as the legendary John Ford in the final scene of Steven Spielberg’s 2022 film “The Fabelmans”; His appearance in one scene is every bit as delightful, funny, and inexplicable as the rest of Lynch’s career. They both make perfect sense – turn, He starred in a Steven Spielberg film as one of the most popular American directors of all time – which makes no sense at all. This is the beauty and wonder of David Lynch.

But what it also means is that people can’t always agree on Lynch’s films, let alone which ones were the best. Head to a place like Rotten Tomatoes, and you might be a little stunned and horrified to learn that, for example, His 2001 masterpiece Mulholland Drive, which allowed Naomi Watts to give a brilliant, star-making performance and was one of the most painful films in decades, didn’t even get a 90 percent rating among critics. This film rightfully holds its place as one of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time, and yet, it just can’t break the 90 percent mark. So it should come as no surprise that only two of Lynch’s films received a rating above 95 percent. When you look at Lynch’s entire career and his traditional feel as a director, one of these two films makes sense: it’s the 1986 thriller “Blue Velvet.” But the other title, the 1999 drama “The Straight Story,” might surprise you.

In many ways, “Blue Velvet” feels like a prototype for a David Lynch film, even though the 1986 film is a far cry from his first feature film. Lynch burst onto the scene with his avant-garde film “Eraserhead” in the late 1970s, before making the black-and-white drama “The Elephant Man” and the first film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” But “Blue Velvet,” which begins by indulging in a visual metaphor for the unnatural horrors that exist beneath the surface of a cute suburban Midwestern town, is filled with the same mix of images that can be both alluring and disturbing at once. The film has a 95 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is kind of amazing considering the fact that one of the most famous critics of all time, Roger Ebert, hated “Blue Velvet” and wasn’t shy about using the TV show he shared. With the late Gene Siskel to serve as a bully pulpit in speaking out against the film. “It made me feel sorry for the actors who worked on it, and angry at the director for taking liberties with them,” Ebert wrote. In his review with one star.

But even the best critics can slip up from time to time, and this was a notable once-in-a-blue-moon thing for Ebert (who has been more complimentary of Lynch’s other projects). “Blue Velvet” tells the story of a young man who investigates a severed ear he finds in a field, which leads him down a rabbit hole of deviant behavior, noir lounge singers, and a funnyman named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper in one of his most iconic roles). “Blue Velvet” may not seem quite as perverse now as it did in 1986, but the combination of stark styles that Lynch created in the film made it so distinctive and unmistakable to many critics and audiences. The film’s unique qualities earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director (although he lost out to Oliver Stone for Platoon) and a lot of critical acclaim… but not Ebert himself. What made “Blue Velvet” stand out so much was the mood of the film. A director whose work is often filled with atmosphere, Lynch was able to harness the film’s mood of inexplicable, dream-like horror, striking the balance between the baffling and the banal perfectly.

Even now, more than 25 years later, David Lynch’s directing of Straight Story seems to defy logic. Here was a director who proudly flouted expectations in every capacity, including whether or not critics liked him. (To clarify: His previous film, the 1997 thriller “Lost Highway,” had already received very poor reviews, and to capitalize on that, Lynch pursued a new marketing campaign that promoted bad reviews the way most studios promote positive reviews.) Was it his last film? A literally G-rated Walt Disney movie about an old man riding a tractor through the American Midwest. And of course, all of this is what happens in the “straight story,” which too He has 95 on rotten tomatoes. It’s not the kind of film you’d expect from most directors, let alone Lynch. But now, in the year of the Lord 2025, reconciling Lynch and the material is easier than you might think. This is the same guy who has proudly provided cheery, corny weather reports from Los Angeles for years, so why not make a movie about Alvin Street?

Based on a true story, “The Straight Story” depicts Alvin Street’s journey as he takes his John Deere nearly 240 miles from Iowa to Wisconsin so he can see his sick brother (Harry Dean Stanton), from whom he has long been estranged. A long time ago. Richard Farnsworth plays Strait in a film that is as uncompromising but as simple as anything Lynch has ever made. For anyone who watched it initially, it might have been easy to watch it and wonder when the other shoe was going to drop and when the movie was going to get weird, disgusting, and stupidly weird. But that moment never comes. “The Straight Story” is a very effective film, if a quiet one that never veers off track, much as Strait himself took the trip in 1994. The film has a sadder context now than when it was released in 1999, as Farnsworth was suffering from cancer His prostate was damaged during filming, and he ended his life the following year.

Filmography of David Lynch is full of inexplicable mysteries. It’s part of what made him such a distinctive, dynamic and beloved director. The good news, if you have either/or the Criterion Channel and Disney+, is that you can stream both “Blue Velvet” and “The Straight Story,” if you’re looking for his best work. But Lynch had plenty of other good work, too. That it has very few very high scores on aggregator sites shouldn’t stop you. Immerse yourself in Lynch’s work; It deserved attention before and it still deserves it now.