The Cinematheque

“[David Lynch’s] crepuscular masterpiece … Still a maddening, freaky, mysterious thing, seductively interpretable but, ultimately, Lynchianly resistant to final readings.”

Michael Atkinson, Sight and Sound

David Lynch’s beguiling mix of Hollywood satire, film noir, and fever dream is now regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time (eighth according to Sight and Sound​’s latest decennial poll). Naomi Watts, entering the Lynch-verse for the first time, is perky Betty, an aspiring actress from Canada newly arrived in Los Angeles. Laura Harring is​“Rita,” a mysterious dark-haired beauty searching for her identity after a near-fatal accident. Justin Theroux is Adam, a hotshot Hollywood director under pressure from thugs to cast an unknown actress in his latest movie. Lynch’s ​“love story in the city of dreams” was originally shot as a TV pilot for ABC, which passed on picking up the series. (It was, in its earliest iteration, a Twin Peaks spinoff centred on Audrey Horne.) Muholland Dr. earned the auteur Best Director at Cannes and his third Oscar nomination for directing.