Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Hollywood is dark and dangerous, yet alluring, in David Lynch’s acclaimed thriller.

Defiantly sui generis and unorthodox as he’s always seemed, it may be that David Lynch has by now become a paradigmatic voice of our times. What has long been labelled ‘Lynchian’, instead of merely ruling over our culture’s more delicious margins, might be instead how modern life feels for most of us – a clotted dream of irrational seizures and psychosexual secrets and desires wracked by incomprehensible forces. Certainly, the rise of his crepuscular masterpiece Mulholland Dr. up the new poll’s canonical ladder – 20 rungs, from 28 in 2012 – suggests that we’re coming around to accepting Lynch’s disorienting voice as paradigmatic, even necessary.

Having begun as a post-Twin Peaks TV pilot, dumped by ABC and expanded upon into something completely different, Lynch’s film is his gay Anna Karenina (1878), his Hollywood death dive, his final salute to the legacy mysteries of Vertigo (1958) and his deepest dish of metaphysical tragedy. In the deftest of the filmmaker’s gnomic bifurcations, the movie’s flow runs from network-gloss irony, through a tunnel of angst, to a Sapphic wander through Desolation Row, with its two heroines (Naomi Watts and Laura Harring) also doubled up, playing out two contrasting narratives, each potentially and mysteriously the psychic B-side of the other. Identity, in Hollywood, is a quantum reality, a fact that meets Lynch’s lust for instability head on. Perhaps that is the resonating clue as to the film’s ascendant critical regard: its essential, unreasonable slipperiness, its fierce embrace of uncertainty and the indeterminate, speaks more to our fraught present, 21 years later, than it did to its heyday during the pre-9/11 Bush administration. (Not that it wasn’t beloved then, reaping dozens of criticgroup awards and getting Lynch an Oscar nomination for Best Director.)

The film’s unironic payload of wrenching heartbreak, swimming up from a swampy dream of ironic strangeness, is singular in his oeuvre, as if the vulnerabilities of young women in the twisty roads and dusty hills of the American movie struck him in ways that the dark plight of smalltown Lumberton/ Twin Peaks high-schoolers didn’t quite? Perhaps. But it’s still a maddening, freaky, mysterious thing, seductively interpretable but, ultimately, Lynchianly resistant to final readings. That’s integral to its allure, too. It’s like a hieroglyph you’re always on the verge of translating or a lover’s sphinx-like expression in bed that suggests betrayal, devotion or something in between.

Michael Atkinson

2001 France, USA
Directed by
David Lynch
Produced by
Mary Sweeney, Alain Sarde, Neal Edelstein, Michael Polaire, Tony Krantz, Joyce Eliason
Written by
David Lynch
Featuring
Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring
Running time
146 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Mulholland Dr.

Critics

Mohammed Hashem Abdel-Salam
Egypt
Diego Andaluz
US/Mexico
Mallory Andrews
Canada
Marina Ashioti
UK/Cyprus
Jon Asp
Sweden
Djordje Bajić
Serbia
Jessica Balanzategui
Australia
James Balmont
UK
Manuel Betancourt
USA
Clara Bradbury-Rance
UK
Matthew Buchanan
New Zealand
Ty Burr
USA
Roger Clarke
UK
Sarah Cleary
UK
Robbie Collin
UK
Barbara Creed
Australia
Nick De Semlyen
UK
Miguel Dias
Portugal
Mar Diestro-Dópido
UK
Kit Duckworth
USA
Christophe Dupin
Belgium
Cristóbal Escobar
Chile
Jordan Farley
UK
Nicole Flattery
Ireland
Rosie Fletcher
UK
Euan Franklin
UK
Vigen Galstyan
Armenia
Patrick Gamble
UK
Marzia Gandolfi
Italy
Federico Gironi
Italy
Michael Goddard
UK
Antonio Gonçalves Jr
Brazil
Ed Gonzalez
USA
Antoine Guillot
France
Alistair Harkness
UK
Tim Hayes
UK
Sean Hogan
UK
Peter Howell
Canada
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
UK
Sheila Johnston
UK
Trevor Johnston
UK
François Jost
France
Nebojša Jovanović
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Alexia Kannas
Australia
Sten Kauber
Estonia
Cael Keegan
USA
Natalia Keogan
USA
James Kleinmann
USA
András Bálint Kovács
Hungary
Violeta Kovacsics
Spain
Ryan Krivoshey
USA
Tomris Laffly
USA
Jean-Marc Lalanne
France
Leila Latif
UK/Sudan
Nathan Lee
USA
Diego Lerer
Argentina
Matthew Leyland
UK
Roger Luckhurst
UK
Gabrielle Marceau
Canada
Giovanni Marchini Camia
Italy/Switzerland/Germany
Ewa Mazierska
Poland/UK
Katie McCabe
UK
Katherine McLaughlin
UK
Thierry Méranger
France
Jacob Milligan
UK
Carlos Muguiro
Spain
Eddie Muller
USA
James Naremore
USA
Kim Newman
UK
Marko Njegić
Croatia
John Nugent
UK
Paul O'Callaghan
UK/Germany
Derek O'Connor
Ireland
Dario Oliveira
Portugal
Xavier Pérez
Spain
Adam Piron
USA
Paola Raiman
France
Tim Robey
UK
Nuno Rodrigues
Portugal
Philippe Rouyer
France
Jennifer Sabine
Australia
Louis Séguin
France
John Semley
Canada
Steven Shaviro
USA
David Sims
USA
Fernanda Solórzano
Mexico
Courtney Stephens
USA
Michelle Swope
USA
Matthew Taylor
UK
Alexandru Tirdea
Romania
Yann Tobin aka N.T.BINH
France
Pete Tombs
UK
Rebecca Vick
UK
Susana Viegas
Portugal
Andrea Virginás
Hungary/Romania
Saige Walton
Australia
Tien-Hsiang Wen
Taiwan
Hillary Weston
USA
Mike Williams
UK
Jessica Winter
USA
Damon Wise
UK
Kevin Wynter
USA
Emilie Yeh Yueh-Yu
China/Hong Kong
Gregory Zinman
USA
Timé Zoppe
France

Directors

Babak Anvari
UK
Kristoffer Borgli
Fyzal Boulifa
UK
Denis Coté
Canada
Zach Cregger
USA
Clea DuVall
Tom George
UK
Rose Glass
UK
Mani Haghighi
Iran
Lee Haven Jones
UK
Ben Hopkins
Germany
Richard Kelly
USA
Sebastián Lelio
Chile
Bertrand Mandico
France
Shahram Mokri
Iran
Robert Morgan
UK
Lynne Ramsay
UK
Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Denmark
Lone Scherfig
Denmark
Adrián Silvestre
Spain
Eskil Vogt
Norway
Florian Zeller
France
Rebecca Zlotowski
France

Articles related to Mulholland Dr.

Load more

Rent new and acclaimed films, including those in cinemas now

Features from as little as £2.50, become a BFI Member to get a discount.

Explore rentals on BFI Player