Is there a director alive today more divisive than David Lynch?  For some, his quirky sense of humor and his ability to evoke feelings and moods qualify him as an unparalleled cinematic genius.  For others, his work is a morass of murky plots, half-baked ideas, and egotism writ large with a multimillion-dollar budget.  Anyone who has seen a David Lynch movie walks away with an opinion and it is never middle-of-the-road.

But, no matter how you feel about him, Lynch’s style is unmistakable and his voice is one of a kind.  Characters ranging from the mildly odd to the downright nuts walk as if in a dream (or is it a nightmare?) through the sleazy underbelly of small towns and the incandescent surreality of big cities.  He is one of the rare directors who can manipulate the sounds of a film as deftly as its visuals, often with the collaboration of master composer Angelo Badalamenti.  Like Hitchcock and Kubrick, his very name has become an adjective to describe the work of others—when a movie is called “Lynchian,” there is no mistaking the meaning.

Since his first film, the bizarre and depressing Eraserhead, Lynch has become synonymous with the word “baffled.”  He has been responsible for heady acid trips like Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire.  He has created a bizarre examination of sex and violence in Blue Velvet and a quiet, emotional character study in The Elephant Man.

Of course, for most who know the name David Lynch, it is because of the short-lived television phenomenon, Twin Peaks.  Though it barely ran for two seasons, Peaks is often cited as the must-see Lynch experience.  It offers all his very best avant garde weirdness and tonality within conventions that are a bit more familiar to the rest of us.

Love him or hate him, David Lynch is an utterly unique and unassailable figure on the Hollywood landscape.  He creates the rare breed of film that is not watched but experienced.  He asks for work and investment from his viewers and guarantees nothing.  His movies aren’t safe and they don’t promise you’ll like them.  They will, however, be something you’ll never forget.

Essential David Lynch:

• Eraserhead (1977)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Twin Peaks (1990)
• Mulholland Dr. (2001)