With his distinctive surreal visual style, David Lynch has made a name for himself as one of the most acclaimed and respected filmmakers working today. Since making his feature debut with Eraserhead, Lynch has told stories about murder investigations, severed ears, and intergalactic assassins.
Like any great director, Lynch’s movies are filled with memorable characters that lend tangible humanity to the bizarre events of his plots. To bring these characters to life, Lynch has recruited such revered actors as Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, and Harry Dean Stanton, who have made icons out of the people that populate his stories.
Lovable: John Merrick (The Elephant Man)
One of Lynch’s most emotionally charged movies, the black-and-white biopic The Elephant Man tells the true story of Joseph Merrick — with his name changed to John Merrick — a kindly man who is shunned from society due to his deformity.
John Hurt gives a poignantly human performance as Merrick, while the movie doesn’t pull any punches in depicting the hardships he went through during his time in a Victorian "freak show."
Love To Hate: Killer Bob (Twin Peaks)
In Lynch’s supernatural drama series Twin Peaks, Killer Bob is the paranormal entity from the Black Lodge that’s responsible for the murder that drives the story. He possesses human beings and uses their bodies to commit all kinds of deplorable acts on Earth.
The character was created by accident. One of the series’ shots accidentally caught the reflection of set dresser Frank Silva’s face and Lynch liked it so much that he kept it in and cast Silva as the show’s villain.
Lovable: Dorothy Vallens (Blue Velvet)
Isabella Rossellini proved that she had real acting chops with her powerful performance as Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet. Whenever the movie makes Frank Booth more despicable, it usually has the knock-on effect of making the audience root for Dorothy even more.
As a sex slave whose family is being held hostage, Dorothy is in a pretty dire situation when Jeffrey meets her. Throughout the movie, she becomes even more sympathetic as the audience gets to know her better.
Love To Hate: Bobby Peru (Wild at Heart)
Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage are endlessly lovable in the roles of Lula and Sailor, respectively, in Lynch’s gonzo road movie Wild at Heart, which is shockingly contrasted with the unabashed evil of Bobby Peru, the sadistic gangster played by Willem Dafoe.
He needlessly shoots people dead during robberies and threatens to sexually assault Lula before revealing he was hired to kill Sailor. He ends up accidentally blowing his own head off with a shotgun.
Lovable: Henry Spencer (Eraserhead)
Lynch’s directorial debut Eraserhead launched his filmmaking career when its oddball experimental style made it a huge hit on the midnight movie circuit.
The story revolves around Henry Spencer — the closest thing to an everyman in the movie’s curious, super-industrial, almost otherworldly setting — who faces various increasingly uncomfortable situations with his girlfriend’s parents before being tasked with raising a deformed baby who might be evil.
Love To Hate: Mr. Bytes (The Elephant Man)
Based on the real-life Tom Norman, Mr. Bytes is the evil ringmaster who treats John Merrick cruelly behind the scenes of his Victorian freak show. Freddie Jones leaned into the character’s heinous nature in portraying his callous behavior.
The character embodies bigotry and ignorance. He doesn’t even realize he’s evil, because he doesn’t acknowledge that the person he abuses is a human being.
Lovable: Alvin Straight (The Straight Story)
Perhaps the least Lynchian David Lynch movie is The Straight Story, the uplifting true story of Alvin Straight, who drove 240 miles atop a John Deere riding lawnmower to visit his sick brother.
While this sweet, sentimental material might not seem like it’s in Lynch’s wheelhouse, he committed himself wholeheartedly to telling this man’s quirky story.
Love To Hate: Marietta Fortune (Wild at Heart)
Real-life mother and daughter Diane Ladd and Laura Dern play a very dysfunctional mother and daughter in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. After her daughter Lula’s boyfriend Sailor rejects her sexual advances, Marietta Fortune decides to have him killed and hires a bounty hunter to take him out.
There are a lot of overbearing mother characters to be found in movie history, but few as terrifyingly so as Marietta in Wild at Heart.
Lovable: Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks)
After appearing in a handful of Lynch’s movies, Kyle MacLachlan took the lead role of Dale Cooper in his first TV series. Twin Peaks begins with the murdered body of homecoming queen Laura Palmer being discovered in the titular town.
Cooper is the special agent sent in by the FBI to lead the investigation. Along the way, he uncovers that the town is hiding some disturbing supernatural secrets.
Love To Hate: Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Frank Booth from Blue Velvet isn’t just the greatest villain from David Lynch’s filmography; he’s been praised as one of the greatest villains in movie history. From his split personalities as “Baby” and “Daddy” to his incessant consumption of a mysterious gas from a tank, Frank is unforgettably sinister.
The anarchic stylings of Dennis Hopper made him the perfect actor to bring this character to life. He reportedly begged Lynch for the part after reading the script and, in a strange way, identifying with Frank.
