Film director David Lynch has passed at 78. This unconventional filmmaker set the world afire with his first feature, a nightmarish cult classic, Eraserhead. He soon followed with the richly lauded The Elephant Man, the daring, surrealistic Blue Velvet, and his grandest epic, the innovative, quirky TV series Twin Peaks which spawned three seasons and a prequel film, and also influenced a host of TV shows including Picket Fences, Northern Exposure, The X Files, and Stranger Things. Despite a mixed reaction to his studio-interfered version of Dune, he directed Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, and his G rated masterpiece, The Straight Story. One of his last works was as an actor, gloriously playing John Ford in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. A best director nominee three times, he was awarded a lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2019
