'Mulholland Drive', Originally Written as TV Pilot, Ranked Among 'Best Movies of All Time'

David Lynch was one of the most innovative and creative filmmakers of his generation, but his works can often be off-putting for new audiences. His stories are typically quite surreal and inaccessible, requiring multiple viewings to truly understand.

Mulholland Drive definitely has those same absurdist features that made works like Blue Velvet and Eraserhead such enormous hits with critics, but it managed to frame them through a much more accessible story that finally broke through with casual viewers and cemented Lynch's legacy as an auteur for the masses.

The film stars Naomi Watts as an aspiring actress who moves to Los Angeles and befriends a car crash victim suffering from amnesia, played by Laura Harring. It's a story of ambition, purpose, and identity set to the luminescent backdrop of Los Angeles' criminal underworld, with a narrative that takes some truly unpredictable twists and turns.

Mulholland Drive was a massive hit with critics upon release, and it quickly became Lynch's most popular feature-length movie among general audiences. The film propelled Lynch to his third Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards, and pulled in a moderate $20 million worldwide against a fairly low budget (via Box Office Mojo).

But in an alternate timeline, Mulholland Drive could have looked extremely different. Lynch originally shot the film with the intention of turning it into a television pilot, just like he did with Twin Peaks in 1990. But while ABC was willing to pick up Twin Peaks for multiple seasons, the network was less impressed by the Mulholland Drive pilot.

They rejected the episode, and Lynch was left with roughly two hours of footage without a network to pick up the show. Instead of reworking the pilot or moving onto a new idea, Lynch decided to turn Mulholland Drive into his next movie, seeking funding from StudioCanal to shoot an ending to replace the pilot's open-ended conclusion (via BFI).

The decision clearly paid off, as Mulholland Drive is now celebrated as Lynch's enduring masterpiece and frequently cited among the best films ever made. The movie landed at No. 8 on Sight & Sound's most recent ranking, which is collated every ten years. Its bold storytelling and refusal to conform to cinematic expectations, building a surreal story that offers itself up to countless different interpretations, is exactly what made Lynch such a titan of the film industry in this century and the last.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 25, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 7:54 AM.