Blue Velvet (1986)

David Lynch’s adult fairytale follows teen sleuth Kyle MacLachlan’s murder inquiry into the surreal, perverse corners of small-town America.

Following the big-budget failure of Dune, David Lynch’s dazzling return to more personal filmmaking earned him a second Oscar nomination. The discovery of a severed ear leads clean-cut Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) to uncover a nightmarish flipside to sleepy small town Lumberton, as he becomes dangerously complicit in the perverse relationship between tormented chanteuse Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and deranged gangster Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

Informed both by the underground experiments of Kenneth Anger and the 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Lynch’s visually arresting film has a singularly skewed power. Alan Splet’s dense sound design and the first of the director’s many collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti contribute to the film’s immersive texture, while Hopper is unforgettable as one of cinema’s most unsettling grotesques.

“The perfect shaken-not-stirred Lynchtini. Simultaneously a Freudian Mother of All Bombs, a satire on the Hardy Boys, a psychosexual audience crucifixion, an elegy for lost innocence and a genuine mystery.” Michael Atkinson

“Suburban America, freshly mown lawns and the tweeting of an artificial robin sitting alongside a dark underbelly represented by a severed human ear and a run-in with a psychopath... Taking the form of a surreal noir and as entertaining as it is horrifying, this is a film that is impossible to forget.” Justin Johnson

“Blue Velvet is the logic of dreams and nightmares translated into film language.” Nemanja becanovic

“Lynch was leftfield even in the 80s, but the mainstream has caught up to his ordinary-uncanny sensibility.” Phil Hoad

1986 USA
Directed by
David Lynch
Produced by
Fred Caruso
Featuring
Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper
Running time
120 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Blue Velvet

Critics

Marco Arrocha
Spain
Michael Atkinson
USA
Hervé Aubron
France
Nemanja Becanovic
Montenegro
Massimo Causo
Italy
Rich Cline
UK
Pablo Conde
Argentina
Kevin Coyne
Ireland
Jon Dieringer
USA
Radmila Djurica
Serbia
Wostry Ferenc
Hungary
Arlin Golden
USA
Lindsay Hallam
UK
A. S. Hamrah
USA
Fahmidul Haq
Bangladesh/USA
Kevin Harley
UK
Phil Hoad
UK/France
Justin Johnson
UK
Kalle Løchen
Norway
Ian Mantgani
Ireland/UK
Antonio Mariotti
Switzerland
Luis Martínez
Spain
Neil McGlone
UK
Lidia Merás
Spain
Wendy Mitchell
UK
James Mottram
UK
Mike Muncer
UK
Vikram Murthi
USA
Michał Oleszczyk
Poland
Sven Pötting
Germany
Youssef Shazli
Egypt
Amy Sloper
USA
Chris Straayer
USA
Irene Torp Halvorsen
Norway

Directors

Prano Bailey-Bond
UK
Mahalia Belo
UK
Pablo Berger
Spain
Mong-Hong Chung
Taiwan
Hope Dickson Leach
UK
Richard Kwietniowski
UK
Joe Lawlor & Christine Molloy
Ireland
Adam McKay
USA
Phyllis Nagy
US
Nobuhiro Yamashita
Japan

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