David Lynch

American filmmaker and visual artist whose Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive created the defining cinematic language for the American uncanny — dreams, violence, and suburban darkness — and whose advocacy for Transcendental Meditation made him an unusual ambassador for contemplative practice.

Created the most original cinematic language in American film — the uncanny dream logic of Lynch's world, where suburban normalcy conceals horrific violence and beauty coexists with degradation — and demonstrated that this vision could produce both critical masterpieces and cultural phenomena (Twin Peaks).