Remembering David Lynch
We honor the legendary director in the most appropriate way possible.
On Wednesday January 15, 2025 we all lost the iconic director David Lynch, who passed at 78 years old. The auteur behind films such as Blue Velvet, he coined the commonly used film term “Lynchian” which of course means “any movie with a dream sequence.” We at The B.O. Boys would like to pay tribute to Mr. Lynch in the way we all know he’d find most fitting: by providing some fun facts about his box office accomplishments.
One of the Great Davids: David Lynch is clearly one of the all-time great Hollywood legends named David, up there with luminaries such as David Spade. In fact, the combined domestic box office of David Lynch’s last five films totals out to $22.5 million. That’s only $200,000 less than the $22.7 million that David Spade’s Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star made in 2003!
The Mullholland Connection: Considered Lynch’s masterpiece and a film that many critics consider one of the greatest ever made, 2001’s Mullholland Drive grossed $7.2 million domestically. This puts it only four million behind the 1996 critically reviled Nick Nolte flick Mullholland Falls, which made $11 million and effectively ended Nolte’s movie star career.
Up There With The Greatest Directors of All-Time: The combined all-time domestic box office for David Lynch’s entire body of work stands at $106 million. That total is only $50 million less than what Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Endgame made in its opening day in April 2019. The Russo Brothers would go on to direct films such as Cherry and The Grey Man.
And now, let’s do the thing that Mr. Lynch absolutely would have wanted, which is definitively rank his three best films.
#3: Wild at Heart: Coming in third is 1990’s Nic Cage starrer Wild at Heart, which at $14.5 mil is the third highest domestic grosser of Lynch’s career, and therefore his third best movie.
#2: The Elephant Man: Lynch’s second directorial effort and coincidentally the second best movie he’s ever made, because it grossed $26 million.
#1: Dune: With a domestic total of $27.9 million, this 1984 adaptation of the famed sci-fi novel is Lynch’s highest earner and therefore his best film. Dune (1984) will forever be the movie that everyone remembers him for, and easily the most Lynchian of all his films.
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