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Lost Highway

Play trailer Poster for Lost Highway R 1997 2h 15m Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
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69% Tomatometer 62 Reviews 87% Popcornmeter 50,000+ Ratings
From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician (Bill Pullman), tortured by the notion that his wife is having an affair, who suddenly finds himself accused of her murder. The other is a young mechanic (Balthazar Getty) drawn into a web of deceit by a temptress who is cheating on her gangster boyfriend. These two tales are linked by the fact that the women in both are played by the same actress (Patricia Arquette).

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Lost Highway

Lost Highway

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Critics Consensus

Marking a further escalation in David Lynch's surrealist style, Lost Highway is a foreboding mystery that arguably leads to a dead end, although it is signposted throughout with some of the director's most haunting images yet.

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Critics Reviews

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Kevin Maher The Times (UK) 12/16/2024
5/5
Forget about vampires, zombies and the undead, this is true horror. Go to Full Review Richard Brody The New Yorker 07/05/2022
Lynch brings the movie’s febrile and violent artifice to life in visual compositions of a poised, painterly authority and interrupts them with quick bursts of hallucinatory frenzy. Go to Full Review Jeremiah Kipp Slant Magazine 04/01/2008
3.5/4
It's pensive male anxiety, and for some cultural reason it's easier for audiences to accept female hysteria than the insecurities of men. Go to Full Review Patrick Cavanaugh The Wolfman Cometh Sep 12
4/5
Possibly David Lynch's best blend of a cohesive narrative mixed with otherworldly elements. Go to Full Review Chance Solem-Pfeifer Willamette Week 02/12/2025
Evil flows like an invisible current through Lost Highway, one of Lynch’s feel-bad best. Go to Full Review Noah Berlatsky Everything is Horrible (Substack) 01/23/2025
Lynch refuses to commit to any clear theme beyond the standard misogynist noir trope that women who have sexual autonomy are evil and maybe deserve to be murdered. Go to Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Jonny 03/23/2025 amazing. chilling and artful. beautiful See more Jadan S 03/22/2025 This film was the closest experience I've had that was akin to experiencing a dream while fully awake. Make no mistake, you will be lost while watching this. But it is 100% worth the journey. See more Peter 03/22/2025 I don't know how to rate it. I hated it and loved it at the same. See more Owen Z. @Hotebylaw Mar 6 Really cool. Great soundtrack. A lot of good lore around this, worth reading the wiki. See more Carlos I @carlosFibarra Feb 6 David Lynch’s Lost Highway is a disorienting descent into a fractured psyche, serving as the epitome of the nightmare imagery that Lynch is famously associated with. It operates on a frequency of pure dread, utilizing a haunting soundscape and surreal, jarring transitions to explore themes of identity and guilt. Beyond its avant-garde abstractions, it's a solid, tense thriller that grips you with a sense of inescapable claustrophobia, refusing to provide easy answers while it lingers in your mind like a fever dream. See more David H @DavidQHarris Jan 31 This film had so much potential, but it largely squandered it. The best example of this is the pale-faced man who approaches the main character at a party and freaks him out. That character had so much potential, but it never amounted to much in the end. The ending revisits the opening scene. You'd like to think it would explain things, but it doesn't because it doesn't make any sense. Is the pale-faced man actually a good guy in the end? It's hard to say because his appearances here and there in the film are disjointed and incoherent. See more Read all reviews
Lost Highway

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Cast & Crew

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David Lynch

Director

Bill Pullman

Fred Madison

Patricia Arquette

Renee Madison

Balthazar Getty

Pete Dayton

Robert Blake

Mystery Man

Natasha Gregson Wagner

Sheila

Movie Clips

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Lost Highway

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Lost Highway

BILL PULLMAN as "Fred Madison." PATRICIA ARQUETTE as "Renee Madison" and BILL PULLMAN as "Fred Madison." "Mystery Man" (ROBERT BLAKE) (l), and "Mr. Eddy" (ROBERT LOGGIA) (r). BILL PULLMAN as "Fred Madison." PATRICIA ARQUETTE as "Renee Madison." "Pete Dayton" (BALTHAZAR GETTY) and "Alice Wakefield" (PATRICIA ARQUETTE). PATRICIA ARQUETTE as "Renee Madison." PATRICIA ARQUETTE as "Alice Wakefield." View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician (Bill Pullman), tortured by the notion that his wife is having an affair, who suddenly finds himself accused of her murder. The other is a young mechanic (Balthazar Getty) drawn into a web of deceit by a temptress who is cheating on her gangster boyfriend. These two tales are linked by the fact that the women in both are played by the same actress (Patricia Arquette).
Director
David Lynch
Producer
Deepak Nayar, Tom Sternberg, Mary Sweeney
Screenwriter
David Lynch, Barry Gifford
Distributor
October Films
Production Co
October Films, Lost Highway Productions, Asymmetrical Productions
Rating
R (Strong Language|Sexual Content|Violence)
Genre
Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 21, 1997, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Dec 13, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$18.0K
Runtime
2h 15m
Sound Mix
Dolby Stereo, Dolby Digital, Dolby A, Surround, Dolby SR
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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