David Keith Lynch is an American avid filmmaker, painter, visual artist, musician, writer, and actor. Receiving an Academy Honor Award in 2019, Lynch received three Oscar nominations for Best Director and César twice for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and one award. The golden lion gives a lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007, a review panel convened by The Guardian stated that "after all discussions, no one could be wrong to conclude that David Lynch is today's most important filmmaker", in when AllMovie called him "The Man of Modern American Films." His work earned him the title of "the first famous surrealist" by film critic Pauline Kael.

Known for his unsettling dream sequences in films like as Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, and Wild at Heart, he is an experimental and challenging director. Twin Peaks, a television series about a murder mystery, was also conceived by him.