5. Inland Empire
If Mulholland Drive is an example of how Lynch went bats*** crazy but still gave us enough to make sense of the thing, Inland Empire is almost completely the opposite. Lynch has mistaken convolution and nonsense for surrealism and complexity; the film revolves around an actress (Laura Dern) who gets her biggest role to date, and just as that happens, the movie role and her real life between to slowly intertwine into one. What's more, the film she's making is a remake of a foreign film where the prior leads were murdered. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though; in true Lynchian style, it is images more than words that tell the story, yet where Mulholland Drive gives us enough to draw our own conclusions, Empire is frustratingly vague and opaque, and at three hours long, quite the patience-testing sit indeed.