13 Times You Lost Respect For Your Favourite Filmmakers

10. David Lynch - Inland Empire

The inclusion of this David Lynch film here will no doubt rub some people the wrong way. Inland Empire has a surprising number of proponents out there. That being said, the film is still an embarrassment. Described by Lynch simply as a movie about a "woman in trouble," Inland Empire has to rank pretty highly on a list of the most impenetrable films ever made. This is not a good thing, because Inland Empire's nebulous storytelling distracts from everything else redeeming about the film. This includes Laura Dern's searing performance as the film's lead, and the intriguing supporting work by Jeremy Irons and Justin Theroux. Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive may have also had their surrealist flourishes, but an audience was given at least some tools to understand the plot and the characters' predicaments. This isn't the case with Inland Empire; it's just a big, confusing, and disappointing mess. It even fails on a technical level, with the DV photography adding nothing to the proceedings.