The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025
34. 1992 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Honourable Mentions: Hard Boiled, Malcolm X, Unforgiven
1992 is an exemplary movie year from an exemplary movie era, boasting a magnum opus from Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, the pinnacle of Hong Kong action with John Woo's Hard Boiled, and an intoxicating dose of gothic horror from Francis Ford Coppola with his adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. While those films were immediately canonised as modern classics, enjoying cult and awards success in equal measure, there was one masterpiece from the same year that wasn't so fortunate - one that came from one of our most celebrated but now sadly departed auteurs.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a crucible of a film - a prequel to a televised phenomenon where levity is light and pure, unvarnished horror engulfs completely and utterly. It was made in the aftermath of a creative ruction. Twin Peaks co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost had seen their series plans upended thanks to the interference of ABC executive Bob Iger, which in turn led Lynch - whose vision also differed from that of Frost's - to end the show on an incredible yet gutting cliffhanger with its cancellation.
Fire Walk with Me entered into production soon after, with Lynch determined to explore the tragic character of Laura Palmer, who viewers had only come to know through the judgment and interpretation of Twin Peaks' residents and the intrepidly empathetic FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). With his film, Lynch sought a cathartic and thematic post-script to the series' explorations of love and evil, and the end result - lacking in much of Coop or the quirkier components that endeared Twin Peaks in its initial airing run - was inevitably divisive.
Lynch's prequel is less a replication of the tonality of the show and more a long, pained scream - a fierce recontextualisation of the complex young woman who lived in death. Sheryl Lee's performance as Laura is a tempest of emotional torture and anguished release, with Lynch stoking the flames to newfound heights of terror and vulnerability before the credits roll.