Legendary filmmaker David Lynch dies at 78 after emphysema battle

Hollywood and its environs have been through a series of devastating tragedies of late, and it was just announced that there is yet another reason for mourning in Tinseltown.

As Deadline reports, legendary filmmaker David Lynch, known for works such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, and more, has died at the age of 78.

Family breaks news

Lynch's death was announced in a Facebook post authored by his loved ones, which began, “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch.”

The post continued, “There's a big hole in the world now that he's no longer with us. But as he would say, 'Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'”

“It's a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way,” the message, accompanied by a photo of Lynch playing a guitar, concluded.

Though the family's post did not mention a cause of death, as Today reports, Lynch was diagnosed with emphysema back in 2020, a fact with which he did not go public until August 2024.

Declaring his condition to be the result of having been a smoker since the age of 8, Lynch said, “I can hardly walk across a room. It's like you're walking around with a plastic bag around your head,” and he noted his increased reliance on supplemental oxygen for everyday activities.

Remarkable career remembered

Known for his often-eccentric, groundbreaking films, Lynch received a host of honors over the course of his career, including Academy Award nominations, the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and even a lifetime achievement honorary Oscar in 2020.

Lynch's writing and directing work in The Elephant Man was what introduced many film aficionados to what would become a legendary career, though 1977's Eraserhead also garnered a cult following that endured across the decades.

It was during the 1980s, however, that Lynch's work garnered an even larger fan base, sparked in significant part by 1984's Dune, Blue Velvet from 1986, and then the 1989 premiere of television's Twin Peaks, which Deadline described as “a bizarre sort of detective series/soap opera/sci-fi mystery-adventure” with “occasional outright Twilight Zone-like horror.”

The 1990s saw Lynch team up with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern for Wild at Heart, a film that beat works by industry giants such as Clint Eastwood, Jean-Luc Godard, and others to take that year's Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Lynch's final film as a director was 2006's Inland Empire, a production he self-financed as well as self-distributed when others showed little interest, a move that only solidified his reputation as a singular character in the entertainment industry.

Tributes pour in

News of Lynch's death spurred an outpouring of tributes and emotional reminiscences, including from Cage, who declared the late filmmaker “a singular genius in cinema, one of the greatest artists of this or any time” and also recalled, “I never had more fun on a film set than working with David Lynch. He will always be solid gold.”

Actor Kyle MacLachlan, who collaborated with Lynch on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, described him as “the most authentically alive person I'd ever met” and added, “I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he's gone,” and that is a legacy of which any human would be proud.