A stranger rang David Lynch's doorbell. A voice came through the intercom: "Dick Laurent is dead." Lynch never found out who was at the door that night. He never learned who Dick Laurent was.

The mystery lingered with him for years while other images arrived like fragments from a dream: disturbing videotapes left at a couple’s door, a pale supernatural figure at a party, an endless highway illuminated only by headlights cutting through darkness.

In the early 1990s David Lynch became fascinated with novelist Barry Gifford’s phrase ‘lost highway.’ He called the author: "I want to do an original film together, and we're gonna do it if I have to finance it myself."

Lynch and Gifford co-wrote LOST HIGHWAY (1997) while the OJ Simpson trial was ongoing. The idea of a man who had apparently committed a terrible act and then returned to his normal life became embedded in the film's central logic, though Lynch only recognized the connection years later.

Robert Blake was cast as the Mystery Man after Lynch saw his previous work and wanted him. Blake did not understand the script at all. Lynch told him to use his imagination. Blake shaved his eyebrows, parted his hair in the middle, and applied white Kabuki makeup. Years after the film, Blake would be tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife.

Lynch described Lost Highway as a "psychogenic fugue" and - as with all his films - declined to explain further.

Lost Highway was given two thumbs down by Siskel and Ebert. It has since been selected by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? as one of the greatest films ever made.