Your Favorite Art-House Film From 2001

The year 2001 was a pivotal one for Hollywood. The indie wave of the ’90s was still cresting, but an era of franchises and unending sequels and reboots was on the horizon. Some of the hits of 20 years ago (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Fast and the Furious) have footprints that extend into the present day. It’s hard to imagine other daring work (A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Vanilla Sky) making as big of an impression now.

Film critics love to celebrate 1999, when American independent cinema was thriving and filmmakers like David Fincher and the Coen brothers became celebrated auteurs. I’d posit that 2001 is almost as good, while being a little heavier on the blockbuster front. Exciting new directors (though frustratingly almost always male), such as Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson, emerged into the mainstream, while established heavyweights such as John Singleton and Baz Luhrmann did career-best work that’s stood the test of time.

The year was also sprinkled with warning signs for Hollywood’s more narratively homogenous future. The biggest hits were open-ended fantasy epics destined for sequels, and animated films pitched at the broadest audience possible. (The most crucial pillar of the industry’s blockbuster obsession—superhero movies—didn’t really take off until the first Spider-Man, in 2002.) But in Hollywood, the most fertile moments always have red flags, because it’s a world that survives by driving the hottest trends into the ground.

Over the next month, I’ll discuss some of the best films of 20 years ago. We’ve broken the candidates into four broad categories: art-house films, dramas, comedies, and franchise hits. And you, Atlantic readers, will vote for one movie from each section to (hopefully) watch along with us week by week.

This week’s winner is David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr., which beat out Sexy Beast, Monsoon Wedding, and Amélie in the art-house category.

Mulholland Dr. began as a pilot episode for ABC, which was hoping to recapture the magic of Lynch’s prime-time hit, Twin Peaks, a decade prior. The Hollywood-set murder mystery Lynch presented to the network—the tale of an aspiring starlet (Naomi Watts) and her amnesiac friend (Laura Harring), who appears in her apartment with a strange blue key—was baffling, oblique, and oddly paced.

After ABC rejected it, Lynch reshot footage and added in the movie’s final, haunting act. The film remains his magnum opus, a perfect distillation of his most lasting fascinations: pulpy tales of women in trouble, frightening dream logic, and the wrenching pain that comes when love and artistic passion crash up against cruel reality.

Mulholland Dr. remains one of the most compelling, terrifying theater experiences of my life. While there is logic to be found in its strange, bifurcated plot, I find myself revisiting the film over and over again for its singular scenes: the introduction of “The Cowboy,” the monster looming behind the diner, the emotional labyrinth of Club Silencio. I’ve been pondering the meaning of those set pieces ever since my first viewing 20 years ago.