---
title: "Lost Highway: the reviews"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/lost-highway/reviews"
title_page: "https://film.one/film/lost-highway"
critics_score: 66
critics_reviews: 19
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Lost Highway (1997): what the critics said

Critics' score 66 from 19 reviews: 13 positive, 1 mixed, 5 negative.

Most critics come down in favour, though the lean is warmer now than it was in 1997. The praise gathers around atmosphere: the long dark corridors, Peter Deming’s shadows, the sound design, and a dread that holds from the first frame. Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman are singled out, and more than one critic treats the film as a rehearsal for Mulholland Drive, with the opening stretch the part most reliably admired.

The reservations are about feeling rather than craft. The negative reviews, almost all from the film’s first release, find it beautifully made and emotionally empty, a puzzle built to be discussed rather than felt, and a few object to a pace that slackens its grip and a second half that turns clunky. The spread is wide: five stars at one end, accusations of contempt for the audience at the other. The AV Club’s later revision, from dismissal to something like respect, is a fair picture of how the reception has moved.

## The Times — Kevin Maher

Rating ★★★★★. 5 December 2024. 

Lynch’s darkest and best work is this profoundly disturbing noir thriller that drops the viewer inside the fractured mind of its psychopathic protagonist. The long black corridors of existential dread deliver real terror never equalled since.

[Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/lost-highway-1997-review-forget-vampires-this-is-true-horror-r7qc3hhbs)

## Little White Lies — William Carroll

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 22 January 2017. 

The critic calls it a mysterious, enthralling neo-noir in its own right that deserves to be spoken of alongside Lynch’s best work, praising its dream-like nocturnal LA setting, nonlinear structure and the way it embodies Lynch’s folkloric parallel worlds and nameless spectres.

[Read the review](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/lost-highway-david-lynch-la-neo-noir)

## Empire — Christopher Hemblade

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. 

Lynch's film is delightfully bonkers and an eerie, edgy outpouring that challenges expectations of identity and reality. The critic singles out the atmospheric, non-plot-driven logic of the mid-point transformation and strong performances, especially by Patricia Arquette.

[Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/lost-highway-review/)

## Radio Times — David Oppedisano

Rating 4/5. 

The review calls the narrative-defying thriller hypnotising and painterly, with Lynch reinventing film noir in a creepy, nightmarish vision echoing Vertigo. It notes the story is not the most accessible but the delivery is compelling.

[Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-dhjvs3/lost-highway/)

## Time Out — Joshua Rothkopf

Rating 4/5. 27 March 2008. 

The review praises the film's widescreen presentation and transitional strengths as Lynch's first LA movie, a practice run for Mulholland Drive with strong atmosphere and video surveillance motifs. It notes audiences were puzzled but highlights its undeniable qualities.

[Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/lost-highway-1)

## Slant Magazine

Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 11 October 2022. 

The critic praises the Criterion 4K restoration as profoundly beautiful and a must-own for Lynch fans, highlighting its technical excellence. They single out the film's opening 45 minutes for its hauntingly prosaic tension and male anxiety, while noting some clunky elements in the second half but affirming the work's daring emotional realism overall.

[Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/lost-highway-4k-uhd-review-david-lynch/)

## The AV Club — Keith Phipps

Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 2 April 2008. 

In this retrospective on the DVD release, the critic revises an earlier negative view, now finding the film deeper, more coherent as a death-row fantasy, and containing deadpan dark humor that was initially missed.

[Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/lost-highway-revisited-when-a-decade-brings-second-tho-1798213703)

## The Independent — Dennis Lim

Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 23 February 1997. 

The critic describes the film as a bold, irresponsible and expressionist work that leaves viewers baffled and seduced, marking a return to form after Fire Walk With Me with the spooky supernaturalism of Twin Peaks rendered with force and clarity worthy of Blue Velvet.

[Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/cinema-return-of-the-lynch-mob-1280207.html)

## Variety — Todd McCarthy

Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 20 January 1997. Festival review. 

Lost Highway is a mysterious, ultra-Lynchian exercise in Designer Noir that traverses familiar roads with stylistic panache and daring, remaining sufficiently intriguing and startling despite being uneven and too deliberately obscure. In the Lynch canon it stands in the middle, not up to the summits of Blue Velvet but superior to Fire Walk With Me and Dune.

[Read the review](https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/lost-highway-1200448395/)

## The New York Times — Janet Maslin

Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). 21 February 1997. 

The film is a coolly ominous, attention-getting hallucination that echoes the perversity of Blue Velvet through dream logic, shifting identities and intimations of doom. It holds sinister interest of its own but suffers from a too-deliberate pace that lessens its grip.

[Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/21/movies/eerie-visions-with-a-mood-of-menace.html)

## Sight and Sound — Marina Warner

Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 1 August 1997. 

The critic explores the film's Möbius-strip narrative of identity doubling and time loops as a cerebral brainteaser rather than visceral thriller. She finds its handling schematic and ultimately hollow despite intriguing ideas.

[Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/voodoo-road-marina-warner-david-lynchs-lost-highway)

## Los Angeles Times — Kenneth Turan

Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 21 February 1997. 

Lost Highway is troublesome but the director’s most accomplished work since Blue Velvet, a beautifully made but emotionally empty film that exists only for the sensation of its provocative moments. It is best at creating unease through imagery and spooky situations, though the stylized dialogue and ultra-violent, sexually exploitative moments are harder to sustain.

[Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-02-21-ca-30766-story.html)

## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert

Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 27 February 1997. 

The critic views the film as an empty stylistic exercise and shaggy ghost story made with contempt for audiences, lacking sense, emotional thread, or necessary purpose despite effective images and a strong soundtrack.

[Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lost-highway-1997)

## The New Yorker — Terrence Rafferty

Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 3 March 1997. 

Lost Highway is an absorbing and often brilliant dark, lurid and enigmatic thriller that decorates film noir with fantastic touches, yet it feels cool, tidy and hermetic rather than transgressive. Lynch has returned to form technically but the film gives viewers something to talk about rather than something to dream about.

[Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/03/10/1997-03-10-098-tny-cards-000151841)

## Eye for Film — Gator MacReady

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 3 March 2006. 

The critic finds the film a vividly realised mystery that pulls the viewer into its thick atmosphere and praises Lynch's masterful direction, cinematography and use of space and sound. The world is described as at once beautiful and evil, with the film deserving the highest praise despite its enigmatic nature.

[Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/lost-highway-film-review-by-gator-macready)

## HeyUGuys — Chris Holt

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 9 November 2012. 

The critic describes Lost Highway as one of Lynch's most complete visions, praising its fast pace, striking visuals and shadows (shot by Peter Deming), effective soundtrack, and Bill Pullman's strong lead performance as a sympathetic yet disturbed character. It notes the film as underrated and possibly Lynch's most commercial despite being obtuse, while linking it thematically to Twin Peaks.

[Read the review](https://www.heyuguys.com/revisiting-lynch-part-four-fire-walk-with-backlash-and-21st-century-noir/)

## Collider — Jacob Slankard

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 15 February 2025. 

The critic views Lost Highway as a key, daring, and personal Lynch film that has been reclaimed as a cult classic after its initial commercial and critical disappointment. It singles out the film's emphasis on binary forces like light/dark and masculine/feminine, along with its nightmarish, non-cohesive exploration of identity and transformation.

[Read the review](https://collider.com/david-lynch-lost-highway/)

## Consequence

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 21 February 2022. 

The critic calls Lost Highway an underappreciated neo-noir gem that warrants far more praise than its initial mixed reception. They single out its mysterious imagery, cryptic plot points, devious characters, and surreally sinister sound design.

[Read the review](https://consequence.net/2022/02/david-lynch-lost-highway-why-its-good/)

## The Playlist

Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 27 October 2015. 

The critic calls the film relentlessly inscrutable and notes that it never really comes together as a story or makes sense, criticising it as off-putting and stilted with too little reason to care about puzzling it out. Atmosphere and dread are praised, along with a highlight scene featuring Robert Blake.

[Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/retrospective-the-films-of-david-lynch-20151027/3/)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/lost-highway.md