The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 6 - 'Mulholland Drive’

The Big Picture

The Ringer

Tv & Film

4.3 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean and Amanda return to continue their yearlong project of listing the 25 best movies of the 21st century so far. Today, they discuss David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive,’ one of the greatest surrealist films ever made. They celebrate Naomi Watts’s incredible breakthrough performance, reflect on all the different conspiracy theories and unique readings of the film, and commend its ability to blend Americana, European surrealism, classic Hollywood glamour, and sinister outsider art, all at once. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:41.6	I'm Sean Fennacy. I'm Amanda Dobbin.
0:42.6	And this is 25 for 25.
0:43.8	A big picture special conversation show about Mulholland Drive.
0:47.0	No I bond on yet we hear a band.
0:49.6	We are talking today.
0:50.8	Completely normal cadence about that reference.
0:53.7	David Lynch. That's exactly how they say it in the film.
0:58.0	Well, there is a kind of weirdness, you know, a kind of sense of unease.
1:02.0	Do you identify as a like a David Lynch character?
1:05.0	Do you feel like you present that?
1:08.0	I think the viewers at home might think that my very particular cocktail
1:12.1	of intensity and laconicness. Sure. And remove. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. You had like the
1:18.4	stiff acting style. Impenetrability. Yeah. This vague sense of doom surrounding this show at all times,
1:24.3	right? Yeah. That everything is normal, but also weird shit's happening right in front of us.
1:28.5	Like, you're wearing a crew neck, but, you know, just that you're a dad in a crew neck, but also. But what's underneath, you know? Is it Ray Wise and Twin Peaks? Hopefully not. Hopefully, I'm just the normal dad. I'm very excited to talk with you today. This is unfortunately the second time that we're talking about David Lynch this year because we lost him and he is of course one of the great filmmakers.
1:46.7	We were
1:46.9	never going to do this project without doing a David Lynch film. There are only two David Lynch
	...

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