Director: David Lynch
Screenplay: David Lynch and Robert Engels
Based on: Twin Peaks by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Starring: Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Kyle MacLachlan, Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Phoebe Augustine, David Bowie, Eric Da Re, Miguel Ferrer, Pamela Gidley, Heather Graham, Chris Isaak, Moira Kelly, Peggy Lipton, David Lynch, James Marshall, Jürgen Prochnow, Harry Dean Stanton, Kiefer Sutherland, Lenny Von Dohlen, Grace Zabriskie
Country: United States
Running Time: 134 min
Year: 1992
BBFC Certificate: 18
Twin Peaks the television series was a phenomenon. Initially running for two series in the early 1990s, the show captivated audiences with its kooky cast of characters, off kilter vibe, dark soap opera and central mystery asking us to try to solve who killed Laura Palmer.
With Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, director David Lynch, who created the world together with Mark Frost, returned to the town of Twin Peaks for a prequel film that amped the darkness up to pitch black for a surreal and terrifying horror film that showcased the darkest of humanity and refused to conform to expectations.
The cliffhanger that concluded the second series of the TV show, which Lynch would later return to for a third series in 2017, was not referenced, and plot threads that were left dangling in the series were left unresolved by the film. In its place was a bleak, weird and devastating descent into addiction, despair and ultimately death for Laura Palmer.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me opens with a surreal prologue, which tells us that all bets are off and this won’t be like the TV series, as an unidentifiable man smashes a television set and we hear a woman scream. It’s a pivotal scene we will return to.
The prologue also introduces us to another mystery and a new location, Deer Meadow, where the body of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) is discovered by police. Gordon Cole (David Lynch) of the FBI sends in agents Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) to investigate and they discover a picture of Teresa wearing a ring that’s missing. Desmond soon finds it but then himself immediately disappears.
Still in the prologue, Cole and Agents Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) are reacquainted with Agent Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) (who disappeared before the events of the film) who talks about spirits, whilst Cole then endeavours, unsuccessfully, to find Desmond.
There’s a whole film there, and it feels a little bit like a mini episode, but this is just the 34-minute prologue, introducing us to a mystery and new characters whilst reintroducing us to familiar faces like Cole and Cooper.
Then, the main thrust of the plot begins one year later as we follow the final seven days in the life of the ill-fated Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). The plot, in brief, shows us Laura essentially living a double life; one as a popular student and beauty queen, whilst in the other she is in with wrong crowd, has a cocaine addiction, is dating drug dealer Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook), having an affair with James Hurley (James Marshall) and selling her body as a sex worker. Laura is also haunted, terrified and traumatised by the vision of a horrific and incredibly scary spirit known as Bob (Frank Silva).
Following one vision of Bob, she sees her father Leland (Ray Wise) planting the seed that they are one and the same, something which Laura can’t believe or fathom, and which will resonate differently for audiences of the TV show, who know how the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was resolved. Elsewhere in the plot, Laura discovers pages of her diary are missing, has visions of the Red Room, a surreal place where she encounters, amongst others, Agent Cooper, and travels to Canada with her pimp Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz) and several clients, where her fate will unravel.
It’s no spoiler to say that what will unfold will ultimately lead to her dead body floating down the river, paving the way for events that will form the basis of the two-part pilot that will open the TV series and the subsequent mystery that captivated millions.
Along the way we will be reintroduced to other familiar characters from the TV series such as Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick), Donna Hayward (Moira Kelly, taking over from Lara Flynn Boyle who portrayed the character in the television series), Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) and The Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson).
The film is a harrowing tale of the final days of Laura Palmer and her dual life, one seemingly happy and the other a dark life of addiction, and horrific visions. Her family life is strained and odd, whilst also terrifying at times – check out the dinner sequence, for example, when Leland refuses to allow the family to eat until Laura washes her hands.
The movie is anchored by a no holds barred central performance by Lee as Laura, who leaves her heart and soul on the screen. She’s both sweet and innocent and a bad girl, and plays both sides of this coin perfectly. Her journey into darkness is incredibly difficult to watch, from her treatment at the hands of Bob and ultimately her father, to her ill-fated encounters with Jacques who treats her as little more than meat, and ultimately building to her death.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is not only a surreal psychological horror story, it’s a tragic character study of Laura Palmer and also of her possessed father Leland, who is impeccably played, as he was in the TV series, by Ray Wise, and whose role in the story grows as the film progresses.
Some of his scenes in the second half when we see the unspeakable acts he does to Laura when possessed by the spirit of Bob at night, and ultimately how he turns to murder – that’s no spoiler if you’ve seen the TV series – are shot in a matter of fact way which makes them incredibly disturbing and difficult to watch.
The rest of the cast is also great, from newbies to the world of Twin Peaks like Sutherland and returning cast members like Amick, Zabriskie and Kelly. It’s a pleasure to spend time with the cast.
Lynch’s trademark quirkiness, surrealness and downright weirdness is dialled up to 11 throughout the film. It’s Lynch not only let loose, but let loose with a creation that had become a TV water cooler discussion phenomenon, without the restraints of network television.
The early parts of the film are infused with weird humour, which dissipates as the story unfolds and we go further and further into a nightmarish world. We knew Laura Palmer was murdered, so wouldn’t have predicted her final days to be cheery, but it would have been difficult to imagine just how harrowing her closing week would be.
It’s one of the most terrifying, unflinching tales of horror I’ve ever watched, with some really disturbing imagery that is seared into my memory. It grows and grows into a hellish fever dream and the finale, which will feature the return of the ring from the prologue as well as The Red Room and Cooper, is like the worst kind of nightmare.
But, despite the horrors, it’s a beautifully shot and scored film. Ron Garcia’s cinematography captures some gorgeous images like a singer bathed in blue light against a red backdrop, and trees swaying in the wind. Garcia also brings us disturbing first-person tracking shots that ratchet up the tension, like only such shots in a Lynch film can.
Angelo Badalamenti’s score moves from light and breezy jazz to something much more ominous, which had me on edge and unnerved, in a similar way to his other scores like his masterful one for another Lynch masterpiece, Mulholland Drive. When the theme to Twin Peaks kicks in just over half an hour in as we arrive in the town and lay eyes on Laura Palmer, it’s a perfect and beautiful moment.
In closing, for me Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a horror masterpiece, and a disturbing peek behind the curtain of an American town. It’s utterly terrifying, harrowing, compelling and endlessly rewatchable. The film is among the great David Lynch’s best works, and Criterion’s new 4K UHD disc showcases this masterful work at its best.
Film: 
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is released on dual format 4K UHD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection on 13th October 2025. The picture is really good with plenty of rich detail and a natural colour scheme. The audio is brilliant. Sound is always very important in the works of Lynch and needs a presentation like Criterion have provided, with the sound effects and music in particular sounding great, but the dialogue also coming across crisply. It’s great.
Director-approved 4K UHD and Blu-ray special edition features:
4K digital restoration, with 7.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, both supervised by director David Lynch
Alternate original 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
The Missing Pieces, 90 minutes of deleted and alternate takes from the film, assembled by Lynch
Interview by Lynch with actors Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie
Interviews with Lee and composer Angelo Badalamenti
Trailers
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: Excerpts from an interview with Lynch from Lynch on Lynch, a 1997 book edited by filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley
The first disc is a 4K UHD and contains the film. Disc two is seemingly the same Blu-ray as the original Criterion release and contains the films and the extras.
The standout extra is The Missing Pieces, 90 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes, which feature characters from the TV series who weren’t featured in the film. These include Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), Dr. Will Hayward (Warren Frost), Ed Hurley (Everett McGill), Pete Martell (Jack Nance), Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson), Josie Packard (Joan Chen), Deputy Sheriff Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz), Deputy Sheriff Tommy “Hawk” Hill (Michael Horse), Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie), Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis), Betty Briggs (Charlotte Stewart) and Eileen Hayward (Mary Jo Deschanel). Highlights include more of David Bowie’s performance as Agent Phillip Jeffries, extended footage with Bob and The Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) in the Red Lodge, and small sequences with the characters who didn’t make it into the final film.
Sheryl Lee’s interview is from 2017 and runs for 22 minutes. Lee is excellent, beginning with how she came to meet David Lynch and got the role of Laura Palmer, before moving on to her thoughts on the character, memories of Frank Silva, who played Bob, and some of the difficulties she found with acting at times. Lee also touches on the music, the bar scene and plenty more. Like all the extras on the disc, it’s fantastic.
Angelo Badalamenti’s interview also dates from 2017. Running for 20 minutes, Badalamenti gives a warm recollection of working on the show, opening with a story of The Queen apparently being a fan of Twin Peaks, how he came to work with David Lynch on Blue Velvet to help Isabella Rossellini sing the title track, and the genesis for the music of Twin Peaks the TV series. He then looks at the differences between the music of the show and the film, as well as highlighting some of the musicians who performed on the score. It’s another fabulous interview.
A 2014 actors discussion overseen by David Lynch with the actors who play the Palmer family is equally brilliant. We hear from Ray Wise, who played Leland, Grace Zabriskie, who portrayed his wife Sarah, and, of course, Sheryl Lee, who played Laura. This 29-minute piece is another strong extra, opening in black and white and then the image turning to colour it was filmed in a restaurant that feels like it may have come from the TV show. The trio speak warmly about working on Twin Peaks, and how proud they are of the show and film. Lee discusses how surreal it was to have such a famous face because of the show when it first launched, despite only appearing as a corpse and in her high school photo. They also watch scenes and share some of their other memories of the show, and the film, including The Missing Pieces. Another wonderful extra.
Also included are the US theatrical trailer and international trailer, which both run for just under two minutes and play up some of the weirdness and horrors, though no trailer can prepare you for what will unfold in the finished picture.
We also get a trailer for The Missing Pieces, which highlights both the weirdness and the fact we’d get to see characters who hadn’t featured in the finished film.
I wasn’t provided with the booklet, but assume it’s the same one as that which was included with Criterion’s previous Blu-ray release, which means it will be rich, rewarding and well worth a read.
Criterion have provided a fantastic 4K UHD and Blu-ray dual format release for the phenomenal Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Picture and sound are great and the package includes the extras from Criterion’s previous Blu-ray release, meaning we get three very strong interviews and The Missing Pieces, a marvellous 90 minute array of deleted scenes and alternate takes.
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