WH Auden called Los Angeles “the great wrong place”. James Ellroy called it “the great right place”. The idea that two, or more, seemingly conflicting ideas can simultaneously be true is so often forgotten in the zero-sum culture of today, but it’s at the heart of David Lynch’s empathetic masterpiece. Mulholland Drive came to us haunted. It was a rejected TV pilot, reportedly turned down because of its confusing narrative, actresses ludicrously deemed too old, disturbing images and Old Hollywood star Ann Miller sucking on a cigarette. By design, Lynch was already echoing the Hollywood dream machine and the idea that movies reflect our own dreams – perhaps knowing all along this fever dream could only flower on the big screen. Mulholland Drive is a reverie of sex, suicide and “silencio”. It’s also America, the beautiful and the bizarre, its romanticism, dysfunction, cruelty and absurdity. We love movies. The world loves movies. But America’s often freakish, surreal desperation towards ‘glamour’ when upturned can be as ugly and as horrifying as a nightmare – and the nightmare set at Winkie’s Diner in Mulholland Drive is one of the most terrifying moments put on film. Lynch’s film is so gorgeous and so painful, so mysterious and, in many ways, so recognisable – drive on the actual road, Mulholland, at night, and then walk from Western to Vermont, and you’ll see – that, whatever theory you ascribe to it, the picture does indeed reflect a reality that moves beyond southern California and parks itself in our brains, tapping into our dreams, deepest fears, inscrutable natures, erotic desires, and pool boys. – Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun, US (Credit: Alamy) More on BBC Culture’s 100 greatest films of the 21st Century: [Why Mulholland Drive is number one](http://www.bbc.com/culture/20160822-why-mulholland-drive-is-the-greatest-film-since-2000) [The list in full: The 100 greatest films since 2000](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films) [Surprising facts from the 100 greatest films of the 21st Century list](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160802-100-greatest-films-of-the-21st-century-infographic) [The full list of critics who participated – and how they voted](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films-who-voted) [Are we living in a golden age of film?](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160822-why-the-21st-century-is-a-new-golden-age-of-cinema)