David Lynch, the peerless director behind such masterpieces as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive, was one of cinema’s all-time greats, a unique visionary whose dark and surreal films were the stuff of both unsettling dreams and sumptuous nightmares.

Steven Spielberg, Nicolas Cage, and Kyle MacLachlan are among the prominent figures paying tribute to David Lynch, whose death was announced Thursday. “I loved David’s films. Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive,