Reactions to the death of David Lynch, the visionary filmmaker behind “Twin Peaks” and “Mulholland Drive,” whose death at 78 was announced Thursday. — “He’s one of those filmmakers who was influential but impossible to imitate.

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.

Both Steven Spielberg and David Lynch are legendary filmmakers, and the Jaws director admires the Twin Peaks creator greatly. In fact, he cast Lynch as John Ford in The Fabelmans back in 2022. In a statement published Variety, Spielberg noted that role and his relationship with the director, saying: