Sporadically filmed over five years in Los Angeles’s depopulated downtown and on painstakingly fabricated sets, Lynch’s 1977 debut feature nonetheless bears the imprint of his time as a young artist in Philadelphia. The film follows hapless protagonist Henry (Jack Nance), with his furrowed brow and electroshock pompadour, as he navigates an inhospitable nocturnal landscape and struggles with the anxiety of fatherhood. With its meticulous black-and-white cinematography by Frederick Elmes and Herbert Cardwell and groundbreaking sound design by Alan Splet, Eraserhead is a triumph of interiority, a literal head movie that might be taking place within someone’s traumatized skull, and one of the definitive midnight movies of all time.