Eraserhead

First-time father Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Eraserhead has traveled from cult curiosity to near-canonical status, though early critics dismissed it as pretentious or merely gross. The sound design draws almost universal attention — critics treat it as inseparable from the film's unsettling power — while disagreement persists over whether Lynch's debut represents his purest artistic vision or simply his most indulgent, with several later critics arguing his subsequent success dulled exactly the qualities that make this film work.