David Lynch Film Locations in Los Angeles

Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank isn’t a Lynch movie location, but rather a life location where he’d scribble ideas on napkins. "I used to go to Bob's Big Boy restaurant just about every day from the mid-seventies until the early eighties,” he recounted in his 2006 book Catching the Big Fish. “I'd have a milk shake and sit and think. There's a safety in thinking in a diner … you can go off into strange dark areas and always come back to the safety of the diner." 

Much of Lynch’s first feature film, 1977’s deeply unsettling Eraserhead, was filmed at the stables of Beverly Hills’ Greystone Mansion while he was still studying at LA’s American Film Institute. He came full circle for his final feature, 2006’s Inland Empire, in which the 1928 Tudor Revival property also appears, as it does in countless other movies, TV shows, and music videos.

As Wild at Heart’s star-crossed Sailor and Lulu drive across country, they pass a distinctive rock-clad restaurant. The still thriving Le Chêne French Cuisine near Santa Clarita looks almost identical today and also appears in 1971 thriller Duel. Other film locations nearby include Halfway House Café (Cindy Crawford’s famed ‘92 Pepsi ad) and Vasquez Rocks (Star Trek etc.)

In Lynch’s 1997 surrealist horror Lost Highway, Arnie’s is an auto shop run by Richard Pryor’s character, where Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) is employed. The real garage was a 1937 deco Firestone Complete Care Service at La Brea and 8th Street in Mid City LA and you can actually linger inside this Lynchian landmark, as it’s now All Season Brewing Company.

Not only did Lynch live and work at his 2.5-acre Hollywood Hills compound on Senalda Road for over 35 years, but he also shot movie scenes there. Most notably, it depicted the home of Fred and Renee Madison in Lost Highway. After his 2025 passing, the seven-building mid-century modern property, comprising five neighboring parcels, was listed for $15 million.

Way at the top of Hollywood’s Beachwood Drive, Sunset Ranch stables has been at the same location since the 1920s – back when the iconic white sign above still spelled out “Hollywoodland.” In Mulholland Drive, it’s the scene of Adam’s nighttime meeting with the mysterious Cowboy, who fits right in with the equestrian surrounds.

In Mulholland Drive, Hollywood’s fictional Winkie’s was in fact a former Denny’s in Gardena that was branded Caesar’s Restaurant at the time. While its sign still boasts “Always Open,” Caesar’s has been boarded up since 2017, but the Googie-style building remains instantly recognizable and is easy to find, just off the 110 in Gardena on El Segundo Boulevard.

While the much-celebrated Pink’s Hot Dogs in Hollywood makes only a cameo appearance in Mulholland Drive, it compensates by being simple to find, right on La Brea Avenue at Melrose. There’s almost always a line, but Pink’s is a quintessential LA experience where you may also spy one of its celebrity regulars, 200 of whom appear in autographed headshots on the wall.

David Lynch was a fan of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed portions of his own home and the incredible hilltop Ennis House in Los Feliz, which Lynch used as a location in both Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. A 1925 Mayan Revival concrete marvel, this California Historical Landmark also appears in Blade Runner, The Rocketeer and many more.

For the offices of “Ryan Entertainment” in Mulholland Drive, Lynch chose the historic Banks-Huntley Building in Downtown Los Angeles. The 1930 Art Deco landmark was the first office building in LA to be designed with central air conditioning and heating. Directly opposite, the rear of the Palace Theatre served as the entrance to “Club Silencio” in Mulholland Drive.

The old-school Spanish courtyard apartment building where Naomi Watts’ character Betty stays in Mulholland Drive is supposedly in West Hollywood. But those scenes were in fact filmed at Il Borghese, a 1929 collection of condos in LA’s upscale Citrus Square Neighborhood, which also features prominently in 1996 rom-com The Truth About Cats & Dogs.

The Mulholland Drive scene where a hitman murders a man in his office was filmed at the Barclay hotel at 4th and Main in DTLA. Opened in 1897 as the Van Nuys Hotel, the Barclay is the oldest continuously operating hotel in LA and was the first with electricity and a phone in every room. But its luxurious heyday long ago faded and it is now a low-income housing project.

The interior of “Club Silencio” in Mulholland Drive is DTLA’s Tower Theatre, the offices of which also served as the film’s shabby “Park Hotel” where Adam (Justin Theroux) stays after being kicked out of his home. Opened in 1927, the long-abandoned cinema was reborn as an Apple Store in 2021 and has also appeared in The Omega Man, Fight Club, and Transformers.

Naomi Watts’ apartment in Mulholland Drive (as Diane Selwyn) was one of eight 1931 storybook cottages in Los Feliz. They earned their “Snow White Cottages” nickname after the current owner claimed that a Disney employee used one of them as an office during the production of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney Studios was nearby at the time).