Is 'Twin Peaks' A Movie?

It's that time where year-end top ten lists are proclaiming the best of 2017, and inciting debate, confusion, and outrage. While Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and Get Out duke it out for top spots, a new and unexpected contender just entered the ring: David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return. Now, you might think, 'Hang the fuck on, that's a TV show." Well, the 180 critics, programmers, and academics polled for BFI's international magazine Sight & Sound say it's a movie. They put it at #2 on their Film of the Year list, right below Get Out.

As you might expect, Film Twitter has thoughts on this matter.

Twin Peaks: The Return is TV, but most of what's good in it is good in movie-like ways, because it's made by a movie director who directed all the episodes and does the kinds of things he does in movies.

— Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow) December 5, 2017

My main issue with the "But Twin Peaks is a movie" argument is how much it devalues the specific TV nature of all 3 seasons. They play so heavily with TV genre tropes and stylings, it seems odd to dismiss an episodic structure because it's Lynch.

— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) December 5, 2017

My issue is how you consume it. Unless you went to the Cannes screening, Twin Peaks could have only been seen on a small screen. Doesn't including TV in a film list devalue the theatrical experience somewhat? (Maybe it doesn't!)

— John Nugent (@mr_nugent) December 5, 2017

THREAD: 1. Believe me, I'm aware that David Lynch said he's making an 18-hour movie. But I got news for folks who don't write about TV regularly: every single person of any ambition who's ever worked in series TV says they're making "a long movie" or "a bunch of little movies."

— MZS (@mattzollerseitz) December 5, 2017

3. I get that David Lynch is a god to y'all. He is to me, too. But he's also more than 70 years old, and I think some part of him still feels that TV is a step down, no matter how much success he's had in it, and despite all he's done to expand its language.

— MZS (@mattzollerseitz) December 5, 2017

(Matt Zoller Seitz's thread is lengthy and involved, click the above tweet to keep reading it.)

Cosign.

Also: Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy is now a TV series. I'm taking one hostage an hour until they give Twin Peaks back. https://t.co/0MTT8TaDMg

— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) December 5, 2017

Big Little Lies is a good mini-series made by a movie director.
Twin Peaks: The Return is a serialized movie, it's OUT 1+@mattzollerseitz

— Miriam Bale (@mimbale) December 5, 2017

┏┓
┃┃╱╲ In this
┃╱╱╲╲ house
╱╱╭╮╲╲ TWIN PEAKS
▔▏┗┛▕▔
╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲
COUNTS AS A MOVIE

╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲
▔▏┗┻┛┃┃┗┻┛▕▔

— Simran Hans (@heavier_things) December 5, 2017

Is it too late for Twin Peaks to have a qualifying run in a movie theater so it can be nominated for Academy Awards? (It's not too late for the record)

— Spencer Perry (@TheSpencerPerry) November 29, 2017

If the film people are going to list Twin Peaks, we get to take back some movies. I'm going to grab five random movies and call them an anthology series and you can't stop me.

— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum) December 5, 2017

FFS, guys. TWIN PEAKS is a TV series, structured as a TV series. It's not a movie, and it doesn't need to be to be good. Let it be.

Yes, anyone who's still doing this in 15-20 years will see a world where there's no difference anymore, but right now there still is.

— Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) December 5, 2017

Have these people forgotten the last time someone tried to turn Twin Peaks into a movie, it ended very badly for Twin Peaks?

— fryferbfringefan44 (@fryferbfringe44) December 5, 2017

To be fair, it's easy to mistake TWIN PEAKS for a movie given how many movies are 18 hours long and have musical numbers with closing credits every fifty-eight minutes.

— Sean Burns (@SeanMBurns) December 5, 2017

Critics: I don't get why audiences think we're pretentious
Also critics: Twin Peaks: The Return is a movie

— Alex Leadbeater (@ADLeadbeater) December 5, 2017

Twin Peaks is the best movie of 2017. This sandwich is the best TV show of 2017.

— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) December 4, 2017

Look, soon THE GREATEST SHOWMAN will be screened and cinema will be saved and the "is TWIN PEAKS a movie or isn't it" debate will be moot.

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) December 5, 2017

if you kids don't stop fighting about whether Twin Peaks is a film or TV this instant I'm gonna have it declared a seance and then neither of you can have it

— Danny Bowes (@bybowes) December 5, 2017

tfw someone asks if Twin Peaks is a TV show or a movie pic.twitter.com/nb1PXFn6yf

— Matt Erspamer (@erspamer_matt) December 5, 2017

Whilst everyone argues about Twin Peaks being in the S & S list can we please acknowledge that a genre movie about racism, that cost $ 4.5m to make, that earned $175m at the box office and is made by a black director was just voted as the best film of the year? pic.twitter.com/LSNe4UW6LH

— Greg Evans (@gregzeene) December 5, 2017