David Cronenberg vs David Lynch

Mr. Cronenberg is far and away my favourite.

Though like Fenwick I don't really think they're comparable. Only Videodrome at a stretch and certainly Naked Lunch could pass as a Lynch film. Whereas from Lynch I could only imagine The Elephant Man being made by Cronenberg.

David Cronenberg.

Shivers aka They Came From Within +
Rabid
The Brood
Scanners
Videodrome
The Dead Zone
The Fly +
Dead Ringers
Naked Lunch
M. Butterfly
Crash
eXistenZ
Spider
A History Of Violence
Eastern Promises

David Lynch

Eraserhead
The Elephant Man
Dune
Blue Velvet
Wild At Heart
Lost Highway
The Straight Story +
Mulholland Drive

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I think they're comparable as far as being contemporaries who are both named David. Anyway, my first instinct was to say Cronenberg gets the edge, but Lynch at his creepiest hits me bone-deep, so I'll go with him. Also it has to be said Cronenberg has gotten pretty boring with age; whereas if Lynch ever gets around to making another movie it'll be the most agonizingly anticipated event for 95% of the geeky cinephile community in recent memory

Cronenberg

Videodrome +
The Fly +
Dead Ringers +
Naked Lunch
Crash
eXistenZ
A History of Violence
Eastern Promises
A Dangerous Method +

Lynch

Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
Lost Highway +
The Straight Story
Mulholland Drive +
INLAND EMPIRE

I've seen The Elephant Man, but it's been too long to rate

Instead of doing a new thread I decided to bump this.

For me it's Cronenberg by a mile.

Better characters, better filmography, better visual style, gets better performances out of his actors and has far higher rewatchability.

It’s close for me, and I need to watch many of Cronenbergs pre 1980 work to get an accurate grip on him, as well as Crash and Naked Lunch, and a few more of Lynch that I’m missing (Eraserhead, Wild at Heart, The Straight Story, Inland Empire) but at this moment, it’s Lynch. I’ll probably have a firmer idea once I’ve completed their respective filmographies.

I've never cared much for Lynch, so Cronenberg by two miles.

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I like both, but I would give the edge to Cronenberg.

Cronenberg ranked:
Videodrome 9/10
Scanners 9/10
The Fly 9/10
A History of Violence 9/10
Eastern Promises 8/10
eXistenZ 8/10
Maps to the Stars 8/10
The Dead Zone 8/10
The Brood 7/10
Rabid 7/10
Dead Ringers 7/10
Naked Lunch 7/10
A Dangerous Method 7/10
Crash 6/10

Lynch ranked:
Mulholland Dr. 9/10
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 9/10
Inland Empire 8/10
Blue Velvet 8/10
The Elephant Man 8/10
Eraserhead 7/10
Wild at Heart 7/10
The Straight Story 6/10
Dune 6/10

To be honest, not the biggest fan of either.

Yup. These are all good films but don’t forget to check the three movies he made with Viggo Mortensen.

I much prefer Cronenberg because he has a distinct style and his movies are shorter and more rewatchable. I feel Lynch's filmography is shorter so people who liked most of his films would go for him, because even Cronenberg has some lackluster efforts such as Cosmopolis and Crimes Of The Future.

Cronenberg overall but Blue Velvet is by far my personal favorite out of everything either one has done.

Lynch. Probably.

It’s Lynch. Not even close.

I always thought of another Canadian as being comparable to Lynch, Guy Maddin. I really don't like Cronenberg's first 2 features before Shivers, whereas I LOVE Lynch's earliest works. Cronenberg tells a stronger story however, Lynch is more experimental.

This is an interesting pairing for a comparison---but one that feels intuitively right. I don't think I can give an answer about who I prefer more, though I do wonder about what the overlap between them really is?

For the most part, I see Cronenberg and examining what the next phases of human evolution might be in a world where technology has been fully subsumed within human biological life.

Lynch, on the other hand, seems to have the fundamental question about what makes/can make the world a magical place---and I think this question grounds his more specific inquests into the nature of American cinema in Mulholland Drive. He constantly is exploring the porousness between normality and the fantastic.

Perhaps, then, Cronenberg is also exploring a related porousness between what is and what could be?

Also, for the record, I think their best films are Videodrome and Mulholland Drive, respectively (though I have not see all of films of either director---YET!).