The Elephant Man: Directed by David Lynch. With Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud. A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak.

The Elephant Man: Directed by David Lynch. With Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud. A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak.

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) **** John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones, John Gielgud. David Lynch's masterpiece of the human spirit about the true-life account of John Merrick, a hideously deformed man in England's Victorian Age, who was taken in by a physician after a hellish stint in a freak show.

David Lynch: When Merrick returns to London, he is chased by an angry mob, and flees underground. The shot of the crowd descending the stairs in pursuit features Lynch in full costume.

The Elephant Man. Jump to 11 wins & 22 nominations. Academy Awards, USA. 1981 Nominee ... David Lynch; 1981 Nominee Oscar. Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Stuart Craig; Robert Cartwright; Hugh Scaife; 3 more All. Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival. 1981 Winner Grand Prize. David Lynch; BAFTA Awards.

The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility.

Following his underground hit Eraserhead and critically acclaimed The Elephant Man, visionary filmmaker David Lynch set his sights on bringing Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi novel Dune to the screen.

The Elephant Man (1980) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

According to the Wikipedia article on The Elephant Man, there are several historical inaccuracies that stand out. First, the events at the railway station happened before Merrick stayed at the hospital.

The Elephant Man (1980) - The screenwriters based this movie on the memoirs of Dr. Frederick Treves, as well as other true accounts, but avoided the play by Bernard Pomerance. The true name of The Elephant Man was not "John Merrick" as most believe, but Joseph Carey Merrick.