The David Lynch tribute at the Oscars you may have missed

Isabella Rossellini paid a subtle tribute to the late David Lynch, donning blue velvet at Sunday’s Oscars as an homage to the 1986 film.

2025 has been a tough year already for deaths in cinema. Most recently we lost the likes of Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg, covering a wide fanbase. But one that still stings is that of David Lynch, who died on January 15th. And while this year’s In Memoriam segment of the Oscars did include Lynch, he also got another wonderful nod courtesy of Isabella Rossellini, who wore blue velvet in honor of the late director.

Isabella Rossellini — who was earned her first ever Oscar nomination for Conclave — paid tribute to David Lynch in a subtle but not unnoticeable way, turning up at the Dolby Theatre in a Dolce & Gabbana dress made of blue velvet, a lovely nod to the film of the same name that she starred in for Lynch. (Rossellini absolutely deserved an Oscar nomination for that performance but that’s nothing to get hung up on now; but at least Lynch got his second Best Director nod.)

Adding to the Blue Velvet love, co-star Laura Dern was even seated next to Isabella Rossellini and seen during the Best Supporting Actress presentation. While the award would predictably go to Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez, seeing Rossellini work in her own tribute was really something special…although AMPAS really should have done more for Lynch.

But it wasn’t just David Lynch that Isabella Rossellini paid homage to. She also wore another easter egg: the same earrings that her mother Ingrid Bergman wore to the 1975 Academy Awards when she won her own Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Murder on the Orient Express.

Isabella Rossellini — who dated David Lynch for a period in the ‘80s and ‘90s — would only appear in one more of his films, 1990’s Wild at Heart, while Laura Dern would star not just in those films but also Inland Empire and Twin Peaks: The Return. She would get her own Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 2019’s Marriage Story, having previously lost for Rambling Rose and Wild.

Throughout his career, David Lynch would be nominated for four Oscars: three for Best Director (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive) and one for Best Adapted Screenplay (The Elephant Man). He would be given an honorary award in 2019.