Blue Velvet is a 1986 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by David Lynch. Blending psychological horror with film noir, the film stars Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, and Laura Dern, and is named after the 1951 song of the same name. The film concerns a young college student who, returning home to visit his ill father, discovers a severed human ear in a field that leads to his uncovering a vast criminal conspiracy and entering a romantic relationship with a troubled lounge singer.

Plot

College student Jeffrey Beaumont returns home to Lumberton, North Carolina, after his father suffers a near-fatal stroke. Walking home from the hospital, he cuts through a vacant lot and discovers a severed human ear. Jeffrey takes the ear to police detective John Williams and becomes reacquainted with his daughter, Sandy, who tells him that the ear somehow relates to a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens. Intrigued, Jeffrey enters Dorothy's apartment by posing as an exterminator and steals a spare key while she is distracted by a man in a distinctive yellow sport coat whom Jeffrey nicknames the "Yellow Man".