From March 11-April 1, the Museum of the Moving Image will present a retrospective of production designer Jack Fisk’s most iconic works. The films will be part of the museum’s See It Big! Series, which highlights the importance “cinematic experiences” rather than regular “movie watching”. While one would rarely think of a production designer as an auteur-like figure, Fisk is the rare production designer whose visual identity is permanently linked to the work of two of the world’s greatest filmmakers: Terrence Malick and David Lynch, which makes one wonder how much do his contributions help shape the idea we have of the directors’ works.

Characterized for his use of Gothic wooden structures (The Revenant, There Will Be Blood, Days of Heaven…) and lived-in homes (The Tree of Life, Carrie) that lack elements of artifice, Fisk’s work has helped define works in which the production design becomes seamless and un-showy. The films curated for the series feature some of his most instantly recognizable work, as well as features in which he gets to play with different textures and looks (Phantom of the Paradise). Here are five films in the series that should prove essential to watch on the big screen:

Carrie

Legend has it that it was Mr. Fisk who suggested his wife Sissy Spacek to Brian De Palma, and not only encouraged her to audition, but might have played a part in helping her prepare for the audition which she attended with vaseline on her hair and a little girl’s sailor outfit. The rest is horror movie history. Mr. Fisk’s work on the house inhabited by Carrie and her mother (played by Piper Laurie) is stunning for its precision; the slightly damaged doors, the chipped paintwork, the creakiness of the wooden floors, all helped create a creepy mood that came to magnificently gory life in the scenes after the prom where the telekinetic teenager reenacts the crucifixion using some of the sharpest tools in all of cinema history’s shed.

Days of Heaven

The house of the Farmer played by Sam Shepard was inspired by Edward Hopper’s The House by the Railroad, and everything - from its unique placement to its warm yet eerie presence - have made it one of the most iconic elements in all of Terrence Malick’s work. While it’s the outside of the house that was featured more prominently, Fisk’s attention to detail in anything from train wagons to sheds is exquisite.

The New World

There’s an even more lived-in sense to the sets in this Terrence Malick film, because due to its 1607 setting, they are works in progress being built by the British settlers trying to find home in the new continent. Fisk’s work is also characterized for its use of natural resources and how easily it blends into the environment. His work in The Revenant for instance, which seems to be barely there, feels so because it feels as if the structures sprung from the location as if by magic. It also helps that Fisk’s designs are often shot by brilliant cinematographers who allow them to become organic centerpieces.

There Will Be Blood

That epic bowling alley in the final scene is both an expression of madness and childlike playfulness. Fisk’s work in P.T. Anderson’s 2007 epic brought him his very first Oscar nomination, where it unsurprisingly lost to the much showier Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Still, Fisk’s work in Blood remains iconic because of how he riffed on Orson Welles’ visions of Xanadu in Citizen Kane.

The Tree of Life

The O’Brien home at the center of the film is astonishing on two levels: first as a unique set that felt more like a “find” than a “design”. The latter is its ability to encompass symbolic meaning, as the house itself becomes the shell of Jack’s memories, it’s both the house he lived in, and his memory of the house.

For more on See it Big! Jack Fisk, visit the Museum of the Moving Image’s official website.