It stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as nineteenth-century lighthouse keepers in turmoil after being marooned at a remote New England outpost by a wild storm.

Robert Eggers assisted the development when Max was unable to complete the adaptation of "The Light-House", sourcing the plot from a nineteenth-century legend of an accident at a lighthouse in Wales.

In the 1890s, Ephraim Winslow begins a four-week stint as a "wickie" (lighthouse keeper) on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of former sailor Thomas Wake.

The pair unearth a crate at the lighthouse's base that Winslow assumes contains reserve rations, but it is full of bottles of alcohol.

With no alcohol left, Howard and Wake begin drinking a concoction of turpentine and honey, and that night a giant wave crashes through the wall of their cottage.

In the lantern room, the Fresnel lens opens to Howard, who reaches in and violently screams in distortion before falling down the lighthouse steps.

[6][7] Max shared the basic outline of his screenplay, a lighthouse-set ghost tale as part of an attempted reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished short story "The Light-House".

[6] Adapting the short story proved troublesome, halting Max's progress on the script, which, at the time, had the tentative working title Burnt Island.

[6] Robert started musing ideas to bolster the project's conceptualization, and, with his brother's support, soon began investigating for source material.

[6] One story that caught the director's attention in his initial research was a nineteenth-century myth of an incident at Smalls Lighthouse in Wales, wherein one of two wickies, both named Thomas, died while trapped at the outpost by a destructive storm.

This coincided with more rigorous research of the period to develop the onscreen world, as Robert immersed himself in photos of 1890s New England, 1930s maritime-themed French films, and symbolist art for visual reference.

The two men sourced elements from playwrights that influenced their work as young teens, chiefly artists such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sam Shepard whose writings examine male-centric perspectives of existential crises and psychosis.

[17][18][19] Principal photography began on April 9, 2018,[20][21] and lasted approximately 35 days, which was slightly over schedule, as a result of unforeseen circumstances on set.

[23] Blaschke resumed the testing after securing the Baltar lenses for the shoot, this time with an arrangement of shortpass filters—a class of scientific optical filters—and photographic filters most sensitive to blue-green and ultraviolet light.

Blaschke recalled, "I sketched a desired spectrograph on graph paper, indicating a complete elimination of all light beyond 570 nanometers [mid-yellow] while allowing all shorter wavelengths to pass freely.

Eggers wanted to deviate from using strings throughout the score, and instead use horns, pipes, and conch shells,[26] evoking the mythology of the sea in an aleatoric manner through textures and instrumentation.

[27][28] Eggers then sent a playlist that contained classic horror scores, ancient Greek conch shell music, and compositions of Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi.

"[36] Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune echoed Gleiberman's statements, noting that the film's plot did not operate "as any sort of conventional ghost story, or thriller, or anything".

In a lot of ways, he sort of wants a daddy" and that, as the film progresses, his character is increasingly "looking for Willem [Dafoe]'s validation" as both a boss and a father-figure.

Rosie Fletcher of Den of Geek gathered: "The way the pair embody wisdom and foolishness, hedonism and inspiration, honesty and trickery and play with masculine and feminine roles [...] seems to support the idea that one is the shadow of the other on some level and speaks further to Jung's theories.

On the other hand, the older keeper was modeled on Proteus, a "prophecy-telling ocean god who serves Poseidon", as he "makes that uncannily accurate prediction for how Ephraim will die at the end of the movie"[40] and is even seen with tentacles and sea creatures stuck to his body in one of the younger man's hallucinations.

For Dafoe, the androphilia in the film is blatant, but it is also used to explore what it means to be a man: "They have a sense of guilt, of wrong [...] it's got existential roots [...] about masculinity and domination and submission.

Eggers acknowledged the visual influence of symbolist artists Sascha Schneider and Jean Delville, whose "mythic paintings in a homoerotic style become perfect candidates as imagery that's going to work itself into the script.

The site's consensus reads: "A gripping story brilliantly filmed and led by a pair of powerhouse performances, The Lighthouse further establishes Robert Eggers as a filmmaker of exceptional talent.

"[36] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film a perfect score, calling Dafoe's performance "astounding" and comparing Pattinson's to that of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, saying, "that's no comparison to make lightly, but everything about The Lighthouse lands with a crash.

"[66] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised the character development, production design, acting, and themes,[35] and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of five, comparing it to The Odd Couple (1968) and The Dumb Waiter (1957), and lauding the cinematography.

[37] Conversely, Sandra Hall of The Sydney Morning Herald said the film's attempts at suspense were not successful,[67] and Simran Hans of The Guardian gave it two stars out of five, saying the performances felt more like an "experiment than conducive to eliciting meaning.

"[68] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said the film was well-made, but "fails to give us the one thing that might have sustained an audience's interest over the course of 109 excruciating minutes: a compelling story.

"[69] Dana Stevens of Slate concluded her review by stating that "The Lighthouse is at its strongest when it resembles the dark comedy of a Beckett play, complete with earthy scatological humor.

[...] But as the mythological references pile up and the forbidden light atop the tower accrues ever more (and ever vaguer) symbolic meaning, the film sometimes seems funny [...] not because of but in spite of the filmmakers' intentions", and that, by the end, she became "impatient" with Eggers' "reliance on atmosphere [...] to take the place of story" and found herself "identifying with the stranded seafarers: I desperately wanted to get out.