Cinema · 1972 Ranked
Best Films of 1972, Ranked by IQ Score
The year New Hollywood debuted with The Godfather. The films of 1972, ranked by IQ Score.
1972 is the year New Hollywood debuted commercially with The Godfather, Coppola's adaptation that reset American cinema. Simultaneously released: Cabaret (Bob Fosse's Best Director Oscar), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog's canonical Kinski collaboration), Solaris (Tarkovsky's Soviet sci-fi philosophical inquiry), Cries and Whispers (Bergman's canonical chamber drama).
The structural argument for 1972-as-canonical-year: the New Hollywood directors' commercial breakthrough (Godfather) converged with the international art-cinema canon's late-career peak (Tarkovsky, Bergman, Herzog, Buñuel). The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Deliverance reset the survival-thriller genre.
7 titles · ranked by IQ Score
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