Cinema · 1973 Ranked
Best Films of 1973, Ranked by IQ Score
The single year Scorsese, Malick, Altman, and Friedkin's mid-period peaks aligned. Films of 1973, ranked.
1973 is the year multiple New Hollywood directors hit their canonical mid-period peak. Mean Streets (Scorsese), Badlands (Malick), The Long Goodbye (Altman), The Exorcist (Friedkin), American Graffiti (Lucas), all released within twelve months.
The structural argument for 1973-as-canonical-year: Scorsese's breakthrough (Mean Streets), Malick's directorial debut (Badlands), Altman's canonical neo-noir (The Long Goodbye), Friedkin's genre-redefining horror (The Exorcist), Lucas's pre-Star-Wars breakthrough (American Graffiti). The most-canonical New Hollywood class-of-1973 cohort.
10 titles · ranked by IQ Score
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202 ranked-by-IQ lists, filmographies, decade hubs, year hubs, character rankings, streaming-platform lists, and editorial curations. All scored on the same published rubric.
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