Cinema · 1979 Ranked
Best Films of 1979, Ranked by IQ Score
The single year New Hollywood reached its dark-narrative peak. The films of 1979, ranked by IQ Score.
1979 is the year New Hollywood reached its dark-narrative peak. Apocalypse Now (Coppola), Manhattan (Woody Allen), Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton), Alien (Ridley Scott), Stalker (Tarkovsky), Being There (Hal Ashby), all released within twelve months.
The structural argument for 1979-as-canonical-year: the New Hollywood era's late-decade peak (Coppola's Vietnam epic was the year's most-formally-ambitious work), the international art-cinema canon's high point (Tarkovsky's Stalker, often cited as the single most-canonical Soviet film), and the genre-redefining commercial entries (Alien reset sci-fi-horror; All That Jazz reset the musical biopic).
7 titles · ranked by IQ Score
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