Cinema · 1986 Ranked
Best Films of 1986, Ranked by IQ Score
The year auteur cinema collided with Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. The films of 1986, ranked by IQ Score.
1986 is widely cited as the mid-1980s American-cinema peak. Blue Velvet (Lynch), Aliens (Cameron), Platoon (Stone), Stand by Me (Reiner), Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen), The Fly (Cronenberg), all released within twelve months.
The structural argument for 1986-as-canonical-year: simultaneous auteur peak (Lynch's Blue Velvet reset suburban-noir, Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters won Best Original Screenplay, Cronenberg's The Fly hit body-horror canonical scale), prestige-war-cinema (Stone's Platoon won Best Picture), action-sci-fi peak (Cameron's Aliens), and coming-of-age canonical (Stand by Me). The catalog density justifies the year's reputation.
6 titles · ranked by IQ Score
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