What is First Cow's IQ Score?

First Cow has an IQ Score of 161/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Masterclass tier. The score breaks down to 41/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 39/50 Educational Value, and 41/50 Craft & Quality.

Is First Cow educational?

First Cow is strong on educational value, 39/50 on TVI's rubric, which covers academic content, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, life skills, and knowledge transfer.

How does TV Intelligentsia calculate IQ Score?

TV Intelligentsia's IQ Score is calculated as round((Cognitive Stimulation × 0.4 + Educational Value × 0.35 + Craft & Quality × 0.25) × 4), scoring titles from 0 to 200 across five tiers: Masterclass (≥160), Stimulating (≥130), Competent (≥100), Passive (≥70), and Numbing (<70). The framework is published at tvintelligentsia.com/methodology/.

First Cow , IQ Score 161/200

First Cow has an IQ Score of 161/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Masterclass tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-06-17·Methodology

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161/ 200

Masterclass

Measurably increases domain knowledge or cognitive capacity

Score Breakdown

Cognitive Stimulation/50

Educational Value/50

Craft & Quality/50

IQ = round((Cognitive × 0.4 + Educational × 0.35 + Craft × 0.25) × 4) · How we score →

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Why you should trust this score

Scored under Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH

Physician and founding editor. Maintains the adult catalog against the published rubric and reviews the rubric application.

Methodology

Published rubric, v1.2

Formula

round(C × 0.40 + E × 0.35 + Q × 0.25) × 4

Database scale

2,338 titles, version-controlled

TVI Canon

Kelly Reichardt →

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The TVI Take

Kelly Reichardt's 2019 Oregon-Territory frontier film set in the 1820s anchored by a friendship between a cook and a Chinese immigrant who steal milk from a settler's prized dairy cow. The structural commitment to letting period-frontier-economic specificity (the milk-and-honey-cake commerce, the trading-post hierarchies) be the actual subject, at a deliberate slow-pace register most American cinema refuses, established the film as the catalog's most-canonical late-career entry.

Where to Watch

Rent