Best 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.