What is Badlands's IQ Score?

Badlands has an IQ Score of 165/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Masterclass tier. The score breaks down to 43/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 39/50 Educational Value, and 42/50 Craft & Quality.

Is Badlands educational?

Badlands is strong on Educational Value, 39/50 on TVI's rubric, which rates the density and integration of substantive information within the work.

How does TV Intelligentsia calculate IQ Score?

TV Intelligentsia's current published formula is round((Cognitive Stimulation × 0.4 + Educational Value × 0.35 + Craft & Quality × 0.25) × 4), scoring titles from 0 to 200 across five tiers. TVI publishes a three-dimension breakdown only when those values reproduce the displayed composite. The framework is published at tvintelligentsia.com/methodology/.

Badlands IQ Score 165/200

Badlands has an IQ Score of 165/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Masterclass tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-09-21·Methodology

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165/ 200

Masterclass

Exceptional cognitive and educational substance, delivered with craft that sustains close attention

Score Breakdown

Legacy score. Published under our earlier workflow, before the current standard took effect in August 2026. A founder reviewed and approved it against our methodology, under a process that does not meet the standard we hold now. What this means →

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Cognitive Stimulation/50

Educational Value/50

Craft & Quality/50

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

What these dimensions mean

Cognitive Stimulation: observable narrative complexity, conceptual density, ambiguity, inference, and sustained intellectual demands in the work.
Educational Value: the density and integration of substantive academic, historical, scientific, cultural, ethical, or practical information in the work.
Craft & Quality: production excellence in service of the work, its direction, writing, performance, and aesthetic intent.

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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, v1.3.1

Formula

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

Database scale

2,607 titles, version-controlled

TVI Canon

Terrence Malick →

How we stay independent. Editorial scores are not for sale. TVI may take on paid advisory or research work, but no commercial relationship buys coverage, advance access to scores, favorable treatment, or a change to a published finding. We pay for our own streaming subscriptions, and no reviewer sees sponsor data or affiliate revenue tied to a score. More about how we work →

The TVI Take

Terrence Malick's 1973 directorial debut about the 1958 Charles Starkweather-Caril Ann Fugate murder spree, anchored by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. The structural commitment to letting Spacek's narrator-character (a 15-year-old who reads pop magazines) render the moral architecture of the killings without dramatic punishment is the canonical Malick formal innovation.

People & Production Terrence Malick · Warner Bros. Entertainment · United States 15 connections