What is Citizenfour's IQ Score?

Citizenfour has an IQ Score of 169/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Masterclass tier. The score breaks down to 42/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 44/50 Educational Value, and 40/50 Craft & Quality.

Is Citizenfour educational?

Citizenfour is strong on educational value, 44/50 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 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/.

Citizenfour , IQ Score 169/200

Name: Citizenfour
Genre: documentary
Rating: 169

Citizenfour has an IQ Score of 169/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Masterclass tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-07-23·Methodology

documentary

169/ 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 →

What these dimensions mean

Cognitive Stimulation: how much the title demands of your mind, its structural complexity, ideas, and sustained intellectual engagement.
Educational Value: what you take away, across academic content, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, life skills, and knowledge transfer.
Craft & Quality: production excellence in service of the work, its direction, writing, performance, and aesthetic intent.

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The Verdict

Best forAnyone who wants the Snowden leak as it unfolded, filmed inside the hotel room

Skip ifYou want a balanced explainer with rebuttals; this is history shot from inside one side

Use it asA civics text on surveillance and whistleblowing no reenactment could replace

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

Formula

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

Database scale

2,587 titles, version-controlled

How we stay independent. We accept no studio money. We pay for our own streaming subscriptions. Our reviewers see no sponsor data, no affiliate revenue, and no screener access in exchange for coverage. More about how we work →

The TVI Take

Laura Poitras's real-time documentary of Edward Snowden's leak to Glenn Greenwald in Hong Kong. Educational about NSA surveillance, the mechanics of whistleblowing, and the legal framework of mass surveillance.

Won the Oscar for Documentary Feature. The formal structure, Poitras was documenting history as it happened, is unrepeatable.

Where to Watch

Stream