What is Donnie Darko's IQ Score?

Donnie Darko has an IQ Score of 158/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Stimulating tier. The score breaks down to 43/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 36/50 Educational Value, and 39/50 Craft & Quality.

Is Donnie Darko educational?

Donnie Darko is strong on Educational Value, 36/50 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/.

Donnie Darko IQ Score 158/200

Donnie Darko has an IQ Score of 158/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Stimulating tier.

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

sci-fidramapsychological

158/ 200

Stimulating

Consistently challenges the viewer and rewards 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

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

Richard Kelly's 2001 directorial debut anchored by Jake Gyllenhaal as a sleepwalking suburban teenager experiencing time-travel visions and instructions from a man in a rabbit costume. The structural commitment to building a self-consistent metaphysics through the in-universe Philosophy of Time Travel book (the Tangent Universe, the Living Receiver, the Manipulated Dead) is rare for a directorial debut.

Among the canonical early-2000s cult-cinema entries.

People & Production Richard Kelly · Flower Films · United States 18 connections