What is The Act of Killing's IQ Score?

The Act of Killing has an IQ Score of 199/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Masterclass tier. The score breaks down to 50/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 49/50 Educational Value, and 50/50 Craft & Quality.

Is The Act of Killing educational?

The Act of Killing is strong on educational value, 49/50 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/.

The Act of Killing IQ Score 199/200

Name: The Act of Killing
Genre: documentary
Rating: 199

The Act of Killing has an IQ Score of 199/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Masterclass tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-08-13·Methodology

documentary

199/ 200

Masterclass TVI Essential

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

The Act of Killing poster, IQ Score 199/200, Masterclass tier on TV Intelligentsia

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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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

2,599 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 →

TVI Essential · Consensus

The Act of Killing scores 199/200 on the TVI IQ Score, placing it in the Masterclass tier. Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary, where Indonesian death-squad leaders reenact their killings in the genre conventions of the films they admired, earned Cultural Impact and Intellectual Substance for reinventing the documentary form. TVI Essential is an editorial designation; IQ Score is a content rating, not an intelligence measurement.

The TVI Take

Documentary where Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their mass killings with the camera present. Exceptional cognitive and educational value from confronting how perpetrators of atrocities construct narratives of justification.

The film's approach to documenting genocide is philosophically sophisticated about how filmmaking itself shapes memory. Deeply unsettling and challenging.

People & Production Joshua Oppenheimer · United Kingdom 15 connections