Mad Max Films Guide: All Five Films Explained in Release Order

Mad Max (1979)

Mad Max was released in Australia on April 12, 1979, and reached the United States on March 21, 1980. George Miller directed, from a screenplay by James McCausland and Miller and a story by Miller and Kennedy. It runs 93 minutes. Mel Gibson plays Max Rockatansky, a top pursuit officer with the Main Force Patrol, in a near-future Australia where civil order is collapsing.

The antagonist is a motorbike gang led by Toecutter, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne. Joanne Samuel plays Jessie, Steve Bisley plays Jim "Goose" Rains, and Tim Burns and Roger Ward complete the main cast. The story tracks Max as he grows disillusioned with the job, then sets out, without authorization, on a personal pursuit of the gang. It is the least apocalyptic of the five films, since the society it shows is still standing, and it plays more like a revenge thriller than a wasteland epic.

Keays-Byrne is worth remembering here, since he returns 36 years later in Fury Road as a different villain, which gives the first and fourth films an unusual link across the gap.

For a modern viewer, this is the small-scale film. It is a useful starting point for anyone interested in how the series began, though not a requirement for the rest.

Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior (1981)

The second film opened in Australia on December 24, 1981, and is known in the US as The Road Warrior. Miller directed again, with a screenplay by Terry Hayes, Miller and Brian Hannant. Gibson returns as Max, now a drifting former policeman. A global war has caused oil shortages, and Max encounters a group of settlers defending an oil refinery from a biker gang led by Lord Humungus.

Bruce Spence plays the Gyro Captain, Vernon Wells plays Wez, Mike Preston plays Pappagallo, and Kjell Nilsson plays Lord Humungus. This is the film that defines the look most people associate with the series, and it is where the series moves into a full wasteland setting. It won the Saturn Award for Best International Film, five Australian Film Institute Awards including Best Direction, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

If only one early film fits the schedule, this is the one. It needs nothing from the first.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Beyond Thunderdome was released in Australia on July 10, 1985. George Miller and George Ogilvie directed it together, and Terry Hayes and Miller wrote it. It was Gibson's final performance as Max. Tina Turner plays Aunty Entity, who rules Bartertown, a trading post whose power comes from Underworld, a methane refinery run by Master, a small engineer who relies on his giant bodyguard Blaster.

Max crosses the desert, is robbed of his vehicle and animals by the airborne bandit Jedediah, and follows his trail to Bartertown. Master and Blaster are challenging Aunty for control, and she wants Max to kill Blaster. Disputes in Bartertown are settled by fights to the death in the Thunderdome arena. The film is the only one in the franchise rated PG-13 by the MPAA, because the violence is toned down.

Maurice Jarre composed the score, replacing Brian May from the earlier films. Turner performs two songs: "One of the Living" over the opening titles and "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" over the end credits, the latter reaching number 1 in Canada, number 2 in the US and number 3 in the UK.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Fury Road came 30 years after the previous film. It premiered in Los Angeles on May 7, 2015, and opened in Australia on May 14 and in the US on May 15. Miller wrote it with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris. Tom Hardy plays Max and Charlize Theron plays Imperator Furiosa. Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley also star, along with Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played Toecutter in 1979 and returned as the warlord Immortan Joe, in what turned out to be his final film role.

The story is a chase across a desert wasteland. Max joins Furiosa in a run against Immortan Joe. Filming began in July 2012 in Namibia, mostly in Dorob National Park, with some scenes shot in Cape Town. At the 88th Academy Awards the film received ten nominations, including Best Picture, and won six: Film Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

A black-and-white version, the Black and Chrome Edition, was released in 2016 in the Mad Max: High Octane anthology. This is the film to start with if a recent entry appeals more than a 1980s one, and it stands alone completely. Anyone who knows Tom Hardy from Star Trek: Nemesis will find the same actor in a very different register here.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Furiosa premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2024, out of competition, and opened in Australia on May 23 and in the US on May 24. Miller directed and produced it and co-wrote the screenplay with Nico Lathouris. It is a prequel to Fury Road and an origin story for Furiosa, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, with Alyla Browne as the young Furiosa.

The story covers more than a decade. It begins in the Green Place, a fertile refuge, where she is taken as a child, and it follows her up the ranks of the Citadel, the settlement ruled by Immortan Joe, where she helps build the War Rig. Chris Hemsworth plays Dementus, a warlord who abducts her, Tom Burke plays Praetorian Jack, a commander who befriends her, and Lachy Hulme plays Immortan Joe.

The film is told in five chapters: "The Pole of Inaccessibility," "Lessons from the Wasteland," "The Stowaway," "Homeward" and "Beyond Vengeance." It makes the most sense after Fury Road, but a viewer can watch it first without losing anything essential.