The guide to enjoying the entire Mad Max franchise across six movie nights and eight live-action films
Mad Max I
“Look. Any longer out on that road and I’m one of them, you know? A terminal crazy… only I got a bronze badge to say I’m one of the good guys.” – Max
Mad Max (1979)
Mad Max’s saga starts in a dystopian version of Australia; a land parched by the sun and with roads that stretch across the endless Outback. In this world the global economy is rocked by war in the Middle East where supplies of the black gold that turn the wheels of industry and commerce have been severely disrupted. As such, Australia is not the high-functioning nation it once was. Whilst the cogs continue to turn, they creak as they turn, starved of oil to lubricate them. The apparatus of governance, of law and order, is now much reduced.
Max Rockatansky is the top cop in Main Force Patrol (MFP) – the police unit trying to keep a lid on the bandits and glory-riders who terrorise the roads. Away from work, Max enjoys the serenity of his wife and sprog’s company in his home by the beach. Once he dons his leathers, and holsters his gun, Max is all business and takes on all-comers in the MFP standard-issue Interceptor. Max and his mates kill one glory-rider called: ‘Nightrider’ who is a member of a berserker biker-gang led by ‘Toecutter’. This sets in motion a chain of events where the gang set out to wreak revenge on Max and his young family. After they kill his best friend, his child ‘sprog’ and put his wife into a coma, Max quits the MFP and takes the Pursuit Special – a suped-up V8 interceptor the black of night and hits the road to hunt down his mortal enemy, Toecutter. Finally after there is no more blood to spill, Max, with no family left, completes his transformation into the road warrior: ‘Mad Max’ before his homeland slides into apocalyptic collapse.
Mad Max II
“Everytime I fall asleep, I’m afraid to see their faces. Everytime I wake up, I fear I have forgotten them once and for all.” – Max
Hope and Glory (2024)
Haunted by memories of his wife and child, Max roams the lands, scavenging for gasoline for his voracious Pursuit Special. Max rescues a woman named Hope from a gang of crazies and she promises our hero a full tank if he can take her back to her group’s outpost in an old bunker. There she finds out Hope’s daughter, Glory, is being held prisoner by the ‘Buzzards’. Max accepts a deal: if he can rescue the girl and kill the Buzzards’ leader, he can have all the fuel he wants. Max returns in a blaze of glory, his mission accomplished and is offered the chance to stay and settle down after all his sufferings. Yet, by the time Max realises this is too good an offer to pass up, disaster strikes; the Buzzards wipe out the community. Now, all Max has is a full tank and a scorched wasteland in front of him.
Dust (2016)
One lone man’s struggle to survive compels him to rob from an isolated house. In these desperate times, folks must make the stark choice between survival or their humanity, and this young man’s choice gets him a bullet in the back.
Mad Max III
“We do it my way. Fear is our ally. The gasoline may be ours. Then, you shall have your revenge” – The Humungus
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
Max’s nagging need for gas brings him across a fortified compound that not only has gallons of the stuff but has its own oil well. But the people within, lead by an idealist named Pappagallo, are entrapped under terminal siege by a large band of bandits riding all kinds of fiendish motors to kill any travellers who enter their range. They are led by a masked man called ‘Lord Humungus’. The hapless inhabitants have a plan; to escape to a far away verdant beach where they can live in peace and tranquillity, but how to do this without being torn to pieces by their tormentors? Max makes a deal: he’ll fetch a lorry tractor he knows about that they can use to haul a tanker of fuel to their destination in exchange for fuel. Max returns with the tractor and now the settlers can put their plan into action to escape to pastures green. After a run in with the brutes outside the compound in which his car is destroyed, Max rejoins the settlers’ venture on the condition that he drive the tanker lorry. The film ends in a climactic fight-and-flight chase where Max and a select band of the settler’s best warriors try to escape with their lives intact.
Mad Max IV
“Remember where you are – this is Thunderdome, and death is listening, and will take the first man that screams.” – Aunty Entity
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
As time has passed, a level of civilisation above primal savage has sprouted; Bartertown is a place where folks can trade and live, and it even has its own power generation which runs on pig poo methane. But the real power is torn between a charismatic woman named Auntie Entity and the Master-Blaster pair who run the power generator. Max continues his wanderings across the nuclear wastelands but his new transport is stolen which leads him to the town to get it back. The bargain he makes is not a good one; Max has to fight the giant Blaster in ‘Thunderdome’ – a brutal fighting arena where all feuds and emnities within Bartertown are settled with fights to the death. Yet Max runs afoul of Auntie Entity, so is exiled into the desert wastelands to die. Instead Max is rescued by ‘the Tribe’ of children who have survived nestled in a hidden oasis but yearn to leave. Eventually the tribe split with a few who join Max to return to Bartertown and cause havoc, before stealing a train to escape. This leads to a nail-biting chase by Aunty’s collection of post-apocalyptic vehicles that Max and an old frenemy have to find a way to escape.
Mad Max V
“Where were they going, so full of hope? There is no hope! Not for them, not for you, certainly not for me!” – Dementus
Roadkill BBQ (2015)
In this short gorefest, the apocalypse has driven everyone mad and two survivors in desperate need of gas harvest some meat to trade. Their meat supply: wasteland savages; their only weapon: their car.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Away from Mad Max’s travails across the wasteland, a girl named Furiosa from a coveted oasis called the Green Place is kidnapped by roobillies of the Biker Horde who ride-or-die with the cruel Dementus. After a failed rescue attempt by the girl’s mother, Furiosa is forced to watch her be tortured to death before Dementus adopts her as his chattel-daughter. Dementus leads his biker army to set eyes upon the Citadel. This place is special because it has its own sub-aquifer used to grow its own food, and exists as one of three towns in crude symbiosis with each other; the other two being Bullet Farm and Gastown. Dementus utilises a trojan horse strategy to take over Gastown for himself before making a supply pact with Immortan Joe – the Citadel’s tyrant. Furiosa is handed over to Immortan Joe and at first lives a life of comfort 99% of the Citadel’s citizens would kill for. Yet, she carries emotional scars and yearns one day to return home.
As time goes by, the young woman lives in disguise and rises up the ranks of the Citadel’s army to eventually be one of their best escort guards in their supply runs to the two other towns aboard the mighty ‘War Rig.’ Dementus starts losing control of Gastown so Immortan Joe decides to attack him there, but in a preparatory supply run to Bullet Town, Furiosa, together with her love interest Praetorian Jack, is ambushed by Dementus, eventually caught, and Jack dragged to death in retribution. Dementus then lives up to his name by attacking the Citadel in a major power move that goes badly for him; he’s outfoxed and his army is destroyed. Furiosa, who barely escaped Dementus with her life intact, now goes out seeking revenge by hunting down Dementus and his remnants before returning to take her place as one of Immortan Joe’s most prized lieutenants.
Mad Max VI
“Where must we go… we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?” – The First History Man
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
As Furiosa sought her revenge in the prior movie, Max looked on but now, Max gets chased down by a band of Warboys and he’s taken back to the Citadel to be used as nothing more than a blood donor. Furiosa is sent on a trade run in another armoured behemoth lorry: the Rig, yet she has other plans. Furiosa wants to free Immortan Joe’s five wives from captivity and so hides them in the Rig before taking a detour away from Gastown. Yet Joe quickly catches on and sends all his warboys after them, including Max who is taken along for the ride with a front row ticket. After Furiosa frantically fights off all-comers whilst hurtling into a sand storm, Max teams up, having escaped their pursuers. Now perhaps Furiosa can fulfil her dream of returning to her homeland, the Green Place, so they set off. But they’re too late! The Green Place has been turned to swampland, so with their dream up in smoke Max convinces them to return to a now undefended Citadel with its bountiful water and food. Before they can make it though, Furiosa, Max and the others are intercepted by Joe and his motorised army. What ensues is a hell-for-leather chase through the badlands, dodging, weaving and swerving in order to survive. But they emerge victorious to take over the citadel, free its people of destitution whilst, in the rear-view mirror, Immortam Joe lays smouldering amidst the wreckage of his war machines.
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