Film

Mad Max 2

Name: Mad Max 2
Genre: Action, Thriller, Science Fiction
Released: 1981
Cast: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Max Phipps, Vernon Wells

The sequel that invented the modern chase movie: Max as reluctant knight-errant, drifting through a scorched Outback where petrol is currency and death wears leather. Miller strips the story to its skeleton and lets vehicular carnage do the talking — gyrocopters, war rigs, feral gangs, one unbroken forty-minute pursuit. Lean, mean, gloriously silly and deadly serious at once. Essential for anyone who likes action with the fat cut off.

TMDb rating

7.4

If you liked this

Mad Max: Fury Road2015

Miller returns three decades later and somehow builds something even more feral — a nearly wordless two-hour chase that reinvents action cinema's vocabulary and gives Max a genuine equal in Furiosa.

But If the original's plotlessness maddened you, this doubles down — even less dialogue, even more relentless velocity.

Escape from New York1981

Carpenter's grimy dystopian thriller shares the same DNA: a scarred loner threading through a lawless wasteland of scavengers and warlords, all synth score and squinting cool.

But Snake Plissken's prison-island premise is more contained and talkier than Max's open-road carnage.

Waterworld1995no page yet

Take the exact structure — drifter, tribe, precious fuel, masked warlord — and drown it. Kevin Costner's much-mocked flop is genuinely fun trashy spectacle with real stunts and real scale.

But The reputation for bloated excess is earned; it's slower and far less disciplined than anything Miller made.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Yojimbo1961

Both films run on the identical skeleton: a drifter with nothing at stake wanders into a place torn between two warring factions, and his choice of side decides who lives. Kurosawa's influence on Miller is a matter of record, not coincidence.

Toshiro Mifune's scratching, scarred, morally ambiguous samurai is Max's spiritual grandfather — the same lone-wanderer-arrives-in-a-turf-war structure, playing out with swords instead of superchargers, and just as cool.

But Black and white, subtitled, and paced like a stage play compared to the highway chases you're craving.

Doomsday2008no page yet

Neil Marshall's shameless, gore-soaked tribute practically remakes Mad Max 2 scene for scene, quarantined Scotland standing in for the Outback, punk warlords and all.

But It knows exactly what it's ripping off and doesn't try to hide it — homage over originality.

The Book of Eli2010no page yet

A lone wanderer, a scorched America, a thing worth killing for — this one swaps petrol for something more sacred and slows the pace for atmosphere and menace.

But More meditative and religious than Max's engine-revving fury; patience required.

A Boy and His Dog1975no page yet

An earlier, stranger post-apocalypse — a scavenger and his telepathic dog wander a wasteland riddled with dark satire. Weirder and nastier than anything mainstream made today.

But Deeply dated effects and a tone so cynical it can curdle into outright misanthropy.

Tank Girl1995no page yet

A punk, comic-book-bright riff on the same drought-stricken wasteland — water is currency, gangs run wild, but the tone is anarchic comedy rather than dread.

But Deliberately garish and silly; if you want Max's grim menace, this cheerful chaos will grate.

The Postman1997no page yet

Kevin Costner again, wandering another American wasteland, this time restoring civilization one letter at a time — earnest where Max is nihilistic.

But Famously maligned for its length and self-seriousness; the mail-carrier premise strains belief.

Death Race 20001975

Corman's cheap, gleeful satire imagines cross-country racing where running over pedestrians scores points — the vehicular mayhem Miller would later perfect, played entirely for camp.

But Threadbare budget and blunt satire; more grindhouse curiosity than polished thriller.

Fist of the North Star1986no page yet

This gonzo anime openly cannibalized Mad Max's post-apocalyptic biker-gang look and pushed it into ultraviolent, hyperbolic spectacle — the same wasteland iconography filtered through manga excess.

Watch the exact silhouette of Mad Max's world — leather, spikes, marauding bike gangs — reborn as unhinged Japanese anime where a single punch makes a man's head explode. It's the wasteland aesthetic on steroids.

But Rough animation by modern standards and gore that's cartoonishly extreme — a big tonal leap from Miller's grounded stunt work.

Threads1984

Same premise, opposite register: where Miller turns civilizational collapse into a playground for heroics and spectacle, Threads insists on showing you the actual, agonizing texture of that collapse — no leather, no engines, just consequences.

If Mad Max 2 makes the apocalypse look like a rollicking adventure, this unbearably grim BBC docudrama shows what a nuclear war and its aftermath would actually look like — bureaucratic, slow, and without a single hero.

But This isn't entertainment in any conventional sense — it's one of the bleakest, most upsetting things ever broadcast on television.