It’s a lovely day indeed forMad Max: Fury Road, which is theNew York Times' best action movie of the 21st century, afterScreen Rantpreviously labeled it the movie of the 2010s. In hindsight, it’s kind of a miracle the fourthMad Maxmovieeven exists.
Fury Roadspent over a decade in development hell, and went on to have a nightmarish shoot(where stars Charlise Theron and Tom Hardy clashed throughout) and a challenging post-production. Out of all that pressure and stress came the most imaginative, propulsive and inventive action movie in the history of the medium.
ThisGeorge Miller directedsequel is pure cinema, and in addition to being a box office success, it was critically acclaimed, standing at 97% onRotten Tomatoes. Various scenes,lines of dialogue (“That’s bait”) and characters fromMad Max: Fury Roadimmediately entered the pop culture hall of fame,too.
The New York Times' “100 Best Movies of the 21st Century” list has recently unveiled the full ranking, which was drawn up by polling hundreds of filmmakers, including Edgar Wright and John Lithgow.Parasiteby Bong Joon Ho was declared number one,with other entries in the top ten including David Lynch’sMulholland Driveand Jordan Peele’sGet Out.
Given how much love there is for Mad Max: Fury Road, its high ranking on the NYT list isn’t much of a surprise.
Mad Max: Fury Roadis number 11 on theNYTlist, making it the highest-ranking action moviefeatured. Given how much love there is forFury Road, its high ranking isn’t much of a surprise. Filmmakers from Guillermo del Toro to Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh have also showered the movie with praise in the past.
Soderbergh, in particular, has been effusive in hisMad Max: Fury Roadpraise. He marvels at just about every aspect of the sequel, and once toldTHRhe did not understand how people weren’t killed during its production.
I just watched Mad Max: Fury Road again last week, and I tell you I couldn’t direct 30 seconds of that. I’d put a gun in my mouth. I don’t understand how [George Miller] does that, I really don’t, and it’s my job to understand it. I don’t understand two things: I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead.
Back in 2020,Screen Rant’swriters and editors voted forthe best movies of the 2010s, withArrivalandThe Social Networkcracking the top ten.Mad Max: Fury RoadwasSR’sclear winner, and we praised it for being “…one of the clearest action films ever made, matching exhilarating vehicular mayhem with desolate dystopia and an undercurrent of hope.”
Not even Furiosa could live up to Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Roadfeels like the director’s imagination poured directly onto the screen. It’s a movie with constant, frantic action, yet it’s never exhausting and viewers are always oriented within the frame.The world ofFury Roadis layered with detail and unspoken backstory,from what Max was doing before the story began to the props being handled.
The majority of the car stunts and action sequences were shot practically, giving it a tactility and weight that the likes of aFast & Furioussequel could only dream of.Mad Max: Fury Roadalso introduced audiences to Theron’s Imperator Furiosa, who became an immediate sci-fi iconalongside the likes of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.
Despite not starring inFuriosa: A Mad Max Saga, Charlize Theron briefly reprises her role via unusedFury Roadfootage in the prequel’s final scene.
Fury Road’sperformances are all great, especially the late, great Hugh Keays-Byrne’s as the loathsome warlord Immortan Joe.There is more innovation and thought put into individual scenes ofFury Roadthan most other action movies have throughout their entire runtimes.
In short, just about every ingredient ofMad Max: Fury Roadmakes it the action movie of the 21st century. The performances, the editing, the stunts, the visuals, the costuming and on and on. It’s endlessly rewatchable too, andgreat as Miller’s prequelFuriosawas, even it paled in comparison.
There will likely never be another film quite like Mad Max: Fury Road, which is more than worthy of its ranking as the greatest action movie of the 21st century.
It’s a testament to Miller’s passion and energy that a man who was 70 whenFury Roadwas released made something that filmmakers half his age couldn’t have pulled off.The movie feels like both an homage to the art formanda summation of the skills and tricks Miller had amassed as a directorup to that point.
There will likely never be another film quite likeMad Max: Fury Road, which is more than worthy of its ranking as the greatest action movie of the 21st century. Maybe Max will return for another wasteland adventure someday, but thanks to the fourth movie, his place in cinema history is already assured.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Cast
Mad Max: Fury Road is a post-apocalyptic film set in a desolate desert landscape where society has collapsed. Released in 2015, the story follows two rebels, Max Rockatansky and Imperator Furiosa, as they attempt to survive and bring balance to a world torn by chaos and strife.
Mad Max
Mad Max is an Australian post-apocalyptic franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. The first three films star Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who seeks revenge after his family is murdered. Tom Hardy took over the role for 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which was followed by Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa.
