Curator Watchlist
A visually inventive, uneven third Mad Max entry that swaps some of the series’ savage momentum for a more mythic, kid-adventure structure. The production design, Bartertown, and Tina Turner’s larger-than-life presence are the big draws, but the tonal shift is divisive and the action is less relentless than fans… Read more
29% (323,229)
Where to watch: Buy
1985 · 1h 47m · ★ 29% (323.2K)
Hold out for Mad Max. This is his greatest adventure.
Director: George Miller, George Ogilvie
Starring: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Helen Buday
Mad Max becomes a pawn in a decadent oasis of a technological society, and when exiled, becomes the deliverer of a colony of children.
George Miller, George Ogilvie
Kennedy Miller Productions
Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Helen Buday, Bruce Spence, Angelo Rossitto, Adam Cockburn, Frank Thring, Paul Larsson, Angry Anderson, Robert Grubb, George Spartels, Edwin Hodgeman, Bob Hornery, Andrew Oh, Ollie Hall, Lee Rice, Tushka Bergen, Tom Jennings, Rebekah Elmaloglou, Mark Spain
A visually inventive, uneven third Mad Max entry that swaps some of the series’ savage momentum for a more mythic, kid-adventure structure. The production design, Bartertown, and Tina Turner’s larger-than-life presence are the big draws, but the tonal shift is divisive and the action is less relentless than fans may want.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is the franchise’s strangest pivot: part wasteland epic, part fairy tale, part studio-era spectacle. The opening stretch in Bartertown is the movie at its best, with a vivid sense of social decay, sharp visual invention, and a nasty little power structure that feels both comic and brutal.
What makes it divisive is also what makes it memorable. The film keeps drifting toward a more sentimental, child-centered adventure, which softens the ferocity that defined the earlier entries. Some viewers will miss the stripped-down momentum, but the movie still has a strong sense of design and a willingness to be weird in public.
Tina Turner gives the film its glamor and authority, and the action set pieces are staged with enough imagination to keep the world alive even when the story gets uneven. It’s not the essential Mad Max film, but it is a fascinating one: a big, odd, highly watchable detour with real visual personality.
James (Schaffrillas) (2.5★) · 2670 likes
The first Mad Max movie that screams "from the director of Happy Feet"
Matt Singer (2.5★) · 1916 likes
A+ for production design, car chases, Mel Gibson's hair, “We Don't Need Another Hero,” and Tina Turner's costumes. D- for turning one of the bleakest franchises in film history into a kid's cartoon, complete with wacky character names, cutesy gibberish language, and lil' rascals banging baddies in the face with frying pans.
Rena MJ (2★) · 1520 likes
A town run entirely on pig shit is one of the best metaphors for Hollywood I've seen in a while.
john (2.5★) · 1024 likes
I'm so brave for watching all three of these movies before watching Fury Road.
davidehrlich (3★) · 1023 likes
"he's got word stuff from his ass to his mouth."
A leaner, harsher post-apocalyptic chase film that shows the franchise at its most primal and influential.
A big-budget wasteland survival adventure with elaborate production design and a similarly outsized sense of comic-book worldbuilding.
A sprawling post-collapse road epic that mixes mythmaking, rebuilding civilization, and a wandering savior figure.
A darkly funny, desolate post-apocalyptic oddity with a scrappy survivalist tone and cult-movie energy.
For viewers drawn to the bleak survival side of the story, this is a stripped-down, emotionally severe companion piece.
A stylized, neon-soaked action fantasy that shares the same love of pop spectacle and heightened design.
A grimy genre classic about a ruined society, a lone antihero, and a world built from decay and attitude.
For the film’s eccentric, comic-book weirdness and cult-friendly sense of invention.
A glossy, strange studio sci-fi adventure with a similarly off-kilter mix of menace, wonder, and family-friendly spectacle.
A surprisingly apt match for the film’s gentler, more surreal turn toward children, community, and controlled chaos.
A fantasy adventure that balances peril, innocence, and mythic quest structure in a way fans of the film’s child-centered half may appreciate.
An earnest 1980s adventure with vivid worldbuilding, outsider heroism, and a strong sense of pop imagination.
post-apocalyptic survival, decadent civilization, exile and redemption, children in peril, power and exploitation, mythic quest, resource scarcity, camp spectacle
post-apocalyptic, dystopian, 1980s, campy, adventure, action, science fiction, worldbuilding, survival, mythic