After being exiled from the most advanced town in post apocalyptic Australia, a drifter travels with a group of abandoned children to rebel against the town's queen.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in search for her homeland with the aid of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshiper, and a drifter named Max.
Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh pursue a former LAPD officer who uses his knowledge of police procedure and policies to steal and sell confiscated guns and ammunition to local street gangs.
With personal crises and age weighing in on them, LAPD officers Riggs and Murtaugh must contend with deadly Chinese triads that are trying to free their former leaders out of prison and onto American soil.
When a multimillionaire man's son is kidnapped, he cooperates with the police at first but then turns the tables on the kidnappers when he uses the ransom money as a reward for the capture of the kidnappers.
After a successful heist, Porter is shot by his wife and his best friend. They leave him there to die but when he recovers, he seeks revenge and wants his share of the money.
Taking place in a dystopian Australia in the near future, Mad Max tells the story of a highway patrolman cruising the squalid back roads that have become the breeding ground of criminals foraging for gasoline and scraps. When his wife and child meet a grisly end at the hands of a motorcycle gang, Max sets out across the barren wastelands in search of revenge.Written by
Cole Matthews
The film's post-production was done at Producer Byron Kennedy's house, with Director George Miller and Kennedy editing the film, in Kennedy's bedroom, on a home-built editing machine, that Kennedy's father, an engineer, had designed for them. Miller and Kennedy also edited the sound there. See more »
Goofs
When the Night Rider's stolen black MFP car is approaching Max's interceptor, the shot from the Night Rider's point of view shows Max's stationary car close to being in the middle of the road, but in the opposing shots from close to Max's car it is parked halfway off the left side of the road. See more »
Quotes
Starbuck:
[watching Jessie get out of her car with Sprog]
Look what's turned up for Sunday dinner.
Mudguts:
Main course and dessert!
Starbuck:
And my favorite kind... female!
See more »
Alternate Versions
The original UK cinema and certified video releases (American dub) were cut by 48 seconds by the BBFC to keep an X (18) rating and to prevent the film from being banned, as X was the highest rating. They edited the scene where the bikers tear up the hot-rod with the terrified couple inside. Instead, the scene cut to black as the bikers smashed the first window and resumed on the bird hovering overhead. Though the original uncertified 1982 video release of the American dub from Warner Home Video was released uncut, the cut was re-instated on the 1986 18-rated VHS, but was restored in 1992 when the Australian dialogue version was finally released in the UK and to all later releases with the same rating (although Warner's budget labels SCREEN CLASSICS still put out the American dub with the cut scene well into the 90s). In April 2015, the film was passed with a 15 rating uncut, because of "(the scene's) implied nature and lack of visual detail of the acts themselves". The same reason was given for passing it at 18 uncut back in 1992. See more »
"Look, any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic, except that I've got this bronze badge that says that I'm one of the good guys."
Mad Max is all about vehicle fueled vengeance. A young Mel Gibson plays a lawman in a near-future, gang infested Australia. His encounters with a especially vile gang result in a deadly attack on his wife and infant son, and the last act of the movie focuses on his single-minded payback on those responsible.
Mad Max is certainly low-budget, but the movie doesn't really suffer from it. It is dated, however, and so many movies with similar premises have been made in the last thirty years that this one doesn't make nearly as much of an impression now as it probably did back in 1979. Watching this is a near-requirement for fans of Mel Gibson, but for everyone else, it's a decent movie that should be seen more for its classic status than its current entertainment value.
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"Look, any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic, except that I've got this bronze badge that says that I'm one of the good guys."
Mad Max is all about vehicle fueled vengeance. A young Mel Gibson plays a lawman in a near-future, gang infested Australia. His encounters with a especially vile gang result in a deadly attack on his wife and infant son, and the last act of the movie focuses on his single-minded payback on those responsible.
Mad Max is certainly low-budget, but the movie doesn't really suffer from it. It is dated, however, and so many movies with similar premises have been made in the last thirty years that this one doesn't make nearly as much of an impression now as it probably did back in 1979. Watching this is a near-requirement for fans of Mel Gibson, but for everyone else, it's a decent movie that should be seen more for its classic status than its current entertainment value.