Mad Max

Mad Max 1979 Movie Poster

"When the gangs take over the highways...pray he's out there somewhere."  There was a total of three films in the Mad Max series, all starring Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky.  The original Mad Max was released in 1979 (internationally in 1980), Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) in 1981, and Beyond Thunderdome in 1985.  At the time of this writing, it was known that two additional Mad Max movies would be produced:  Mad Max 4: Fury Road, and Mad Max 5: Furiosa.  Although some of the movies in the series have met with mixed reviews, they have all been financially successful.  The series received a reboot in 2015 with the release of Mad Max Fury Road.

In the original movie, police officer Max tries to reign in motorcycle gangs in a post-apocalyptic society, where gasoline has more value than gold.  When a gang kills his wife and child, Max goes on a rampage, ruthlessly wiping out the gangs.  In the second film, Max finds himself protecting a community of settlers battling marauders intent on destroying their way of life.  The third installment, Beyond Thunderdome, finds a waylaid Max trying to survive in a wasteland town called Bartertown, ran by the ruthless Aunty Entity (Tina Turner).  Entity hires Max to fight her nemesis, Master (and his sidekick named Blaster), in the gladiator Thunderdome.  Max refuses to kill Blaster when he has the upper hand, and he is banished to the wasteland.

Mad Max 4 (2015) is meant to land on a timeline between the first and second movies.  His family has been killed, and he must learn to live in the post-apocalyptic wasteland before meeting up with the settlers in film 2.