How to Watch the Mad Max Movies in Order

When it comes to Australian post-apocalyptic action movies, there's nothing better than the popular Mad Max franchise. However, with the release of Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa , the series' timeline has become quite confusing. Don't worry. We are at your service.

This page covers everything you need to know to watch all the movies in release order and chronological order. We've also provided links to watch all the films online, and explained complex continuity issues and differences between the US and Australian versions.

Here's the complete list of Mad Max movies, sorted by release date. Many fans prefer to watch the series in this order because it gradually introduces the chaotic world of the movies.

Movies not available on streaming platforms may be available to rent or purchase digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, or the Google Play store.

Planning a marathon? Watching the first four movies back-to-back will take you a little over six and a half hours.

Compared to other film franchises, Mad Max 's basic timeline is fairly simple, mostly due to its relatively small number of films. You can watch the three original movies in order of release, but things change a little. "Angry Birds" (2024) is a prequel to "Mad Max: Fury Road " (2015).

Things do get more complicated when trying to work out the exact year each movie was filmed and whether Max is the same character in each movie, but no matter which theory you choose to believe, the viewing order remains the same.

Here's the correct viewing order for watching the Mad Max movies in chronological order.

The first film in the series , Mad Max, is set in an alternate history version of Australia in the mid-1980s, when a massive social collapse occurred. Civility, law enforcement, and even ordinary people in some rural areas still live relatively normal lives. However, things are deteriorating rapidly.

In the years between the events of the first film and the second film , Mad Max: The Road Warrior , it is hinted that some kind of global nuclear catastrophe occurred. Everyone and everything is noticeably worse for wear. "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" takes place approximately 15 years later, showing a world visibly affected by nuclear war and the full impact of desertification. Its opening moments also provide more details of nuclear war.

Mad Max: Fury Road apparently takes place many years after Beyond Thunderdome , but the character of Max, played by Tom Hardy instead of Mel Gibson, seems to be better than his character in Beyond Thunderdome. young.

While it's never explicitly stated, there are some clues that Hardy's Max is different from Gibson's character. The biggest one is his tattoo from Fury Road , which shows that he was a child when the nuclear war happened. The thing is, we know the original Max from the first movie was an adult, and this movie takes place before a global catastrophe.

Several theories explain this difference to varying degrees:

1. "Mad Max" is more of a mythical figure or legend than a real person, and people remember him differently.
2. Tom Hardy's Max is a grown-up version of the wild child from The Road Warrior , whose appearance is modeled after the man who saved his settlement.
3. Fury Road takes place between Mad Max and The Road Warrior .
4. Fury Road is a soft reboot of Mad Max, similar to how Casino Royale was a soft reboot of the James Bond films.

However, two major pieces of evidence indicate that the two versions of Max are the same person: Max's car and his leg brace.

The iconic Pursuit Special – a modified 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT – first appeared in Mad Max . He still drives it in The Road Warrior and Fury Road (it doesn't appear in Beyond Thunderdome ). This car is so unique that it's unlikely that two different people in the series would have owned one (let alone two people named Max).

Max also wears a crude brace on his leg since the injury he suffered in the original film. He had it in The Road Warrior , and yes, in Fury Road (like the car, he no longer has the stand in Beyond Thunderdome ).

We've yet to get official confirmation, though director George Miller has suggested that Fury Road , while not a reboot, could be considered a slight reimagining of the concept.

Mad Max: Wasteland is the title of the sixth film in the series - a possible sequel to Fury Road - and that's basically all we know about it.

We do know that as of 2015, Tom Hardy is contracted to star in three more movies, and if the contract is still active, he will likely appear in this one. George Miller has been thinking creatively since filming Fury Road , as he said in a 2015 interview:

[ "Furiosa" and "Into the Badlands" will be] tangentially connected. They're both set in the same world, but they won't be direct sequels. During Fury Road 's huge delay, we developed an in-depth backstory, from weapons to vehicles to a guitar-playing Doof Warrior. The film is very messy, so you have to help the audience understand as much as possible along the way.

However, there's still little progress on that, and the production of Furiosa - as well as some legal battles with Warners - will likely occupy Miller's time. We don't expect to learn much more about Into the Badlands until the fifth film is released and concluded.

In 2015, a video game called Mad Max was released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Linux, and macOS. It coincided with the theatrical release of Mad Max: Fury Road , but at the time, it was widely considered to be its own thing rather than part of the film's continuity.

The main reason for this assumption is the lack of any official statement that it is part of the movie canon, the fact that the Max character looks different from the version in all four movies, and the fact that this version of Max apparently has a daughter while in the movie He has a son.

However, it does include groups from the film, such as the War Boys, and the main antagonist is the son of Fury Road villain Immortal Joe.

However, with the release of Furiosa in 2024, we can get some clarification on the game's canon status, as the film's script apparently directly references elements of the game's storyline. While these connections may not appear in the final version, the Furiosa trailer mentioned the Gastown location in the video game, so at least some connections are locked in.

As we all know, the first Mad Max movie was produced and filmed in Australia. But what you might not know is that a lot has changed since its release in the United States.

Mad Max premiered in Australian theaters in 1979, but didn't make it to the United States until 1980. That's why some listings for the film show it as Mad Max (1979) , while others show it as Mad Max (1980) .

Not only were nearly all of the actors' voices re-recorded with American actors, but some sound effects were replaced and new voices were added to footage that wasn't in the original. Most Australian slang has also been rewritten ("Oi!" becomes "Hey!") to make the dialogue less jarring for American audiences.

The Australian version of Mad Max was finally released in the United States in 2000, 20 years after its original release. Today, all official Blu-ray releases of Mad Max feature the Australian soundtrack as a bonus feature, while digital releases on streaming services appear to have it as the default or only English option.

Mad Max 2 retained its Australian soundtrack for its US release, like all future sequels, but it did change the title. The American version was known as The Road Warrior in the United States and is now commonly known as Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior in most areas (even in Australia).